Strategy agency Bold White Space launches with ex-BBH boss Sherwood as chairman

Bold White Space, a new strategy and communications agency, has launched this week with former Bartle Bogle Hegarty global chief executive Simon Sherwood as chairman. 

Former Engine MHP managing director Mike Robb and ex-managing director of brand strategy and content shop Studio Black Tomato Nick Ford-Young founded the business, which specialises in advertising, marketing and public relations.

Bold White Space has four launch clients from the healthcare, energy and financial services sectors and has raised a six-figure investment from private investors, including those from the advertising, communications and tech industries.  

Robb and Ford-Young

Along with Sherwood, who retired from BBH in 2014 after 32 years, Mike Nicholson, who previously oversaw planning at MullenLowe, VCCP, Ogilvy Action and Diageo, will be head of strategy. Adam Griffin, who previously worked at Leo Burnett and J Walter Thompson, will lead creative. 

Katie Sogorski and Rachel Mason, who collectively have experience at M&C Saatchi PR, Freuds, Weber Shandwick and Porter Novelli, will be in charge of the PR practice. 

Bold White Space is in the process of hiring a chief technology officer to lead the company’s data analytics, artificial-intelligence and automation capabilities. 

The agency has an advisory panel comprising six senior executives from across the industry, including: John Veichmanis, former chief marketing officer at Farfetch; Natasha Ighodaro, former digital strategy director at JWT; Mark Davies, former managing director of corporate affairs at Betfair; Zaza Biddu, former vice-president at Hill & Knowlton; and Mark Hemingway, former head of communications at HSBC.

Robb said: "The world is suddenly a different place, where we live amid the biggest economic shock since the Second World War. We strongly believed the marketing and communications industry was unfit for the next generation of business before this crisis and we believe it more than ever now.

"The businesses of tomorrow need a more targeted, versatile and efficient model than exists in the market today. But for this to become a reality, we believed a new agency was required, built from the ground up, with the culture, structure and blend of technology required to create a model that delivers for that next generation. We will be that agency."

Ford-Young added: "Brands in the new world must be more relevant and visible than ever before and need to achieve this whilst extracting more value than ever before. We know that technology and creativity together hold the answer to the challenges our clients are facing, where the winners of the future will be reactive, light-footed and able to quickly adapt along many unknown paths."