The Kite Factory

​From Account Executive to CEO in just over a decade, James bleeds The Kite Factory and has been the driving force behind the agency's evolution in recent years. He is responsible for captaining the senior leadership team and orchestrating the delivery of our growth promise to our people, clients, and partners.

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His deep-rooted history with the agency is complemented by his forward-thinking approach - James' gaze is always firmly fixed on the future and identifying new opportunities to drive revenue and fuel the development of new products and services in line with the ever-shifting media landscape.

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Today, he oversees a 100+ strong team, working with clients including David Lloyd Clubs, Netwealth, Skin+Me and TravelLocal. He is also a regular judge for industry awards including Campaign Media Awards and Digiday’s Media Buying and Planning Awards.

As Chief Digital Officer, Ben spearheads the strategic evolution of our agency's digital offering. He is tasked with delivering cutting-edge digital solutions and driving campaign innovation across our diverse client portfolio, ensuring we remain at the forefront of the industry.

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With over 16 years of industry experience, Ben is passionate about developing new initiatives that support clients and champions the concept of shared knowledge, offering strategic guidance to help build out their digital understanding. He also believes in upskilling clients wherever possible to ensure they can make the most effective use of their data.

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In recent years, Ben has launched and developed The Kite Factory’s industry-leading programmatic and creative versioning offerings whilst also enhancing our award-winning paid social services. Before joining The Kite Factory in 2015, Ben spent three years at All Response Media, where he increased digital turnover by 300%.

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Ben is no stranger to speaking platforms, having spoken at various IAB Digital Trends seminars, participated in panels for AdTech and AdWeek, and presented events hosted by both Google and Facebook.

As CCO, Jonathan oversees all client, supplier and partner contract negotiations to ensure The Kite Factory delivers best in class value for the agency and its clients. He also leads the investment team and oversees all media trading, implementation, agency audits and respective price bench-marking across all offline media channels.

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Since joining in 2014, Jonathan has taken numerous leadership roles including TV Group Head, Head of Broadcast, TV & Radio and Director of Investment - a role he held for three years before being promoted to Commercial Director in January 2020.

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As an independent media agency, The Kite Factory is renowned for our expertise in TV buying, which makes up 70% of our spend. Under Jonathan’s expert leadership the agency’s hugely experienced AV buying team work closely with our client teams to produce reactive, effective ad campaigns for our broad range of clients.

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Jonathan has over 17 years of experience working in the marketing and advertising industry, having started in TV sales at DMS and holding roles at OMD and Arena Media.

As COO, Kyle is a seasoned leader with a proven track record of driving operational excellence and innovation, having held a variety of agency roles over nearly two decades in the industry. Kyle’s focus is to streamline our agency's processes, foster a culture of innovation, and deliver exceptional results for our clients. His strong communication and people skills create a collaborative and empowering environment where our teams can thrive.

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Working closely with our senior leadership, Kyle ensures that The Kite Factory remains at the forefront of digital transformation and continues to deliver innovative solutions that exceed client expectations.

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Kyle has most recently held the role of Business Development Lead for Publicis Media and previously spent six years at Spark Foundry in client leadership roles before heading up business development for the agency.

As Managing Partner of Charity Caroline is focused on delivering expert team management, building collaborative agency-client relationships that deliver both best in class work and service.

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Caroline’s approach is all about partnership—working hand-in-hand with her clients to fuel their growth and ensure their long-term success. With 20 years of experience, she’s built a reputation for not only driving results but genuinely caring about the people and causes she serves.​

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Caroline thrives on collaborating closely with senior stakeholders, diving deep into the heart of their challenges to craft strategies that unite consultancy, media, and execution seamlessly.​

Caroline delivers comprehensive planning expertise across both brand and acquisition. She also fosters integration across divisions for charities of all sizes, including Crisis, WaterAid, Stroke Association, and Action for Children—always with the goal of empowering her clients to achieve their greatest impact.

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With a passion for female empowerment in the workplace, Caroline most recently launched TKF’s all-agency women’s network ‘Female Flyers’, to create a self-sustaining community of women who encourage, support and champion each other.

Anthony is responsible for the client experience at The Kite Factory. His strategic thinking, commercial acumen, strong client relationships and track record for driving growth have transformed many commercial brands to realise their strategic and commercial ambition. Anthony is also responsible for delivering innovation and best practice for clients and agency alike.

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Anthony took White Claw from market entrant to market leader in just three months, earning him and other agency stakeholders a seat on their global steering group, engineering their global media framework spanning EMEA, APAC and North America. ​

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Anthony is also responsible for driving the organic growth strategy and execution as well as new business growth for agency. His remit includes participating in the development of agency strategy, fostering industry relationships to help inform and shape the perception of The Kite Factory alongside other key management personnel.

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He leads a committed and passionate Client Team to develop best-in-class thinking, service and delivery. He brings a wealth of experience, joining The Kite Factory in 2019 from his role of Client Business Director at MG OMD.

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Under his watch, his team has delivered award-winning work, including Media Week Gold for David Lloyd Clubs’ long-term strategy and Best Multichannel Strategy at The Drum Awards for White Claw’s UK launch campaign. He was also a winner of Campaign’s Media 30 Under 30 award in 2017.​

As Managing Partner of Planning, Christian leads the agency’s insight, planning and strategy for a diverse range of clients including David Lloyd Leisure, Redrow, and the The Stroke Association. He also oversees the utilisation of agency tools such as YouGov, WARC and IPA Touchpoints and is responsible for finding opportunities to develop proprietary planning tools and products such as Seen&Heard and Beehive.

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Christian plays a pivotal role in developing the agency's consultancy offering, Ascend, and has been a significant driver in the strategic capabilities of the agency broadening our offering beyond media planning and buying services. He also successfully launched and scaled several start-up brands with a direct-to-consumer subscription model, such as Skin+Me and True Royalty TV. His knowledge in this area is second to none and is currently one of the core competencies that has driven growth in new business wins such as Natures Menu and Juniper.

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Christian is consistently a lead strategist on new business contributing to our high win-rate. He connects strategy to execution and communicates the direction of travel to clients and internal teams, ensuring consistency through a common understanding and helping drive client objectives through a coherent planning approach.​

As Head of Data and Analytics, Sarah oversees the econometrics, customer profiling and business scenario planning projects across The Kite Factory’s client portfolio. She is a proactive and inquisitive data scientist who is always looking for new, innovative ways to use data to solve business problems

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Sarah also leads the agency’s FlightDeck™ reporting system, building bespoke client dashboards that allow our clients to view latest campaign performance in real-time to enable smarter planning for long term growth.

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Prior to joining The Kite Factory, Sarah was completing a Ph.D. in Nanoscience at The University of Manchester. She has experience working across all sectors, with clients including David Lloyd Leisure, Wateraid, Lovehoney, White Claw and Crisis.

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A self-confessed data geek, Sarah has spoken about the importance of measurement within marketing at numerous industry events for Mediatel, Warc and The Drum.

As Managing Partner of Strategy, Rik oversees the strategic capabilities of the agency, encouraging holistic insight-led solutions and brand-centric thinking across all clients and new business pitches.

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Since joining The Kite Factory in January 2019, Rik has taken a lead role in supporting the agency’s growth agenda and plays a key part in developing TKF’s partnerships; from how they work with media owners to creating new relationships with specialist agencies to extend The Kite Factory’s current offering for clients. Rik also developed and champions our /FlightPath planning process, and our Owned Earned Shared Paid philosophy around channels.

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Renowned for his inventive approach to strategy, Rik strives for original and innovative campaign ideas, and his passion and enthusiasm for his craft shines through in his work. Rik joined The Kite Factory from his role as Head of Strategy at Havas Media where he spent five years following his time at WCRS/Engine as Head of Channel Strategy.

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A retired stand-up comedian with more than 900 gigs under his belt, Rik is a regular on the speaker circuit, and a frequent judge at industry awards. He has spoken on panels and solo spots for the likes of the IAB, CMA, Thinkbox, IPA and Newsworks, as well as acting as MC on a number of occasions for both industry and agency events.

As Head of Operations, Gabby is responsible for ensuring operational excellence in the agency.

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She brings ten years of experience working in cross-channel digital media, having worked at All Response Media and Blue 449 across a range of clients, from Disneyland Paris to SunLife Over 50s.

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Gabby joined The Kite Factory in 2016 as a Digital Planner Buyer, where she has focussed on her passion for charities within digital advertising to produce award-winning campaigns for clients like Action For Children, WaterAid and Unicef.

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She is also a member of agency’s senior management team, helping to oversee the agency’s operational processes to drive internal and external progress and innovation.

As Head of Broadcast, Gregor is responsible for ensuring best in class AV planning and buying across all TKF clients, working closely with the team to make the right decisions based on rigorous data and insights and working closely with key media owners to find innovative ways of working.

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Previously Group AV Director at The Specialist Works, he brings 14 years of AV planning and buying experience across a range of sectors and disciplines spanning brand and response, developing successful data-led AV planning across a range of clients including Kayak, Clearscore and AO.

Gregor is passionately engaged with, and excited, about the future of AV planning. He believes multiple touchpoints and a plethora of data means we are entering an age of truly channel-neutral planning where decisions are based on the audience and data, not whether a channel is linear or online. He is a huge advocate for AV, and loves to uncover that key insight or buying tactic that will make a material difference to a client’s business.

Emily is the dynamic force driving our new business and marketing operation, overseeing a high-functioning team to deliver best-in-class pitch responses while inspiring a culture of marketing-led new business across the agency, empowering everyone to become our best sales advocates.

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A cheerleader for fearless originality with a knack for cultivating a distinctive communication style, Emily is the architect behind our brand positioning and its evolution to ensure we attract and retain clients while growing the agency's reputation through stand-out communications.

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Emily has spent her 15+ year media career winning clients, growing reputations and revenues of both global networks and independent agencies spanning media, creative, brand strategy, experiential, entertainment and design.

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From brand strategy and PR, to content marketing and events, she is a creative marketer and strategic ‘doer’ who champions the vital role holistic marketing plans play in driving new business.