Working Together
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Sometimes the hardest thing isn't knowing what to do, it's knowing what - or who - you actually are, what you're really trying to build, and why anyone should care.
When you find the animating idea at the centre, it's like unblocking the flow of a river. Suddenly everything opens up, everything moves, everything makes sense. It’s not a purpose statement or a “why”, it’s the core truth that, when named, turns a collection of ideas, activities, and hunches into something energising, potent, and soul-stirring.
The problem is, it’s hard to find from the inside. You're too close to it, too attached to what it used to be, or too lost in the fog of what’s not working.
It might result in a strategy, positioning, or vision document, an investor or pitch deck, or simply a much clearer articulation of what you're building and why it matters.
"He got to the heart of us effortlessly, and skilfully wove all that's great about our heritage and prestige into all that's exciting and contemporary." Joe McKenna, CEO, Denmark Street Projects
"There's no one better at forming a unified meaningful story out of art, insight or ideas. Andy is coherence, with a wicked sense of humour." Sam Conniff (creator, Uncertainty Experts, author, Be More Pirate)
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Once you know what you’re about, you need to make it real, emotional, dimensional. A world people actually want to belong to and tell their pals about.
This is where sense-making turns into story and ideas. Entertainment formats, creative platforms, narratives, brand worlds, new products, events, initiatives… things that can exist, grow, and become valuable.
The aim, wherever possible, is new IP.
"An incredible creator of worlds and stories with a truly original perspective." Katherine Templar-Lewis, co-founder, Kinda Studios
"He has the ability to ask the questions that will push, explore and evolve any project and the mindset to find true meaning in everything he does. A true alchemist.” Matt Holyoak, Matt Holyoak Studio, Photographer, Artist
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Often the most interesting opportunities are the unobvious ones. They lie dormant in an existing audience nobody's thought to unlock, they sit in the gap between two worlds, or ways of being that haven't yet been introduced, or they hide in plain sight inside an organisation too in the weeds to spot them.
I delve into fanbases, pipelines, relationships, and adjacencies to find what wants to happen that isn't happening yet. The unmade connection that becomes a new story, proposition, or business, the asset that becomes a core revenue stream, or the idea that's just been waiting for the perfect partner to bring it into being.
"He has the kind of mind that connects the most unsuspecting references to create entirely new ideas that propel you forward into spaces you previously would never have imagined." Ben Gallagher, Co-founder, The Possible
"His network and frames of reference are ridiculously deep and broad. That’s so useful." Marc Picken, Co-founder West Management (Massive Attack, Young Fathers, Soulwax, Richard Russell)
It takes a village
It takes a village
The most interesting ideas need the most interesting folks in the room.
I have a diverse and influential network of co-pilots and compadres across arts, entertainment, academia, brand, film, science, emerging tech, crypto, investing, democracy, and wellbeing.
Everything I do is a collaboration, sometimes formal, sometimes informal. Always drawing on and respecting collective wisdom. Always crediting where credit is due.
Clients & Talent Worked With
What People Are Saying
“I’m confident companies of any size or stage will find outsized returns from working with Andy. His brain and experience is such a force, applying deep cultural and theoretical nerdery with decades of hands-on experience. Andy will discover and multiply a business’s cultural and brand value and crystalise lasting differentiation in a world full of commodities.”
Fig, Co-Founder, Squid (DeFi Crypto Company)
"Brilliant mind, massive heart and seriously networked is what makes Andy an incredible asset for any project, especially as he combines all of that with a very grounded finger on the pulse of the emergent, and a truly gifted and ethical sense of style and story."
Tom Fortes-Mayer, Therapist, Creator, Freemind Experience
“Andy is an amazing creative and strategic collaborator and has been for years. He’s empathetic and patient with artists and can get the best out of them. He also knows a shit tonne of people who trust and like him across many different fields. That’s so useful. His network and frames of reference are ridiculously deep and broad.”
Marc Picken, Founder, West Management
“Andy is one of the all time great people. An incredible creator of worlds and stories with a truly original perspective. Working with him is always a joyous adventure - feet on the ground, reaching for the stars.”
Katherine Templar-Lewis, Co-founder, Kinda Studios, Uncertainty Experts
“Andy's input has been invaluable in helping position us and our brands in a noisy and challenging market. He got to the heart of us effortlessly, and skilfully wove all that's great about our heritage and prestige into all that's exciting and contemporary. He is a true master of his craft.”
Joe McKenna, CEO, Denmark Street Investments
“Andy is my go to strategic creative partner. He is both interesting and interested. In an artificial world he brings the joy back into working with humans.”
David Alberts, Co-founder, Bubbler, Answers Are Out There, BTDT
“Andy combines intellectual and strategic rigour with creativity to come up with unconventional solutions to business problems, using culture as the delivery mechanism. I love him.”
David Kolbusz, CCO & Partner, Orchard Creative, ex-CCO, Droga5 London
“I love working with Andy. He has a great sense of how film development and production works but he’s interested in the wider context and pushing the envelope. That said there’s also a simplicity to what he can do too - he brims with ideas, he’s got a nose and appetite for good story and writes very well. He’s also brilliant with people, can spot talent and has great taste.”
Amanda Boyle, Writer & Film / TV Director, Chloe, True Horror, Sirens, Skins
“Andy moves through the world with a wonderfully calm and welcoming demeanor, he’s 100% jargon free and more than anything he cares deeply for the work he does and the people he does it for. He has the kind of mind that connects the most un-suspecting references to create entirely new ideas that propel you forward into new spaces you previously would never have imagined. We are already looking forward to our next collaboration. Thank you Andy!”
Ben Gallagher, Co-Founder, The Possible
“Andy is part strategist, part creative, and part executive producer in the TV & film sense of the word, i.e. creative doing. He has a big and beautiful brain, compassion in spades, and he is 100% translator. Through empathy and insight, he has the ability to translate between genders, backgrounds, cultures, hierarchies, disciplines and industries. A rare and hugely necessary skill in today’s world.”
Chaka Sobhani, President & Global CCO TBWA Worldwide
“Analytically constructive contribution to a project coupled with emotionally nurturing contribution to a project. The ability to support in both ways simultaneously is quite rare and extremely useful. Andy is often better at understanding the work of a lateral thinker than they are. Which makes him invaluable in a creative environment.”
Ed Morris, Writer, Director, Photographer, ECD
“Andy thinks strategically about longer term partnerships and opportunities and how to stay nimble and grasp the opportunities coming from the changes in distributors and financiers of content - and the creative possibilities emerging from that as well as zeitgeist trends to be grabbed.”
Ivana MacKinnon, BAFTA winning producer, Beast, How to Have Sex
“A genuinely out of the box thinker.”
Professor Dominic McVey, MBE, Investor, Entrepreneur