“She really knew how to live – and how important friends, family, and fun are to life. Her wicked sense of humor was always in the room, often waiting for a moment when it was needed most. Her children, her friends, and I are eternally grateful for every moment we had with her.”
Tributes from industry peers
In its own statement, which included tributes from former colleagues, Ogilvy called King an “irrefutable giant.”
Liz Taylor, Ogilvy’s global chief creative officer, recalled the agency boss as an “extraordinary force… what lit her up most was people — her clients, her teams, her peers.”
Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy U.K.’s vice chairman and former creative leader in King’s Ogilvy lineup, lauded her “razor-sharp mind, dry humor, sharp elbows, and gritty determination with immense intuition and kindness.”
“You would go to see Annette whether you wanted someone assassinated (she would make it look like an accident) or if you needed to take a day off to attend your daughter’s Nativity play in the middle of a pitch,” Sutherland said. “We shall not see her again, and I shall miss her more than I can say.”
Co-founder and editor of indie publication and consultancy Creative Salon, Sonoo Singh, who worked with King on many projects over the years, described her as a “genuine titan.”
“A captain of the industry. A rare beast. She lit up rooms. Commanded attention. Bloody hell, she was just impossible to ignore,” Singh said. “Sharp, funny, curious, mischievous. AK-47 (yes, feared by many), she was never one for moping around and always up for a laugh, while ready to stir the pot a little if it needed stirring.”
In an email to U.K. staff, King’s former boss, Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun, said: “No one embodied our motto ‘no silos, no solos, no bozos’ better than Annette,” noting her impact was still felt across the Groupe today.
He added: “I will forever be grateful to her for taking a leap of faith and jumping into the unknown with us. It was a risk, at a time when the market and many others were skeptical. But Annette, as always, was fearless.”
King is survived by her husband and two children, Carter and Sylvie.
