MBO at creative agency as it seeks ‘global domination’
Rise at Seven, a Sheffield-based search-first creative agency, has today confirmed a change in ownership with Carrie Rose becoming a 100% shareholder in the business.
The agency founded in 2019 turns over £7m in revenue and has more than 90 staff across four offices.
Rose began the business when she was 25-years-old with co-founder Stephen Kenwright. She has now appointed Nick Hussey as group managing director.
Hussey has been serving as chief operations officer and is a 30-year industry veteran who has held board-level leadership positions at agencies such as McCann, Forever Beta, Mother, and Jaywing. His current operations role will expand to take on day-to-day leadership of the business.
Kenwright, who started the agency with Rose and has served as commercial director, is stepping down from the business.
Rose said: “The Rise at Seven journey has been incredible to date and I couldn’t have done it without Stephen’s brilliant counsel and support.
“He and I started this as friends and I’m proud to say we will remain exactly that. He has been the most incredible, calm and inspirational support.
“I personally will miss working with him, as will all of the Rise team. He’ll always be part of the Rise family.
“Now we embark on a new challenge for true global domination. It requires a fresh way of thinking and commercial direction.
“Nick has been appointed managing director, after taking the reins of the business in the last 12 months and taking us to new levels. We are starting to attract more senior talent and brands, with lofty ambitions for global growth.”
Kenwright added: “Rise at Seven is and always will be very close to my heart as I have been a part of this agency seeing it become a once-in-a-generation agency business and it is because of the people and the clients that make Rise unique.
“What we achieved in three years is nothing short of miraculous, being named Best Large Agency Globally at multiple industry leading awards including Search, PR, Content and Social but what the business needs now is a new direction to guide it through the next phase of its expansion plans.”
The agency is investing in its senior strategic and search team with two key appointments.
Kristal Ireland joins as executive director and will be managing all of Rise’s strategic and search service offerings, including content strategy, data and SEO.
As head of e-commerce and technology for Virgin Trains, she was responsible for the commercial strategy and digital footprint for one of the UK’s busiest and most successful travel brands.
Prior to joining Rise at Seven, she was the digital director for UK Coaching, the UK’s national sports coaching charity where she led the marketing, digital and technology teams.
Will O’Hara joins the agency as digital strategy director and will work across all channels with a focus on search, content, data & insights.
In previous roles as head of SEO and SEO director during eight years at MediaCom, he worked with big brands such as Co-op, William Hill, Haven and Save the Children.
Prior to joining Rise, he was at D2C and e-commerce platform provider THG as organic performance director – overseeing the SEO, content and digital PR teams.
