Great brands resonate with what's happening in the world right now, and are built to last beyond it.
That takes a particular kind of listening: to what founders and teams aspire to, to what consumers feel, and to what's shifting in the world around them. The work is then to find the sharpest way through.
I help brands find their position, and build from it:
Strategic Foundations
Defining the core that gives everything direction: positioning, messaging, consumer & cultural insight, and investor narratives.
Creative Partnerships
Building the conditions for standout creative execution: sourcing the right partners, developing the briefs, and steering the process so the work lands first time.
Experienced across naming, pack and visual identity, tone of voice, communications and creative platforms.
Brand Leadership
Embedding clarity and focus: the structures, tools, and inspiration that enable teams to grow brands with confidence, including planning, always-on execution, and performance tracking.
If a brand can articulate why it matters, everything else flows. Decisions align. Every communication lands with impact. The world detects true intent.
When that clarity is missing, the opposite happens. Messages are diluted, teams pull in different directions, and creative partners are left filling gaps with interpretation, wasting time and money.
That's the challenge I take on.
Combining agency and venture experience
I've worked both agency and venture sides, which means I understand how brands are built and how they need to come to life in the world.
Seven years across leading creative and cultural insight agencies, then a decade at Distill Ventures partnering with founders to build the drinks brands of the future. 35+ companies, six exits, $300M invested. The portfolio has included Mr Black, Starward, Ritual, Stauning, Kanosuke, and Fielden.
start with humans
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build for longevity
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start with humans · build for longevity ·
protect the magic
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context gives meaning
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protect the magic · context gives meaning ·
What it's like to work together
“Zoe is one of the best brand and consumer strategists I’ve ever worked with, full stop.
She has a rare ability to truly listen, to founders, to teams, to the market, and to what isn’t being said. She connects founder stories, consumer truths, and category dynamics with real intuition, then reads the space between the lines to land on the killer positioning that actually unlocks strategy, capability and execution. The type of work that really moves brands forward.
Beyond the thinking, Zoe is an exceptional partner to founders and leaders. Calm, empathetic, and deeply perceptive, but also rigorous, decisive and agile when it matters. She elevates the room, sharpens the work, and makes people better without ego or noise.
Any founder or brand lucky enough to work with her will feel that impact very quickly. She’s also just a brilliant human to work alongside, thoughtful, generous, and quietly formidable.”
— Gareth Bath, former Managing Director at Distill Ventures“Zoe is best-in-class. I worked with her developing the Fielden Whisky brand prior to its launch in May 2024. She steered the proposition work and elevated the creative process expertly, bringing a wide array of stakeholders with us as we went - no mean feat!
She was also of huge support as we went to market providing focus and tools to keep us on track with our objectives. The results speak for themselves: the brand was announced as one of the World's Most Admired Whiskies 2025: noted as the only English whisky in the global top 50. And all our commercial objectives were achieved through year 1.
Zoe brings a great sense of energy and fun to the task-in-hand - I’d love to work with her again.”
— Mark Harvey, former Managing Director at Fielden Whisky and Board Director at Walpole (sector body for the British luxury industry)