My Career
Professional History
Brand
Consultant
Freelance
December 2018 - Present
Creating value through powerful stories I collaboratively help businesses and marketing agencies of all shapes and sizes with brand positioning and propositions.
Services include:
Independent Research - qualitative research that uncover hard truths from staff, prospects and customers which can help to inform game-changing strategies.
Leadership workshops - solving business-critical problems and help brands stand out. High energy workshops which collaboratively unlock meaning, define the perfect customer and produce a meaningful storytelling approach to orientate a brand towards them.
Strategy - Documenting a defined brand proposition producing a touchstone in which to test decisions going into the future. Presenting and launching these to obtain wider team buy-in.
Ongoing consulting - a number of services from project managing creative processes to marketing coms creative idea generation to leading collaborative innovation sprints through to ongoing executive and audience check-ins.
Public speaking - creating energy around branding, innovation and customer-centric thinking. Leading away days and networking events. Giving keynote presentations at meet-ups and corporate events.
CREATIVE MANAGER
CAPITAL ONE
May 2018 - December 2018
The lead for the UK Creative Design team at global fintech company, Capital One.
I'd been tasked with building and running my team like a design agency but in-house. The mission: to communicate meaningfully, position our brand effectively and delight our customers. Partnering with intent owners throughout the business, from brand and marketing through to HR, customer and internal comms the team handled marketing, servicing and internal communications.
Day to day I was responsible for people leadership and all creative work being of the highest standard.
I introduced new agile 'test and learn' processes, led routine team huddles, produced creative concepts, led townhall imperative updates to the whole UK marketing department, supported the wider UK Design team on marketing, UX, CX, research and copywriting projects, mentored multiple design team members, sat on the "brand guardian" council, presented skill-sharing sessions with the wider design team, visited the Capital One Toronto office to understand better working practices, built new processes and efficiencies into my team (achieving an increase in productivity of around 60%), put projects through market research, led creative workshops, recruited into the team, interviewed on behalf of the business, represented the business at recruitment events and with external partners such as Facebook.
I was also involved in the Capital One rebrand ensuring the marketing and customer comms were ready for the new brand rollout.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
FIFTEEN DESIGN
April 2017 - May 2018
Fifteen are one of the biggest digital agencies in the East Midlands Region. With an amazingly talented team of designers, developers and digital marketers, Fifteen have won a range of prestigious awards. In this role, I had four key responsibilities; creative standards, client consultation, sales support & team management.
Creative standards: I was responsible for setting the vision for and driving the creative outputs. I implemented processes and methodologies within the design team to build a creative culture. I mentored my design team ensuring intelligent concept thinking was at the heart of what we delivered. I was proud to personally set the strategy and direct projects (such as Tinplate, Ecova, Ogre and Runarchy) which contributed to the agency being listed in Design Week’s Top 100 consultancy report.
Client consultation: For key clients, I directly helped their leadership teams to understand their goals and then discover, define and deliver creative which told authentic brand stories. I set strategy on high-level client accounts working on brand and marketing campaigns and setting direction which delivered results. I introduced consultation workshops to Fifteen which have now become part of their offering. Notable projects included consultancy for Innes England, Scape Group, Yu Energy and Willmott Dixon.
Sales support: I helped win new business for the company contributing to a 20% increase in turn over. I often supported account managers in the sales process and for potential high-value accounts often lead pitches.
Team management: The creative department consisted of a Head of Design, a Head of UX and a team of multi-disciplined designers. I was responsible for the hiring, mentoring, development and running of this team. As well as this I also helped to develop account managers in relation to creative services. I attended the company management meetings and assisted with the companies growth strategy and business planning.
Senior Account Manager & Brand Specialist
FIFTEEN DESIGN
January 2017 - March 2017
Having sold Attitude Design to Fifteen Design I joined their Account Management team. I was responsible for being the strategic creative, marketing and brand lead on multiple client projects as well as managing the transition of the Attitude Design clients to Fifteen.
Within this role I reported directly to the Director of the business and also to the Client Services Director. I introduced my methodologies and processes around branding into the Fifteen team who adopted them within their ethos.
This role was diverse. As well as helping to pitch and win new business (for example winning one of the largest digital retainer accounts in the history of the company),
I also managed key accounts and set and reported against marketing strategies of clients.
On top of this I also acted as a consultant on any brand or creative project, often running workshops to help clients define their brand stories or generate creative concepts. I led and managed team members in order to deliver on agreed work.
Within 3 months of working in this role I was offered the honour of becoming the Creative Director*.
*My promotion to this role was reported in the press here: http://eastmidlandsbusinessnews.co.uk/six-staff-join-rapidly-expanding-digital-agency/
Creative Director
ATTITUDE DESIGN
March 2008 - January 2017
As the founder and Creative Director of Attitude Design I specialised in working with businesses to clarify their purpose and vision, bring brands to life with story-based branding strategies, great design and digital marketing campaigns.
For nearly 9 years I managed a team which delivered hundreds of successful projects and was individually responsible for winning new accounts and repeat business from existing ones. At one stage we had 13 staff across design and development specialisms.
Within this role I have had a wide array of experience delivering branding and marketing campaigns for startup businesses, the public sector - as well as winning and managing global brand accounts such as Specsavers, Boots and Experian.
At the end of 2016 Attitude Design was acquired by Fifteen Design and I was brought into their team to boost the branding and creative offer of their business which had traditionally been focused on digital marketing. News story here >
Marketing Director
Gustom Mobile
November 2011 - December 2014
Gustom produced interactive leisure and entertainment software for mobile.
As a founder and Director of Gustom I headed up the marketing arm of the company managing the website, brand and promotional activity.
Graphic / Web Designer
DEFACTO DESIGN
May 2006 – February 2008
During this time I worked as a designer in one of Nottingham’s top design agencies, Defacto. My responsibilities included receiving client briefs - either directly or via an account handler - and then executing them creatively via graphic design and web-coding. I was often brought into meetings to assist account handlers in winning new business, obtaining briefs and also to present ideas to clients. A highlight of my time at Defacto was being part of the team working on global campaigns for clothing brand Fred Perry.
Design Coordinator
SENIOR INTERNET
October 2004 - May 2006
In this role I led the creative team of one of the Midlands biggest website and online software developers, Senior Internet. I was responsible for, managed and ran all of the creative and visual user interface projects that came through the studio - implementing studio procedures to ensure a smooth transition between creative and development teams. This role saw me manage a team and liaise with account teams within the company to ensure projects were delivered on time and according to specification. Within this role I was also involved in pitching and assisted in winning key accounts for the company.
Graphic Designer
THE CREATIVE LOUNGE
Jan 2003 - September 2004
This was my entry into the creative industries. I worked as a designer at a small London based design agency (The Creative Lounge). This was a diverse role working on a variety of creative projects for both print and web.
Freelance Designer
February 2002 - January 2003
Whilst at college I began my career freelancing for various businesses executing branding and print design projects in London.