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# The Partnership Game with Kenny Annan-Jonathan, Sports Director at Cannes Lions
- URL: https://www.thesubthread.com/the-partnership-game-with-kenny-annan-jonathan-sports-director-at-cannes-lions/
- Published: 2026-06-10T09:38:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-15T14:14:01.000Z
- Description: Lions Sport's Kenny Annan-Jonathan discusses building a creative movement inside sport and why the best brand campaigns speak to communities, not at them.
- Author: Rich Hewes
- Tags: Sport, #Podcast, The Partnership Game

[Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kdF1EfJK6X2LqvjCFJGtC?si=CD0Z4ChTR2u8DAIrY2GS9A&ref=thesubthread.com) [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-premier-leagues-first-creative-director-on/id1896868160?i=1000772023138&itscg=30200&itsct=podcast%5Fbox&ls=1&mttnsubad=1000772023138&ref=thesubthread.com) [Watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/aNfs6XAqwOo?ref=thesubthread.com)

In this episode of The Partnership Game, Rich Hewes sits down with Kenny Annan-Jonathan – the first (and still only) creative director in the Premier League, founder of a talent management and creative agency, and sport director at Cannes Lions, where he's building out Lions Sport: a new initiative designed to bring brands, agencies, rights holders and marketeers into one room and fix how the industry talks about sport.  
  
Kenny traces a career path that starts in graphic design, moves through fashion, and finds its way into sport via a chance customer relationship with Wilfried Zaha. He makes the case for why the best sports marketing speaks to communities rather than at them, why creativity in sport has to be a long play, and why the Ronaldinho crossbar ad remains the campaign he wishes he'd made.