Felix Velarde

Who is Felix Velarde?

Felix Velarde is a British entrepreneur who co-founded one of the first web design agencies, Hyperinteractive, in 1994. In 1997 he launched Head New Media, selling part of it to become the digital arm of Interpublic's Lowe & Partners in 1998. With Lowe, Velarde launched specialist Interactive Television agency Head End, also in 1988, which produced the first Interactive Television commercials for Tesco and Unilever.

While at Head New Media, Velarde and creative director Jason Holland sponsored a non-commercial online creative community, Head-Space, which incubated prominent community websites including Urban75. Featuring in the travelling exhibition Digital Archaeology, Head-Space is recognised as a digital artefact of considerable historic and cultural relevance. Velarde also founded an innovative strategy company, Underwired in 1996, and was from 2006-2008 one of the sponsors of the UK's prototype personal carbon trading system, CarbonDAQ a project being led by leading Left-leaning think tank the Royal Society of Arts, of which he is a Fellow.

Velarde is also a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing, and is an educator, speaker and widely published commentator on digital marketing and marketing industry development issues. He is a guest lecturer on Hult International Business School's Masters of International Marketing and runs a regular course for international brands at London's Groucho Club.