I Kept Hiring This Agency. Now I've Joined Them.

Why I've moved from client to Executive Director at Rise at Seven - and what it means for what comes next.

There's a moment in every marketer's career where you find an agency that just gets it. That doesn't need three rounds of briefing. That doesn't present you with safe, predictable work you've seen twelve times before. That makes you think, "yeah that's going to actually work."

For me, that agency was Rise at Seven. And I've been trying to get closer to them ever since.

It started at BrightonSEO

In October 2019 I was Head of Digital at PrettyLittleThing, and I'd gone down to BrightonSEO looking for something different. I'd sat through enough pitches from agencies who talked a good game about "integrated" and "creative" and then handed over a keyword list and some templated outreach.

Then Carrie Rose got up and spoke.

And I remember thinking - right, this is what I've been looking for. Someone who understood that search wasn't just a channel. That creative and PR and SEO weren't three separate conversations happening in three separate rooms. That the whole point was to make people actually care about your brand, not just rank for a keyword.

So I got in touch. I wanted Rise working with PLT immediately.

DO WE ADD LINKEDIN DM PIC - PEOPLE LOW STORYTELLING WITH IMAGERY

One problem. They'd just signed their now-famous first contract with Missguided. (I'll be honest, I tried to persuade them to unsign it. Didn't work. Can't blame a guy for trying.) So I had to wait. Nearly a year, in fact. Carrie and Stephen said “come back in a year there may be an opportunity”.  

But it was worth the wait. The work we did together at PLT was genuinely impactful; not in the vague, hand-wavy way agencies sometimes use that word, but commercially. Measurably. In a way that made the business sit up and pay attention.

Why did it work?

I hired them and everyone in the business worked with them. From brand, influencer, paid and even product teams - those meetings with Rise were some of the biggest meetings because everyone got involved. We truly built an integrated engine - they turned SEO and search not into a channel for PLT but insight for everyone.

Read what they did for PLT here

Then I hired them again

When I moved on to Chill Insurance, one of the first things I did was appoint Rise at Seven. Different brand, different sector, different country; but the same problem I kept running into everywhere: the gap between what agencies promise and what they actually deliver.

Rise closed that gap. Again. We made a significant impact in a short space of time, and it reinforced something I'd been thinking for a while: this agency operates differently. 

And I think that matters more now than it ever has.

A story about that. I’d just joined Chill Insurance. Out to prove myself and the big decision of backing Rise to be our agency for organic. Within days (before we even immersed) the team jumped on a reactive content moment around James Bond and Aston Martins. They landed in all the big nationals and made me a hero.

So why did I join Rise?

Yes, I've worked brand side for most of my career. However I've stayed close to Rise ever since those client relationships. I watched them grow and watched the industry shift underneath everyone's feet: the way search behaviour has changed, the way audiences discover brands, the way AI is reshaping what "visibility" even means anymore. And through all of that, I kept coming back to the same thought.

The agencies that are going to win - properly win, not just survive - are the ones that can genuinely integrate strategy across channels. Not "we have an SEO team and a PR team and they sit near each other." Actually integrated. One strategic brain driving demand and discovery as a connected system.

I joined them at their BrightonSEO dinner at Soho House where their clients like RedBull, Capital One and The White Company all came together to discuss that same opinion. I knew this was the agency for me. I could help build an agency business which is structured, built and led JUST how I vision the future of marketing to be. 

Me with Carrie, some of the Rise team and Red Bull team early last year

When the opportunity came up to help build that at Rise, I didn't hesitate. Not even slightly.

What I'm actually here to do

Let me re-introduce myself. I am the Executive Director of Integrated Strategy at Rise at Seven Group. 

I’ve joined the agency as a senior leader, working closely with Phil Clark -  formerly Senior Director client-side also at Canada Goose and now Group Managing Partner - to partner with him and Carrie in building one of the most recommended agencies across the UK, EU and US markets.

My role in that is clear. It’s about connecting the dots between our strategy, growth, social, PR and SEO teams. Not managing them into some bland middle ground, nobody wants that. It's about making sure the brilliant, creative, sometimes slightly chaotic energy that makes Rise's work work is anchored to deep insight & a strategic framework that delivers on what our clients actually need.

We talk about Demand and Discovery goals. 

We have something we call our North Star framework; I won't go deep on it here, but it's essentially how we make sure every piece of work is pulling in the right direction. My job is to own that delivery. To make sure our clients don't just get great campaigns, but get great campaigns that connect to commercial outcomes they can point to in a board meeting.

And honestly? My job is also about protecting the thing that made me want to hire Rise in the first place. The creativity. The willingness to do work that's genuinely impactful, interesting, and a bit brave. The kind of stuff that clients actually love, not just approve.

The bit where I'm honest with you

I've spent 12 years on the brand side; at big brands like Emirates, British Gas, PrettyLittleThing, Chill Insurance, Card Factory, Thomas Cook Airlines. I know what it's like to sit in a client's chair and feel the gap between what you need and what you're getting. I know what it feels like when an agency presents work you know won't land. And I know how rare it is to find a partner that makes you think, "they care about this as much as I do."

That's what I found with Rise At Seven. Multiple times. Across different brands and different challenges.

And now I get to help build that experience for every client we work with.

As a client, I got to play a small part in the Rise at Seven story. Now I'm here to play a big part.

So if you're a brand that wants an agency partner who actually delivers on the promise, let's talk. And if you're someone brilliant who wants to do work that matters, we should probably talk too.

BTS