MSQ’s Brave Spark Makes Key Senior Hires as Part of Further Expansion Plans

Brave Spark, the award-winning creative studio, has made further additions to its new-look leadership team.

Katie Mulligan has joined Brave Spark as its first strategy director, to help define, deliver and steer the strategic output of the agency, working closely with creative, account teams and clients to build campaigns that resonate with real people in the real world.

Katie joins Brave Spark from Wunderman Thompson (now VML), where she helped lead strategy for brands including Avon, KitKat and Quality Street. She has also spent time at Grey London, The Future Factory, as well as a two-year stint at WPP Black Ops, delivering the strategy behind SK-II’s Olympic sponsorship campaign.

At Brave Spark she will work across the agency’s global client list, in partnership with the agency’s recently appointed executive creative director, Juliet McLaren, and reporting into chief executive, Rob Drake.

Rob said, “Katie is an important piece in the puzzle as we continue to raise the standards of our craft and help clients create bold, brave work that fulfils their ambitions. Katie is a disciplinary thinker who brings both strategic rigour and a passion for creativity, and is the perfect person to help champion and deliver brilliant thinking for modern brands.”

In addition to Katie, Brave Spark has also hired Matt Williams as its first new business & marketing director. Matt was previously the global head of marketing for Brave Spark’s parent group, MSQ, and will now be responsible for implementing and delivering Brave Spark’s new proposition, bringing its remarkable growth story to a wider audience and helping the studio identify and deliver new opportunities.

Matt has worked within the MSQ group for the past five years, initially joining in 2019 as head of content. Prior to that he spent seven years at Engine (now House 337), latterly as head of editorial content. He began his career in journalism, working as a reporter and content editor at Campaign.

Matt will take on the new role in March, working closely with Brave Spark’s founders, Rob Drake and Robin Shek, as well as its recently appointed managing director, Rebecca Vickery.

The new appointments at Brave Spark follow a record breaking year for the agency, which has seen the agency more than double in size in the past 18 months and win new clients including Virgin Experience Days, Which?, Trivento and ThermoFisher.

The agency, which became part of MSQ in 2021, opened its first overseas office in August in the shape of Brave Spark New York, and made further senior additions such as Rita Diria, a business director who joined from McCann London, and Beatrice Hug, who joined as a design lead from Karma Drinks.

Robin Shek, co-founder of Brave Spark, said, “Brave Spark's philosophy has always been to build an agency that’s at the cutting edge, with fresh thinking that helps clients solve the challenges they face in dynamic ways. Bringing in new talent like Katie and Matt is another important step – they’re collaborative, energetic and bursting with ideas, which is exactly what we’re looking for as we keep evolving our modern, vibrant leadership team.”

Katie said, “I’m super excited to be joining Brave Spark at a crucial point in their ascension. Their collective energy and desire to do things differently compelled me to jump onboard and I can’t wait to get cracking!”

Matt said, “Rob and Robin have put together a wonderfully diverse team of thinkers and makers and I’ve seen first-hand the vibrancy of their output and the culture that has been created. There’s a brilliant story to tell, exciting ambitions to achieve and I’m really pleased to be a part of the next stage in the journey.”