20something Expands Senior Team with Raft of New Hires

Guillotel, Jones-Walters, Highfield, Starr, Docx.

Creative company 20something, founded in 2019 by Andrew Barnard and Will Thacker, has expanded its senior team with five new hires, following an influx of new clients and creative projects.

Elliott Starr, former Fallon and Leo Burnett copywriter, joins to work alongside Will Thacker across all client and internal projects. Starr will lead the existing creative resource and also look after the company’s placement scheme, which runs year-round.

Fran Docx joins as strategy director, having previously held positions at M&C Saatchi, CP+B, and Saatchi & Saatchi. Fran will head up all creative projects to ensure strategic rigour and will also play a key part in refining 20something’s own brand proposition as it approaches its first full year of trading.

Samuel Guillotel, a French national who has worked in London for the past four years, takes up a senior position as Art Director, heading up the company’s design, art direction and 3D offering.

Hannah Jones-Walters joins as business director from Mullen Lowe where she worked for the past three years and held the position of head of D&I, a role she will continue leading for 20something.

And finally, Casey Highfield joins as a designer, reporting to Guillotel and focusing on branding projects. Highfield graduated in Graphic Design from the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) last summer and joined the company on placement as the doors were opened.

Since launching in 2019, with the aim of challenging traditional industry processes, 20something has also worked in collaboration with more traditional London creative agencies and production companies to support their direct-to-client work.

Andrew Barnard, 20something co-founder said: “It’s been an amazing start, challenging our ideas and assumptions around process changes and adapting as we learn. What we know for certain though, is there is no end of creative briefs that need answering, and how they need approaching varies greatly. The traditional set up feels increasingly restrictive in a world that’s moving in so many different directions. With these hires, we have our core team in place, from here we flex numbers and diversify skill sets as each brief dictates. Will and I are delighted to have been able to attract this level of talent so soon; it seems there are as many people within the industry looking for new types of creative company as there are marketeers looking for alternative ways to engage."