Gareth Leck completed his B.Com. degree at the University of Cape Town in 1994 and in 1995 he completed a postgraduate in Marketing at AAA School of Advertising.
March 1998 saw Leck and Pepe Marais open the doors to their own advertising agency, Joe Public Take-Away Advertising. In their second year the business was nominated by Financial Mail as The Emerging Agency of the Year and in 2000 Joe Public was named as one of "South Africa's most promising Companies" by the Research Foundation of South Africa. In 2001 they went on to sell their revolutionary Take-Away Advertising concept to DraftFCB America.
On the 26th of January 2009, Leck and Marais purchased Joe Public back from DraftFCB in order for the company to once again be a 100% proudly South African entity. Gareth currently sits on a number of boards including the Association for Communication and Advertising, the Loerie Awards as well as being Chairperson of the Apex Awards for the last ten years.
In 2014 The Annual Adfocus awards ranked the agency as the Agency of the Year and in 2015, for the second consecutive year, awarded Joe Public Agencies' Agency of the Year, as voted for by our industry peers. In the same year the Marklives.com agency poll saw Joe Public United rated as the Most Admired Ad Agency Group in the country. In 2016 and 2017Joe Public was the most awarded agency at the Apex Awards, which focuses on campaigns that are effective and drive business results for their clients, in line with the agency's purpose of Growth.
Joe Public United is currently ranked as one of the top independent and fastest growing South African advertising groups, which includes a brand design agency (Joe Public Shift), beyond-the-line agency (Joe Public Ignite), a PR agency (Joe Public Engage) and a digital agency (Joe Public Connect) in Johannesburg, with an expanding network into Africa boasting partners/affiliates in eight different countries.
Gareth's passion and belief lie in the creativity of business and the business of creativity.
