Founder & CD at White Bear 🐻‍❄️ | Top 22 Female Founder 2022 ⚡️| Small Agency of the year 2022 🥇| CP Top 5 Agencies in UK ✏️ | Speaker and Host 🎤 | 16x Award winner 2022 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆

Kelly Mackenzie is a two-time founder, creative director, and unapologetic brand obsessive. She leads White Bear, the award-winning creative agency with studios in London, Dublin, and South America, recognised as Agency of the Year 2022 and winner of multiple DBA, Transform, Pent, Mobius, IDI, Creativepool, and Red Dot awards for work with brands like Red Bull, Netflix, Bold Bean, Tom Parker Creamery, and The Kerry Group.

She’s also the founder of People Like Me – a growing community for women in marketing to make real, meaningful connections in person, cutting through the algorithm and digital noise to create friendships, share challenges, and help each other shine.

Named one of Startup Magazine’s Top 22 Women of 2022 and a Creativepool Leader of 2023, Kelly is passionate about design thinking, education, and championing women in leadership. She has lectured at IADT and NUA, served on the board of The Big Idea, and mentored start-ups with Bethnal Green Ventures, Enterprise Nation, and SeedLegals.

Her philosophy? Build unforgettable brands, disrupt industries, and make people feel something – and have the craic while doing it.

Learn more at 
http://www.whitebearstudio.com
http://www.peoplelikeme.io


Subscribe to our newsletter at: https://mailchi.mp/whitebearstudio/newsletter
Or contact me directly at kelly@whitebearstudio.com

Kelly Mackenzie 🐻‍❄️

Lunchtime Content

• Brand strategy - brand definition, expression & activation 
• Marketing strategy - continuous comms & campaigns
• Content strategy - creative messaging, channel strategy & process
• Market, consumer & stakeholder research & analysis, including workshops
• Data analysis and data storytelling
• New business pitch development & presentation
• Strategic business initiatives 
• Mentoring in-house teams

Partnering with brands and agencies on projects spanning many sectors, but my specialisms include food and drink, professional services and purpose-led organisations.

Contact me to find out how I can work with your team - liz@lunchtimecontent.com

Freelance Brand, Marketing & Content Strategist - Consultant

infogr8

Providing strategic consultancy across brand, product visioning and new initiatives to world-class data visualisation experts infogr8.

Strategic Consultant

SevenC3

Leading Seven’s strategy team in delivering the highest quality strategic work, grounded in research, data and audience empathy, to underpin our integrated work for brands across all sectors.

Responsible for fostering a culture where everyone in the agency embraces putting strategy at the heart of everything we do for our clients. 

Key stakeholder in both internal and client development initiatives.

Head of Strategy

Setting the strategic direction for a diverse range of activity for clients including Sainsbury's, Vitality, UBS, Hertz and Institute of Directors.

Working with a range of stakeholders on internal strategic projects.

Senior Strategist

OgilvyOne

Working with the world's leading customer engagement agency in a contract role spanning content marketing strategy and editorial direction for brands including SMA baby products, IBM and EY.

Lead Content Strategist (contract)

Consultancy and content strategy leadership.

infogr8 is a visual content agency helping organisations attract, inform and engage audiences through the use of great data.

We deliver measurable results that directly impacts on brand sentiment, search and PR coverage.

Consultant Content Strategist

FMXA

Consultancy and content strategy leadership.

FMXA is a full-service marketing and business development agency that specialises in the IT and security sectors. Its services include strategic planning, integrated marketing programme implementation, targeted lead generation and management, and channel development.

Seven

Maternity cover contract, plus subsequent ongoing freelance work across multiple clients, in particular Sainsbury's and Jobsite.

Seven is Europe's No. 1 content marketing agency. We create content that delivers on our clients' brand promises every day and everywhere - we call it 'content that performs'.

Head of Planning (contract)

BORN Group

Creating and developing content strategies for clients in a range of sectors, alongside the holistic management of content creation across all platforms.

Establishing and leading specialist teams depending on strategic requirements.

Championing and creating engaging, structured and effective content.

Content Strategist

Dennis Communications - Dennis Publishing

Twofold role: 

- Video production: full producer responsibilities from pre- to post-production, creating bespoke online video for brands such as Waitrose, Very and Sky.

- Editorial management: launching and managing digital and print magazines and content for a variety of clients, specialising in women's lifestyle.

Creative Producer

Managing a range of publishing contracts including print, digital and websites for the contract publishing arm of Dennis Publishing. 

Broad range of responsibilities centred on editorial projects including managing freelance teams, writing and client account management.

Project Manager

Broad responsibilities across all 30 editions of the world’s biggest men’s magazine, including launching new international issues of Maxim and ensuring global brand consistency, and organising creative international events, shoots and brand initiatives.

Maxim International Executive

Whisper Mag

Launching and editing women's lifestyle website Whisper Mag with a partner. Undertook all aspects of running the site including editing, commissioning, managing writers, scheduling, website and CMS management, marketing and social, PR and planning.

Published weekly at whispermag.co.uk and now archived at http://whisper.net-genie.co.uk/, Whisper Mag launched in May 2008 and offered engaging and varied weekly content targeted at female readers aged 18-30.

Editor and Founder

I'm a senior brand and marketing strategy consultant working with brands recently including Waitrose, Campari, BBC, Mars Petcare and Friends of the Earth. I work with agencies and also with brands and founders directly.

As a former Head of Strategy I have experience in a wide range of sectors, but my specialisms are food and drink, professional services and purpose-driven organisations. 

I love working with ambitious brands as they move into new areas of growth. 

----- 

WHAT I DO:

• Brand strategy - brand definition, expression & activation 
• Marketing strategy - continuous comms & campaigns
• Content strategy - creative messaging, channel strategy & process
• Market, consumer & stakeholder research & analysis, including workshops
• Data analysis and data storytelling
• New business pitch development & presentation
• Strategic business initiatives 
• Mentoring in-house teams

-----

WHO I'VE WORKED WITH:

I love contributing to growth at organisations who are scaling, including startups.

My agency clients include Ogilvy, Dentsu Creative, BBC Studios, The New York Times T Brand, Four Communications, SevenC3 and BORN, plus specialists including infogr8, Quantum and Five by Five.

Well-known brands I've worked with include:

Acrylicize
Asda
Argos 
BBC
BFI
Bausch + Lomb
Canon
Campari
Espa
EY
Fat Face
Friends of the Earth
Google
The Gut Health Doctor
Hertz
HSBC
Knight Frank
Mars Petcare
National Trust
Penguin Random House
Royal College of Surgeons
Sainsbury’s
Schultz Family Foundation
Sky
Thomson Reuters
UBS
Waitrose
Weight Watchers
Virgin Holidays
Vitality
Zurich Municipal

I work remotely with some in-person sessions, mainly in London and Hampshire.

-----

MY WORKING STYLE:

I work in true partnership with agency and brand teams alike - for me, it's all about maintaining strategic rigour while making the process enjoyable and satisfying. 

My focus is always on developing practical, usable strategies - rather than grand gestures that are hard to translate in the real world.

I believe that the best results come from a spirit of collaboration and creativity, and that you can never tell where (or who) the next great idea will come from. 

My job is to organise, bring clarity and drive creativity via clear strategy.


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Headline image by Amira Rahim

Liz Hatherley

MY COMPANY YEAR END REVIEW 
Happy new year, happy new corporation tax bill! 🎉 

My annual accounts have just been submitted, so - strategists will understand 😅 - I've done a mini report on the year that just closed.

Here it is, in case it’s helpful for similar consultants to benchmark - or if you’re just curious.

👯‍♂️ Who have I been working with?

10 clients in total, delivering 21 x briefs

40% are New clients 
60% are Existing clients 

41% total revenue from Brands
59% revenue from Agencies 

Top sectors:

This is based on the end client. This year, there were just four categories, which is the tightest volume I’ve had yet (a good thing?):

41% - Professional & financial services
32% - Non-profits
19% - FMCG 
8% - Education

Best bits:

* Growing my proportion of positive impact work - this was a major goal for me this year and in the end, I worked with 4 x non-profit end clients in total
* A major project with a leading charity spanning brand repositioning, marketing strategy and more
* A regular pulse of trend-based strategy for health & wellness retailer 
* Being trusted to fully concept, launch and oversee a fine art content brand
* An international brand advocacy strategy for a Japanese lager brand
* 10 years with my longest-standing agency partner 💞 and my incredible network that links me to such high quality projects and people - I NEVER take this for granted

I’m super proud that after a bit of a wonky start 2025 ended up being my biggest revenue year yet, +26% on YE2024. I’ll take that for sure! 

The bad:

👎 The start of 2025 was brutal. Between Trump tariffs, AI mainstreaming and the cost of living crisis, budgets utterly seized up for a few months. I was seriously thinking about fractional or contracting just as things came back to life in Q2. Not a fun time.
👎 The binfire that is social media and trying to shape my work to reduce brand reliance on it

The ugly:

😐 Finally deciding the new name for my Ltd Co, sitting on it for ages, eventually hating it. There is literally nothing harder for a brand strategist than developing your own brand. But it’s on lock now though! Coming soon…
😐 A mood of change, confusion but also opportunity as consultants, freelancers and collectives reshape the competitive landscape, where agencies drop down in the consideration mix

What for 2026 from a company POV? 

✨ Keep growing the proportion of ‘force for good’ work - including with businesses 
✨ Continue to tightly define my methodologies
✨ Formalise a partnership with a longstanding friend & collaborator (carried over from 2025 😵‍💫)
✨ Avoid deadline avalanches (I really should know this one by now)

What has your year looked like? What’s the focus for 2026? Would love to hear it.

And of course, just shout if you need me for the below! 

💗 Brand strategy - who are we and what are we trying to achieve in this world?
📣 Marketing strategy - how do we tell everyone about us?
📸 Content strategy - what should we actually say?!

Brand Strategy Consultant | Brand & Content Strategy, Freelance | Open to project work, consulting, day-based input, fractional, interim

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Liz Hatherley

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Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Liz Hatherley's LinkedIn Performance

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