Rise at Seven Appoints Former PrettyLittleThing and Emirates Marketing Leader Matt Holmes as Executive Director of Integrated Strategy

Rise at Seven has appointed Matt Holmes as Executive Director of Integrated Strategy as part of a wider initiative to build a more client-centric agency model and challenge traditional agency structures.

Holmes joins from a senior brand-side career as a Senior Marketing Director at organisations including British Gas, PrettyLittleThing, Emirates, Thomas Cook, Card Factory, and Chill Insurance, where he led integrated marketing teams, managed multi-million-pound budgets and operated at board level.

Notably, Holmes previously appointed Rise at Seven as an agency partner in multiple in-house roles. He now joins the business as an Executive Director as it enters its next phase of growth.

The appointment follows the recent hire of Phil Clark, former Global Director of Digital Performance at Canada Goose, who joined the agency as Managing Partner of Product & Performance. Together, the leadership hires signal a deliberate shift toward embedding client-side commercial experience at the core of the agency.

The hires also reflect a broader reset in agency models, as AI reshapes the economics of execution and automates repeatable production tasks across content, reporting and optimisation. As delivery becomes increasingly commoditised, Rise at Seven is investing in senior strategic consultants to elevate execution - ensuring creative output is consistently powered by commercial judgement, integration and search-led insight.

Holmes will work alongside Founder & CEO Carrie Rose and Clark to embed deeper strategic integration across the agency’s paid, earned, shared and owned (PESO) proposition, aligning search insight, creative execution and performance with measurable business outcomes.

The move comes after a year of structural change at Rise at Seven, including its repositioning as a search-first content marketing agency and its shift toward outcome-led positioning around “category leadership” across Google, TikTok, YouTube, Amazon and AI-driven discovery platforms.

Carrie Rose, Founder & CEO, said:

“If agencies want to survive - and lead - the next decade, we need to behave like embedded strategic partners, not just delivery teams. As AI absorbs more execution, the real value of agencies lies in commercial judgement and integration. That means hiring leaders who have managed multi-million-pound budgets, integrated paid, earned, owned and shared channels inside complex organisations, advised boards and carried accountability for growth. Matt has experienced Rise from the client side, which makes this next chapter particularly powerful.”

Phil Clark, Managing Partner of Product & Performance, added:

“Bringing together client-side leadership with award-winning execution strengthens our ability to connect brand and performance at every level. Matt’s experience leading integrated teams inside global organisations complements the direction we’re building at Rise - one where strategy, product and performance are fully aligned around client growth.”

Holmes said:

“Having hired Rise as an agency partner, I’ve seen first-hand the strength of its execution. Joining at this stage of growth is an exciting opportunity to help elevate that further - ensuring strategy, insight and performance are fully integrated to drive sustainable business outcomes.”

The appointments come during a period of growth for the agency, with multi-channel strategy adoption increasing from 38% to over 70% across its client base in the last 12 months. Recent client wins include Red Bull and Birkenstock, alongside continued US expansion, now reaching $3m in revenue.

Rise at Seven was founded in 2019 and operates across the UK and US.

Read Matts story about why hes decided to move to the agency he kept hiring