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Writer, Art Director, but above all an Ideawallah, Gavin Barrett is Partner, Creative Director and Chief Operating Turban, Rao, Barrett and Welsh. He began his career at Lintas:Bombay, and then moved on to DY&R Rediffusion and began his collection of awards with a A&M Campaign of the Year. Life as a collector took him to Hong Kong, where he worked first for J Walter Thompson as Senior Writer, and then Leo Burnett as Associate Creative Director. After six years of bribing award show judges (with extremely gratifying results let it be said), Gavin switched continents. He worked at Maclaren McCann in Toronto as Senior Writer and next at Vickers & Benson (Arnold Worldwide, Canada), where he was Vice President, Senior Art Director. He launched Jabberdust Advertising in 2001, and co-founded barrettandwelsh in 2002. Things he has done for his job: nibbled on pig’s ears (no, they weren’t alive at the time); went elephant-back in the Thai jungle; gambled in a Macau casino; and, most horrifyingly, ate focus-group lasagna in Kitchener, Ontario. He has made commercials with Louis Ng, David Carson and Deepa Mehta; used Shekhar Kapur (director of Elizabeth) in a bad sales promo film; and had a headline he wrote appear in a John Irving novel. He has owned a publishing company, written a guide to doing business in 10 Asian countries and his poems have been included in Penguin’s anthology of 14 contemporary Indian poets, Reasons for Belonging. His ads have run in 35 countries and across five continents, in cities from Taipei to Los Angeles. In his travels he has collected the following: a wife, 2 kids, a bachelor’s degree (econ.), a master’s degree (eng. lit), a murderous guppy and some 54 awards for his work.