We’ve been sitting on this for a little while, and we’re excited to share it.
We’ve always known that culture, communication and leadership are never separate problems. The clients we work with know this too. They want a team that understands the full picture and can move quickly because the relevant experience is already there.
So we went and found that team, the HappyHQ Collective.
The Collective is made up of senior practitioners who share our values, bring serious lived experience and make sure the work we do gets the attention it deserves. Put simply, if HappyHQ is at the centre, the Collective is who we bring in around it. You can see their full bios here: Meet the Collective →
Meet the collective
Nickii Gray spent 20 years building and eventually selling IMA, one of the UK’s largest independent creative agencies, leading teams of 400 across five continents. She works with a small number of founders at a time through growth, M&A, restructure, and exit.
Kevin O’Connor was a national newspaper editor before moving into corporate communications via AstraZeneca, BAT and Deutsche Bank. He helps senior leaders to communicate through restructures, transitions and large-scale change.
David Gallagher has led hundreds of international engagements, mergers and consolidations around the world, over a 25-year stint at marketing and sales giant Omicom Group. He now advises boards and investors on cross-border growth, international expansion and structuring regional and global partnerships.
Tacita Small is a senior HR leader with two decades across Disney, Apple, BBC Worldwide, Ministry of Sound and more. She founded The Small HR Company in 2019 and has since worked with 250+ clients on people strategy, HR leadership and building the kind of infrastructure that keeps great people in.
Ad Davies helps founders and C-suites build leaders whose role model behaviour drives commercial results. He helped build exactly that inside Gymshark as it scaled from 150 people to a global unicorn and beyond £500m in revenue.
Celia Venables has spent 18 years leading communications and purpose-led campaigns for global brands including MOO, Pregnant Then Screwed, FiveXMore, Dad Shift. She helps organisations match their external story to what’s actually happening inside.
Ellen C Scott is the author of Working on Purpose and spent a decade in senior journalism roles at Metro and Stylist. She works with teams on the question underneath most culture work: what are we here for, and does the way we work reflect that?
Ottilie Ross is Creative Director at Mischief PR, with multi award-winning campaigns and a particular focus on what happens to creative teams under pressure. She works with in-house brand and marketing teams to rebuild the confidence to do brave work.
Laura Fields has 20+ years leading integrated, multi-agency accounts across global networks, independent agencies and specialist boutiques. She founded Above the Noise, a capability and culture advisory consultancy for PR and comms agencies.
Sarah Kaimakamis spent 20 years inside networked agencies, in-house teams and rights-holders, including EE, Havas and Universal Music, before founding ARMA, a client relationship performance consultancy
If something’s happening in your organisation that you’d like to talk through – a brief taking shape, a situation you want a fresh pair of eyes on – start with a conversation. We’ll work out together what the right support looks like.