The Agency Growth Forum

Speaker

Rachel Bell

Founder, Brand Spanking

Rachel is a serial entrepreneur having started seven multi-award-winning professional services businesses across the marketing spectrum. Her philosophy of promoting and developing talent has won her industry recognition including Sunday Times Best Leader. She is a cross-sector NED and also chairs her family engineering business, CIS. Rachel’s management consultancy, Brand Spanking, supports businesses in establishing best practice, building out their commercial proposition and realising shareholder value. She is currently “entrepreneur in residence” at London Business School inspiring MBA students in entrepreneurship. She is also President of the Business School's Angel Investment Club – Enterprise 100. Her book 'Start-Ups, Pivots and Pop-ups' (available on Amazon) was shortlisted in the 2020 Best Business Book Awards.

Rachel is a co-founder of Mischief, a past chairman of Shine Communications, a co-founder of Aduro, a founder of John Doe and a co-founder at The Academy.

Speaker

Kat McGettigan

Founder, Fine Lines Consultancy

Kat set up Fine Lines in 2021 to help agencies accelerate and improve their track-record on new business and growth. Dubbed ‘the agency-growth-agency’, Fine Lines helps agencies grow faster and further by focussing in on their proposition in market; how to pitch successfully and how to identify and convert more clients. Since its launch, Fine Lines has worked with a wide range of agencies including Aduro, Kindred, Manifest, lynn and Lexington.

Prior to Fine Lines, Kat spent 18 years working for some of the most award-winning agencies in London, Hong Kong, New York and Manchester. This includes Weber Shandwick working predominately on London 2012 sponsorship and joining M&C Saatchi PR in 2013 as the first UK Head of Consumer. In 2018, Kat joined Grayling as UK Head of Consumer, leading major pitch wins from Visa to the Stars Group and leading the Huawei global PR & social account from Hong Kong. Kat’s final role at Grayling was as Global Head of Growth, working with teams across the globe to ensure best-in-class new business and growth strategies.

Speaker

Adrian Talbot

Global CFO, Freelance

Adrian is a highly commercial and versatile CFO with over 20 years’ international experience in marketing and communications. He has worked in the independent, private equity backed and listed environments and worked on multiple global acquisitions.

From 2016 to 2023 he was Global CFO of Hotwire, a leading global communications and marketing consultancy that specialises in powering the world’s most innovative tech brands. He was a member of the Executive Leadership Team that helped the company grow from 150 to over 500 employees in 12 countries..

Prior to Hotwire, he spent 12 months as Commercial Director at BBH, the advertising agency, and was CFO on the sale of Instinctif Partners, the financial PR agency, to private equity in 2011. He has worked in over 20 countries and is a fluent German speaker.

Adrian is a “client facing” CFO and has a passion for developing and supporting commercial relationships.

Adrian was the first CFO to appear on the PRMoment podcast and went on to appear on other podcasts including CFO Thought Leader and Agency Dealmasters.

Chair

Will Hart

CEO, PRmoment Leaders

Will has just stepped into the newly created CEO role to oversee the upcoming PRmoment Leaders programme. He is an experienced leader of award winning, high performance comms agency teams operating in the tech, consumer and healthcare sectors. Over recent years he successfully led the 150-strong Comms Division of the Unlimited Group, responsible for Nelson Bostock, Fever PR and Health Unlimited.

Panellist

Andrew Soar

Creative director, Ogilvy

A purpose-driven, culturally-connected, creative director who has been at Ogilvy UK for over four years.

Although Andrew works across both the PR and advertising functions at Ogilvy, he’s first and foremost, an earned-first marketer.

He’s passionate - some might say obsessed - with growing global brands and businesses by making work that moves people and makes a dent in culture.

He joined Ogilvy following a decade of delivering award-winning work at Unity, Shine and Manifest.

Panellist

James Gordon-MacIntosh

Co-founder, Hope&Glory

James is one of the founders of consumer brand agency Hope&Glory. He has worked on campaigns with brands including Virgin Media O2, Sainsbury’s, adidas, Airbnb and Uber. He’s often accused of being overly-fond of a pun.

Panellist

Kim Allain

Creative, MSL

Kim is a Creative Moment Awards judge and represents the UK as one of ten ‘future leaders’ selected from Publicis’ global 80,000-strong workforce. Kim has helped multiple brands achieve award-winning success, now adding PUMA’s Cali Star Challenge viral hit to the trophy cabinet with 4+ billion views as we write, with it becoming MSL’s first “billion viewed” piece of content. Other brand successes include her work with Mondelez, Rimmel and Operation Black Vote.

Speaker

Janita Lakhanpal

New business director, Ketchum

Janita is New Business Director for Ketchum UK, and a member of the Senior Leadership Team since 2020. Janita brings dedication, passion, experience, and is a relentless force for good for Ketchum. She is responsible for the UK business development plan, working in partnership with the SLT to prioritise growth opportunities, ensuring a robust NPD system. She also takes full responsibility for marketing activities, including partnerships, awards, media, and the UK website. Janita is also Chair of London’s Inclusion Council, leading a team of 50 active members.

Speaker

Jo-ann Robertson

CEO, global markets, Ketchum

Jo-ann Robertson is CEO Global Markets at global communications consultancy Ketchum. The 2022 recipient of Women in Marketing’s global PR Communicator of the Year Award, Management Today’s 2022 DEI Champion, and the International Communications Consultants Organisation’s PR Leader of the Year 2022, she started her career as a political advisor and broadcast journalist, before spending the last 20 years in communications consultancies. Jo-ann is a passionate believer in diversity and inclusion, both as the right thing to do and as a driver of business results, leading Ketchum’s global DE&I strategy and overseeing the business’ overall ‘Make Space for Progress’ agenda worldwide. Over the past three years, Ketchum has transformed the diversity of the workforce as well as building a truly inclusive workplace. Jo-ann is a deep client counsellor working with key clients including P&G, Mastercard, Samsung, and The LEGO Foundation. In her spare time, Jo-ann is Chair of Young Women’s Trust, a charity fighting for economic justice for women aged 18-30. She is also mum to Keir who is 7, and Molly who is 4.

Speaker

Jonny Bentwood

Global head of data analytics, Golin

Jonny Bentwood heads data and analytics globally at Golin. Awarded four consecutive back-to-back wins from 2019 to 2022 for AMEC Large Research and Measurement Team of the Year, Jonny has put data at the centre of communications.

In his role, Jonny enables Golin’s clients to be data-driven. A firm believer that when art is combined with science and decisions purely based on instinct are rejected, then clients will have winning programs. A champion of using data to deliver focus through the customer journey, Jonny has challenged historic approaches to measurement to evolve the approach from descriptive to prescriptive to predictive.

Speaker

Chris Talago

Communications director, Adobe

Chris is an award-winning communications leader with 25 years of experience across technology, engineering, manufacturing, aerospace and automotive sectors as well as corporate brand building.

He has a proven track record of change management, team and brand transformation and integrated communications. He is currently the senior director of Marketing Communications, EMEA & APAC Adobe. He has deep tech sector expertise having currently worked for Amazon Web Services, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, MediaTek, HP, AMD, Honeywell Aerospace & Turbo, BMC and AVG.

His latest role at Adobe gives him a unique perspective on the threats and opportunities of AI for communicators.

Chair

Sheeraz Gulsher

Co-founder, People Like Us

Sheeraz is co-founder of People Like Us, an award winning non-profit that celebrates and supports professionals from underrepresented backgrounds in journalism, PR and the creative industries. Sheeraz is a passionate campaigner for equal pay for ethnically diverse working professionals in the UK.

Panellist

Asad Dhunna

CEO & founder, The Unmistakables

Asad is the CEO & founder of The Unmistakables – an award-winning consultancy specialising in equity, diversity and inclusion. Nominated as a marketing industry change maker, he regularly comments and speaks on issues relating to equity, equality, diversity, inclusion and creating more equal organisations.

Previously the Director of Communications for Pride in London in a voluntary capacity, Asad is also a board trustee for akt, the UK’s leading LGBT homelessness charity.

Panellist

Katie de Cozar

Director, CCgroup

Katie describes herself as a B2B communications specialist, passionate about culture, people, well-being and inclusion. At PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum Katie will be discussing her and CCgroup's experience of becoming a Blueprinted agency and how the scheme has helped CCGroup on its journey to becoming a better employer.

Panellist

Rich Miles

CEO and founder, The Diversity Standards Collective

Rich Miles is CEO and founder of The Diversity Standards Collective, an agency that consults, creates and checks for authenticity in all content that features or targets diverse communities. The Diversity Standards Collective strives to help any agency, brand or publisher create work that never offends or misrepresents.

Panellist

Bibi Hilton

CEO, Creative Access

Bibi leads the Creative Access team, working with individuals and partners to drive further change. She was previously MD of the comms agency, Golin.

Creative Access is a social enterprise providing career-long access, opportunities, support and training to make the creative economy better reflect society. The organisation works with many employers to help them build an inclusive culture to become better employers for underrepresented individuals.

Chair

Charlotte West

Executive director, global corporate communications, Lenovo

Charlotte is a corporate affairs, reputation, and integrated communications leader focused on protecting and promoting the reputation of complex global businesses across diverse markets/ audiences.

Her experience in communications consultancies and in-house, spans global crisis/issues management, international policy, ESG comms strategy, executive and investor communications, and integrated communications campaigns.

She is currently Executive Director, Global Corporate Communications for Lenovo. She is also a board director of the Lenovo Foundation, Lenovo’s philanthropy entity that focuses on empowering underrepresented communities with access to technology and STEM education.

Panellist

Jo Ogunleye

B2B communications lead, UK, Google

Jo Ogunleye leads B2B Communications at Google and YouTube and has a dedicated role focused on building and managing relationships with racially diverse communities in the comms industry across EMEA.

Panellist

Addy Frederick

Head of corporate external communications, Admiral Group

Addy Frederick is Head of Group Communications for Admiral, the international financial services provider. Addy joined in 2021 to design the Group’s first ever communications strategy and build the function.

She is an award-winning communications specialist with over a decade of in-house corporate affairs experience working for some of the UK's most well-known brands, including Barclays, Bupa and LV=. Prior to joining Admiral, Addy worked at Prudential on the demerger of its UK & European and its US businesses. Her team won the PRWeek Corporate, City & Public Affairs award for the best handling of a merger, demerger or acquisition in 2020.

She is also Head of Comms at The Black Comms Network and won the 2019 PRmoment Suzy Spirit award for her work to improve diversity in the industry.

Panellist

Nicola Green

Chief communications & corporate affairs officer, Virgin Media O2

Nicola Green is Virgin Media O2’s Chief Communications and Corporate Affairs Officer.

Nicola is responsible for Public Affairs, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability, Internal and External Communications. Nicola also works directly with the CEO and offers strategic counsel to other members of the Executive Committee.

Speaker

Fiona Koh

Global head of client service & excellence, Grayling

As the global head of client service & excellence international PR firm Grayling - Fiona has learnt how to work with many different types of procurement departments. In her session at the PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum Fiona will share her experience of how to navigate procurement processes and manage the procurement professionals behind them.

Speaker

Jonathan Coad

Founder, Coad Law

Jonathan Coad runs a bespoke outfit providing crisis and litigation PR, combining tools and intelligence from 25+ years experience of not only influencing editorial decisions to protect the reputations of clients but also advising publishers and broadcasters on such issues. His critically acclaimed Bloomsbury book Reputation Matters provides essential insights both on how editorial decisions are made and how to influence them.

As a partner in leading firms such as Schillings and Lewis Silkin, he has acted for numerous high-profile business moguls, politicians, celebrities, and members of the Royal Family to protect their reputation and/or secure their privacy.