Intro

We work with creators who can bring brands closer to culture and society, creating relevance and fueling resilience. Creators who carry influence and have built authentic relationships with their audience have the power to earn trust and provide brands value beyond product placements. TAKUMI taps into these relationships to deliver creativity and real ROI on your creator campaigns.

TAKUMI values

At TAKUMI our values are important to our behaviour, our culture and how we represent ourselves to our clients, creators & colleagues.

Accountability: People who work at or for TAKUMI understand the importance of being accountable for their work and their actions, to their clients, creators and colleagues.

Diversity: TAKUMI is a place that celebrates our differences, across clients, creators and our people.

Equality: TAKUMI provides equal opportunities for all and merits those who do the best job they can.

Integrity: TAKUMI performs and supplies our services to the very best of our ability, both ethically and with transparency.

Respect: TAKUMI people respect themselves, each other, our clients and our creators.

Charity Initiatives

TAKUMI is proud to support Digilearning, an incredible charity that works with underprivileged children and young people aged 5 to 26 to help shape their futures as entrepreneurial digital creators, as well as providing tools and resources to their supporting network of parents, guardians and teachers. We work closely with Digilearning to help young people acquire essential skills, be confident, and thrive in an increasingly digital interconnected world that is ever-changing.

Diversity and Inclusion

At TAKUMI, we are deeply committed to encouraging and promoting diversity, equality and inclusion while eliminating discrimination across our team and within the industry. Our policy is simply to provide equality, fairness and respect for all in our employment, our clients and creators no matter their background.

We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce that is representative of our world.

Spearheaded by leadership and board members, we have committed to a 3 year Diversity & Inclusion action plan, guided by the following principles:

We ensure that our team reflects our values in all areas of inclusion. Our leadership team set business goals around our D&I strategy
We push for representation of diverse groups in all that we do, ensuring our team equitably reflects the world we live in.We invest in diverse suppliers and give back to our community through nonprofit partnerships and initiatives that help further diversity objectives.
We have launched an Ethics Committee to build long term relationships with brands that aspire to be good corporate citizens through their Diversity, Equality & inclusion ethos

Independent Ethics Commitee

The Ethics Committee supports the Management in the delivery of this vision, strategy and policy, and contributes to ensuring the application of ethics in TAKUMI’s activities relating to the Creator market. There are five members, representing the perspectives of law, child protection, and academia. The Ethics Committee are supported by several advisors representing the diversity of TAKUMI’s stakeholders.

Independent ethics committee

Leadership

Mary Keane-Dawson

Group CEO

Mary is a digital expert, entrepreneur and business mentor. She has held c-suite roles at WPP, Steak, Reform and Collective, she co-founded medical technology startup MyHealthPal as well as the women’s networking franchise How She Made It. She is a Global Ambassador for the British Interactive Media Association, on the Board of London Tech Advocates and sits on the advisory board for the Internet Commission.
Akua Appiah-Ampofo

Chief People Officer

Akua Appiah-Ampofo has over 15 years’ experience in Human Resources working on people strategies for start-ups in the creative industry. Her experience has been on core HR elements including mergers, change management, organisational development and culture. She also ran her own HR Consultancy, providing HR advice to SMEs and has worked with clients such as L’Oreal, The Home Office, HMRC, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds TSB, Citi, BP, National Grid and KPMG. Akua is a trained Management Coach and is also a Fellow at the CIPD.
Jim Meadows

Chief Strategy Officer

Jim Meadows, is an experienced strategist with 10 years’ experience in social media and branded content have worked in-house at Virgin Media and agency side for brands such as Redbull, The Cooperative and British Red Cross. Later he co-founded specialist agency Commit driving long-term influencer and UGC strategy for global consumer brands including Seagate Technology across EMEA and the Americas.
Kristy Engles

Chief Client Officer USA

Kristy is a brand strategist at heart, with more than 15 years of experience specializing in beauty CPG. With a unique understanding of both the prestige (Sephora, ULTA, BlueMercury) and mass retail space (Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens), Kristy has helped brands to develop strategies to successfully launch, and grow, utilizing social and digital marketing tactics that have garnered awards and resulted in acquisitions.
Steve Taylor

Chief Finance Officer

Steve is an ACA qualified accountant with media agency experience across global and regional roles. He has a depth of commercial knowledge across social, digital and traditional media working with some of the world’s leading brands. Extensive M&A experience at S4Capital and WPP. Talented at driving organic growth with start-ups and acquihires to shift into and navigate effectively the scale-up space.

Board Members

Rob Forshaw

Board Member & Executive Chairman

Rob has over 25 years agency experience working in brand and digital communications for some of the world’s leading brands. He started his career working for Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi and Wieden and Kennedy and then went on to co-found the digital communication agency Grand Union, which was acquired by FullSIX in 2010. Rob is a board advisor to a number of high growth businesses in the UK and USA.
Dominic Perks

Board Member

Dominic is the co-founder and CEO of venture firm Hambro Perks. He has been involved in backing and building over 40 technology companies including Echo (excited to McKesson), Muzmatch and What3words. Dominic was part of the founding team at Takumi and continues to serve as a NED. Prior to his entrepreneurial adventures, Dominic was a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey & Co and an Investment Banker at Morgan Stanley. He graduated from Oxford University with a First Class Degree in English Literature.
Brandon Berger

Board Member

Brandon is an executive, investor and advisor across the entire advertising and media landscape. Brandon spent 7 years as the Global Chief Digital Officer and Board Member at Ogilvy, driving industry leading growth and helping the network win Network of the Year five times in a row at Cannes. Prior to Ogilvy, Brandon led MDC Partners’ (MDCA) digital transformation, taking the company from 10% digital to 40% resulting in a 300% shareholder return. Brandon has been responsible for over $300m in M&A over his career. He is a board advisor and investor to some of the top media and advertising businesses in the industry.
Oliver Evans

Board Member

Oliver is a tech investor with over twenty years of experience. He was a co-founder of Dorsal Capital, a $3B public equity tech fund based in Silicon Valley. Currently, he is a Portfolio Manager at both Keystone Group and Apercus Holdings. Prior to Dorsal, Oliver worked at Intrinsic Investors and Bain & Co., in New York and London. He holds an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, and a Double First in Classics from Oxford.