Birmingham-based digital marketing agency, Lightbox, has appointed Julie Teague and Andy Herbert as its new Managing Director and Operations Director respectively.
A Certified and Chartered Accountant, Julie has been in the advertising and marketing sector for almost two decades, no stranger to fast-growing agencies previously holding the top finance spots at Connect (now ITG Connect) and Cogent, and more recently in one of the fastest high growth eCommerce businesses, where she was Chief Financial Officer for The Moot Group, a portfolio of companies consisting of media, marketing, eCommerce, tech, SaaS & EaaS. During her time with the business, its team grew from 11 to 60, with its turnover following suit, increasing from £2m to £15m whilst expanding overseas. All in just 18 months.
Previously holding a number of high-profile executive roles, including Operations Director at McCann, Head of Creative Services and Talent at Cogent, and more recently Chief Operating Officer at a fast-growing content marketing agency, Andy brings more than 15 years of executive management experience to better position Lightbox’s plans of expansion.
Lightbox was founded by Rob Pollard in 2005 and moved to Birmingham from Lichfield in 2016. Rob commented:
“It is a privilege to be able to attract and then work with talent such as Julie and Andy. They will bring the expertise and know-how that will best position our business for the growth that we all now want to achieve. I am really excited at the prospect of Lightbox becoming the agency that it really should be, and the work I have already witnessed both Julie and Andy implement makes me even more confident that it was the right decision to bring them both on board”.
Rob and his fellow director, PJ Ellis, will now both be responsible for marketing the business and have taken extra office space on Colmore Row to complement their existing premises on St. Paul’s Square.
Julie added:
“Having taken onboard staff feedback, we have already restructured the business and placed people in roles that fully play to their strengths. Whilst defining a new business strategy, we have also focussed on staff welfare initiatives implementing an industry-leading policy on flexible working called ‘boxing clever’ which allows for a four day week, a cashback health plan, EAP and a 24/7 medical helpline. In addition, we have made significant investments in an all-in-one agency software solution which is allowing us real-time commercial intelligence across the agency..
Using my experience of leading mergers and acquisitions, next on my list is to make our own acquisition to turbocharge growth, with a number of potential targets already identified.
I’m anticipating that the first acquisition should nearly double the agency size, allowing it to continue providing rewarding work and making Lightbox an employer of choice as well as expanding our capabilities.”
Andy feels that Lightbox is “a sleeping giant” and cannot wait to help implement better ways of working, creating the organisational excellence required to really support the impending growth.
“I love working at agencies and am committed to the success of Lightbox. I look forward to working with the team who have made me feel very welcome since joining.” Andy will also support the business by helping it to attract and then retain outstanding creative talent.
Lightbox offers a wide range of services including animation, videography, content, web design, web development, brand, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO).
It’s a very exciting time for many businesses in the creative sector. And Lightbox is certainly readying itself to take full advantage of this and deliver on its brand promise to “make life easy” for its clients’ customers to find them, love them and do business with them.
