Three customer, planning and digital heavyweights have joined one of the Northwest’s fastest growing strategy consultancies, Project50.
Dan Collins joins from Lloyds Banking Group, Steph Drennan from the Hut Group and James Balmforth from Mediacom, becoming the latest recruits aiming to support the consultancy’s growing client roster.
Project50, set up by James Poole and Joanna Parnell in 2018, is now supporting a range of market-leading UK, US and European clients ranging from some of the largest names in global travel through to major City-based private equity firms.
Based in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, Project50 was set up to bring the very best of client and agency-side thinking to help solve business problems. Despite challenging market conditions for many businesses, 2022 was a year of exceptional growth for the consultancy, which added ten new clients.
Collins joins from Lloyds Banking Group, where he was responsible for vulnerable customers. Dan is a 20-year veteran of the finance and banking sector, with experience leading customer experience for credit card giants MBNA.
Drennan joins from The Hut Group, where she was responsible for digital planning. Steph has worked across some of the largest agencies in the UK and brings a wealth of knowledge around driving digital performance for major household-name FMCG brands.
Balmforth, meanwhile, was formerly UK Performance Partner at Mediacom, leading product strategy across the Google Practice. He is a recognised industry-leader in paid search, with prior responsibility for managing some of the largest digital paid media budgets and teams in the UK.
Joanna Parnell, Project50 co-founder, said: “Our business today is unrecognisable from the one we started four years ago. Our clients see huge value in our work, and we take a particular pride in the feedback around how we work with their teams. Building our talent base is important to us, and we are delighted at the calibre of our consulting team.”
Most recent recruit Balmforth, added: “Moving into consulting is a brilliant opportunity. Digital marketing is changing at a rapid pace and it’s more important than ever to have the right strategy. I’m excited to create value for Project50 clients and solve commercial problems with the best solutions.”
The Project50team support clients with a range of services, including leading digital transformation programmes through to the development of new approaches to capacity and revenue management.
Led by co-founders James Poole (ex-strategy lead at MBNA) and Joanna Parnell (ex-managing partner at WPP) Project50, which stresses it is a consultancy not an agency, is now a team of 15 experts across strategy, marketing, digital and commercial disciplines. Its customer base stretches from the UK to the US and Europe.
