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.

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

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.
Aimeé Howells

Managing Partner

Aimeé has over 16+ years-experience working across a blend of Global network agencies, start-ups, business transformation and in the fan engagement landscape across music and sport. Aimeé specialises in the fusion of cultures to turn moments of the mundane into newsworthy movements. Prior to Aimeé joining to TAKUMI she was a Global Director of Manchester United leading the way in sponsorship excellence for Chevrolet and UBER. Other Global relationships have included City Group, Heineken and Nike.
Ritchie Marshall

Chief Finance Officer

Ritchie has over 20 years of experience as a business builder, leading organisational improvement at all levels; an executive who has delivered results in multiple competitive market environments with a deep knowledge of the digital marketing function and relevant technologies across the ecosystem. Recent roles include International finance leadership positions at renowned DSP Mediamath, CFO of adtech company Flashtalking, CFO/Commercial Director at Havas Media in addition to earlier career stints with Paramount Pictures, CBS Interactive and CNET Networks.
Sara Joy Madsen

Managing Director

Over the past 16 years in NYC Sara has worked in publishing, video and networks, gaming publishers, programmatic media and influencer marketing. Spending most of her time leading teams in social video and influencer marketing, Sara grew her passion for helping creators make money doing what they love. Learning how TAKUMI was committed to professionalizing the creator economy, Sara felt like it was a natural fit for her skill set and how she wanted to give back to the world through advertising. Notable moments from Sara’s career include developing interactive pharma video ad units, launching one of the first social gaming ad networks, creating the first Esports newsdesk experience with Coca-Cola and eventizing #fireballfridays on Twitch. Originally from Nebraska, Sara now splits her time between LA, NYC and Lincoln.

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.