This month we sat down with Pamela Uddin and Tom Stone, Managing Partners and Co-founders of re:act Marketing Agency. re:act is one of the fastest growing independent agencies in the UK and celebrates its fourth birthday next year. The team are also the newest members of the Huckletree Kensington hub, opening in December 2023. 

How did re:act Marketing come about?

We met 10 years ago while we were both working at Unilever. Both of us have strong experience building international consumer brands including Dove, Simple, L’Oréal Men Expert, Garnier and Nescafé. We are also self starters and entrepreneurially minded. Fun fact - Pamela initially moved to London from Ireland as a contestant on The Apprentice. That’s a story for another blog post! Given our strong brand experience and desire to create something ourselves, we set about building our own agency specialising in creative and digital content. We tested the waters first by delivering some consultancy work in 2018 - 2019 on the side. Eventually in 2020 we took the plunge and invested our savings into bringing re:act to life full time. And we haven’t looked back since!

2020 was an interesting (and challenging!) time to start a business. Tell us about the early years at re:act.

As strange as it sounds, we always say that the pandemic gave us the time and space required to work on the business. We were less distracted and used the time to think creatively about where we wanted to take the business. We had already won our first few clients by the time the pandemic came about - we actually closed our first account during our honeymoon in 2019! The business really took off after the pandemic started to lift in 2021. We now have a team of 40+ with 15 incredible brands under our roster including Batiste, Hero, Magnum Condoms, Galderma, Fudge Professional, Childs Farm, Charles Worthington and Barking Heads and have clients based all around the world, from the UK, US, Nordics, Germany and all the way to Australia!

When you look back over the past four years, what are you most proud of?

We are proud of the culture we have instilled as a team in the business. Building an agency where people truly belong is incredibly important to us. We celebrate difference and diversity - we don’t want people to be mini Tom’s and Pamela’s! The best creative ideas come from bringing different people together. Over 35% of our team represent ethnic minorities, this is against an average of 8% in the marketing agency world overall which we’re incredibly proud of. Over 25% of our team are also proudly neurodivergent. Listening to and learning from others is a cornerstone of our culture. Everyone has something to contribute. We believe that this focus on creating a happy and strong culture helps us to produce our best work, and build authentic relationships with our clients. 

What are your values as a company?

We have six values that we live by as a company. They show up everyday in our business and we actively demonstrate them to our team:

• We care about each other and our clients. We treat each other with respect and dignity.

• We own it. We take accountability and ownership for our work.

• We are courageous. As a creative agency, we take risks and are brave with our work.

• We are stronger together. We work as a team and support one another.

• We act with pace. We keep our finger on the pulse and are always learning.

• We have fun. Bringing a sense of humour and joy to work is important - life’s too short not to!

What are the main lessons you have learned around being a founder since launching re:act four years ago?

It’s hard to take time away from the business! As a married couple, we live and work together, and don’t switch off from work as often as we’d like. We love what we do, but also understand that it’s important to take a break and allow space to reflect. We also know that re:act is bigger than the two of us. The business is in a period of rapid growth. We’re building out our leadership team and we’re also moving into our new work home at Huckletree Kensington next month. Watch this space - we are excited for what lies ahead!