Portfolio — 2026
Brand strategist and cultural intelligence operator. Fifteen years converting cultural shifts into decisions that move markets and win new business — for Nike, adidas, Warner Music, Levi's, Asahi and others. FT-quoted authority on fan culture and the commercial cost of tokenism. Founder & Editor-in-Chief of DECENT Magazine.
Selected clients
'Impossible Is Nothing' had carried adidas since Muhammad Ali's glory days. By 2022 it had stopped moving culture and started following it. A new generation of athletes — from Sunday league players to elite gymnasts — were rejecting the relentless pressure to win in favour of something more honest: the joy of showing up. adidas needed to lead that shift, not react to it. In 2024, the brand reset its entire global identity with You Got This — repositioning one of sportswear's most recognised names for a fundamentally different relationship with sport.
Rugby has a perception problem. Its UK fanbase skews older, whiter and more affluent than any other major sport — almost no crossover into fashion, music or the cultural spaces where modern brands need to live. For Asahi, a brand rooted in Japanese cool and genuine cultural curiosity, this wasn't a reason to look away. It was the brief. We went to rugby's margins, where the most interesting stories always happen. The result: a platform the client adopted as the official campaign tagline, earning lifestyle press coverage far beyond traditional sports media and driving a world-first women's rugby jersey collaboration.
Bvlgari wanted to modernise its high jewellery positioning for a younger, more culturally engaged audience, without abandoning the bold femininity at its core. The brief sat at an interesting cultural intersection: luxury had shifted. Price and craftsmanship were no longer sufficient signals. The new currency was insider knowledge, self-expression and the quiet confidence of owning something that needs no explanation. Bvlgari had always stood for bold women. We took that as the North Star and built: For The Forever Bold — rooted in heritage, asserting that boldness is a permanent trait, not a trend.
adidas Originals: Home of Classics
Three iconic sneakers — Forum, Gazelle, Superstar — dormant but beloved. We built a unifying narrative around a generational shift: from individualism to community, repositioning three of adidas's most commercially significant heritage models as symbols of collective creativity. The global campaign spotlighted South Africa's creative scene at the intersection of skate, dance and music. (2023)
Lead strategist — research, insight, idea, brief, comms planning, talent search, guiding four creative teams.
adidas UltraBOOST X
adidas wanted to give the UltraBOOST X's arch design a cultural argument, not just a technical one. Drawing from architectural history, we reframed the silhouette as a stage for transformation and triumph. The campaign blended 2D and 3D assets to capture runners' relationship with their urban environment. The film hit 3 million views in ten days. (2017)
Lead strategist — research, insight, idea, brief, guiding two creative teams.
adidas Predator 18+
Relaunching the Predator meant reclaiming a piece of football legacy. We reframed control as a psychological truth: on the pitch, you're either controlling the game or being controlled. The campaign dramatised this with Pogba and Özil, each equally "in control". Nominated for Campaign's Ad of the Day. 1 million views in a week. (2017)
Lead strategist — research, insight, idea, brief, guiding the creative team.
Sports fandom is no longer just about the sport. F1 was the clearest proof — a global property that had in five years acquired a new audience who came through culture, not racing: fashion, music, celebrity, community. I led a world-first global study into F1's emerging fan culture, exploring what defines the new generation of fans, what they share with the original petrolheads, and what that gap means commercially for brands trying to reach both. The study generated two Financial Times features, a 50-person industry event attended by brands including AWS and Mastercard, and contributed directly to winning Adidas as a new client.
In 2019, while women had been actively reshaping gender norms for years, the conversation around young men — how they relate to identity, brands, vulnerability and style — was barely beginning. Through DECENT, I designed and led an original research project into young men in the UK, exploring their relationship with brands, celebrity, masculinity and self-expression. The work produced a mini-book, two sold-out Soho House panel sessions and a short film — original proprietary research into a demographic that brands are now paying serious attention to.
When an artist of Madonna's scale releases new music, it creates a commercial window — a moment when cultural attention returns to the entire catalogue. With Confessions on a Dance Floor 2 on the horizon, Warner Music wanted to understand and capitalise on that window for her existing catalogue. I delivered a cultural insights report mapping how the Confessions era lives across audiences and cultural spaces in 2026, a strategic positioning document building the case for how to frame and activate it around the new release, and a set of cultural activation briefs for how that positioning could come to life.
Full case study available on request
Levi's EMEA marketing leadership — 80 people — wanted to understand the commercial opportunity in sport and cultural partnerships for a fashion and lifestyle brand. I led the presentation narrative, combining cultural, commercial and creative perspectives to map the opportunity landscape and frame a strategic direction for Levi's sports partnerships across Europe. The session directly contributed to Octagon winning Levi's as a new client.
"From 1930s preppy tennis gear and the heavily memeified athleisure trend, to footballers flooding Paris Fashion Week and NBA stylists becoming stars in their own right — the worlds of sport and fashion have always flirted with each other. Today they are inseparable." I researched, built and moderated a sold-out panel at Soho House Amsterdam on the cultural and commercial collision of sport and fashion — with Highsnobiety, Lack of Guidance, The New Originals and a Paralympian.
My beloved problem child and expensive hobby. A print magazine about style, menswear and gender identity — through which I get to talk to interesting people about their lives, loves, politics, memories, roots and clothes. The current issue features Munya Chawawa, Fontaines D.C. and Ola Awosika. DECENT is stocked in magazine, book and clothing shops across Europe and functions as a live insight engine on modern masculinity — proprietary qualitative research into the tastemaker male consumer that directly informs my strategic practice.