Alex Dalman is Managing Partner and Head of AI, Social & Innovation at VCCP. We asked who her digital hero is.
Who is your digital hero?
Peter Gasston, Innovation Lead at VCCP & faith.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
I don’t know anyone else who is as passionate about technology and innovation as Peter, but who manages to explain and educate in a way that everyone can understand.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
His knowledge in the space is second to none, but he breaks it all down in simple terms to ensure no one feels overwhelmed when trying to learn. He also makes learning about technology fun, with his witty humour and fun and novel ways of conveying complex information.
VCCP and faith (our AI Creative agency within the VCCP Group) would be entirely different agencies without him, as he is a driving force of embracing digital technology in all its guises and that’s why he gets digital hero status in my eyes.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
Legislation and technological progress working to more of the same timeframes and pace. They are so at odds and the real reason we are not fully embracing some of the technology out there as countries, companies and individuals.
So if a hero out there can help solve this, it will unlock the potential for brands in a huge but also safe way.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Helping to set up faith at VCCP during the Gen AI boom/freak out in 2023, and 2.5 years on and 94 awards for our campaign for O2 – Daisy vs Scammers later, we are still going from strength to strength, and really still only just getting started with the possibilities of what could be achieved with this technology if we really push ourselves to use it in interesting ways.
When we started we had a simple belief, that Gen AI will be an accelerator of creativity and imagination, and not diminish it, when it is put in the hands of the best creatives out there and used responsibly, and we still think this rings true to this day. 2026 needs to be the year where we stop talking about AI tools in the abstract but actually start to master them.
