Senior communications counsel,
without the waffle.
Most agencies are built around projects. They pitch, they deliver, they invoice, and they move on. That works for simple, one-off jobs. It falls apart the moment communications become a serious part of how a business grows.
A&C has worked this way since 2011, on a simple premise. The businesses that treat communications as a core part of how they grow, rather than a job to outsource and forget, consistently do better than the ones that do not. We have not found a reason to change that view.
So we work from inside the business, not at arm's length. We sit in on leadership meetings. We learn the commercial pressures and the internal politics that shape what can and cannot be said. That is what lets us make communications decisions that move the business on, rather than just produce things that look good.
Deliberately small. Retained.
Honest about fit.
We are deliberately small
Senior people, not an army of juniors. Everyone who works on your account has the experience and the authority to make decisions. There are no layers of account management between you and the people doing the work.
We work on retainer
Most of our work is retained, and that is deliberate. It gives us time to understand your business properly instead of billing by the hour, and gives you steady access to senior counsel rather than a contact who changes every project.
We do the thinking and the doing
Plenty of agencies will write you a strategy. Plenty more will run the day-to-day. We do both, with the same senior team, so the people who set the direction carry it out. No handing your brand to a junior, no gap between plan and work.
We are honest about fit
Not every organisation needs what we offer. If a one-off project or a cheaper option would serve you better, we will say so and point you to someone suited to it. We would rather turn work down than do it badly.
We work best in four sectors: fintech, media, public affairs and nonprofit. Across all four, we work best with growing and scaleup-stage organisations that have reached the point where their communications have outgrown whoever is holding them together, but are not ready to carry a full-time director.
Fintech & Finance
Founders and leaders of growing and scaleup-stage businesses, at the point where they need director-level communications but not the salary that comes with a full-time hire. We know how to make a complex, regulated story land clearly.
NGOs & Nonprofits
NGOs and foundations that are rich in mission and short on the time to communicate it well, who need a clear, consistent message landing with supporters and funders, so a small team wrestles less with words and more of the budget reaches the cause.
News & Media
The in-house teams who deal with newsrooms and editors, working at the speed a story moves and judged on whether it runs or gets killed. We have sat on both sides of the interview, so we know how to shape a story that earns its place.
Public Affairs
Organisations whose work touches regulation or policy, at the point where a single line has to satisfy a regulator, a policymaker and the public, each reading it for something different. We write the line that holds its meaning whoever is reading it.
London.
Based in the City of London, we work with organisations across the UK and beyond, meeting in person wherever that works best. Our address is 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. We are available Monday to Friday, 10am to 7pm.
We take on a handful
of clients, properly.
If your communications have outgrown whoever is holding them together, let's have a conversation. No pitch deck, no agenda, just an honest look at whether we are a good fit.
Start a conversation