Thomas Hamilton Bedecarré

1956 - 2025

Thomas Hamilton Bedecarré
01/17/1956 - 03/29/2025
Tom Bedecarré, a brilliant internationally renowned entrepreneur and advertising executive dubbed "Silicon Valley's Favorite Adman" by Fortune magazine, died March 29, aged 69, in his Woodside home with family by his side after a tenacious four-year battle with an aggressive brain tumor.
A person with an enormous list of achievements, accolades and awards, moT (as he signed his early school papers) was funny, caring, loving, generous and devoted to his family and countless friends. Tom's wicked sense of humor never left him. His hilarious stories, observations and retorts were something family, friends and colleagues knew were always just a moment away.
A fourth generation Bay Area resident, Tom was the fourth of John and Catherine Reid Bedecarré's six children. Born and raised in Concord, he was a star on the league champion Mt. Diablo High football team and two-year student body president with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
Bucking a family tradition with UC Berkeley, he chose Stanford, beginning his lifelong love affair with the university. While on The Farm, Bedecarré spent one summer in Washington, D.C. as an intern for young California congressman Leon Panetta, who would later serve as secretary of defense, director of the CIA and White House chief of staff.
After graduating from Stanford in 1978, Bedecarré enrolled in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago to pursue an MBA. With his MBA in hand, he landed a job on Madison Avenue in New York City in 1981 at Ogilvy & Mather in the office headed by the legendary David Ogilvy.
During that time, he met his wife Margaret (Maggie) Geoghegan when a mutual friend asked Tom to help her job hunt to get into NYC advertising. Tom and Maggie were married on June 23, 1984, in Georgetown, CT. Their love affair and 40-year marriage were a true partnership with each spouse stepping up as a primary caregiver for the other under trying circumstances in the past decade.
When they moved back to the Bay Area, Tom and Maggie had twin daughters Kathryn Anna and Madeline Reid in 1987 and son John Peter a year later. The family would enjoy years traveling together during school vacation breaks. As their children grew up, Maggie and Tom enjoyed attending their games and performances while supporting their educational endeavors and impressive academic achievements.
In San Francisco he worked at Hal Riney & Partners as vice president, account supervisor. At Riney, he became friends with three other young ad men. The quartet left the agency in 1990 after forming Atlas, Citron, Haligman and Bedecarré. Atlas soon departed and Bedecarré became chairman, a leadership position he would hold throughout the remainder of his illustrious career.
A 1993 cover story about the agency in Communication Arts magazine referred to the partners Citron, Haligman and Bedecarre as "puckish, lupine and brass tacks." Tom was the brass tacks, the practical one who kept the agency under a firm hand.
As the world began to change with the rising popularity and power of the internet, Bedecarré and his partners made the visionary decision to position CHB as a digital agency, a term not widely in use at that time. CHB embraced technology and was an early adopter of dotcom trends for its growing roster of clients.
Matt Haligman and Kirk Citron said of their friend and colleague of 35+ years, "Traditionally, when creative people started ad agencies, it was with other creatives. Tom was the rare account guy who thought 'out of the box.' He was the perfect complement to Citron and Haligman. Tom helped us build a business from a creative boutique to one of the leading ad agencies in the world. We were so lucky to have him as a partner."
CHB became the largest independent ad agency in San Francisco and grew to $100 million in annual billings. In 1995, CHB was named Western Agency of the Year by Adweek. Advertising Age named them the fastest growing agency in the country two years running.
In 2001, Citron Haligman Bedecarre took a $71 million investment to build the digital agency of the future (long before the advertising industry saw the digital wave coming). Then CHB merged with London-based AKQA and as co-founders of the new AKQA, Ajaz Ahmed served as chairman in London and Bedecarré as CEO in the San Francisco company headquarters.
AKQA agency began to expand throughout Europe and America and into Asia and South America. Among their long-time clients were Nike, Visa, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Microsoft and McDonald's.
Bedecarré took immense pride in being a bridge between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, including introducing Facebook and Twitter executives to his clients to begin relationships that reshaped marketing. Bedecarré's insights were shared with his 160,000 Twitter followers and 83,000 on LinkedIn.
In 2012 AKQA was purchased by WPP, the world's largest advertising agency holding company, for $540 million. Tom's responsibilities expanded to include WPP Ventures president. In 2013 he was named a national Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
Interactive Advertising Bureau President and CEO Randall Rothenberg says, "When the history of this period in marketing, advertising and media is written, Tom will be not just a chapter, but a recurring biographical theme throughout the work."
His advertising career effectively ended three years later when Maggie suffered a serious injury during a horseback riding competition. Tom focused his energy on bringing his wife back to health.
Tom was always proud of his efforts mentoring hundreds of women and men under his charge. Following his retirement, Bedecarré turned his talents to teaching as a Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer in the Stanford School of Engineering and mentoring students in Stanford entrepreneurial programs (STVP, Lean LaunchPad and Hacking for Defense). In 2018 he was presented with the Jon Blum Outstanding Alumni Mentor Award by Stanford Career Education.
Bedecarré was instrumental in establishing the Future Lions at Cannes Lions, one of the most coveted honors for advertising students around the world at the Cannes Lions Awards. Last year AKQA Future Lions launched the Tom Bedecarré School of the Year Award in honor of AKQA's Chairman Emeritus.
In fall 2022 he culminated his backyard hobby growing enormous pumpkins with a sixth-place finish for his masterpiece 1251-pound pumpkin at the annual Half Moon Bay World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off.
Tom Bedecarré is survived by his wife of 40 years Maggie, daughters Kate and Madeline (Adrien Darchez) and their children, Myrtille and Valere, and son John. Tom's two grandchildren were a special delight in recent years.
He had five siblings John Jay, Catherine Diane (Henry White), Corrinne Marie, William Clark (Nancy Garrett) and Albert Pierre (Claire Ernst). His 17 nieces and nephews benefited from Tom's sage educational and career advice.
He was predeceased by his parents John and Cathy and sister-in-law Jill Bedecarré.
The family thanks the medical teams at Stanford Hospital, Pacific Neuroscience Institute and CeGaT in Germany. His local caregivers Maria, Betina, Sonny, Jerome, Kesly and Jeylon were so helpful and caring to him.
He is interred at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Menlo Park.
Donations in Tom's memory can be made to Catholic Charities in Portland, Maine.
Bedecarre.Family