Founder & Managing Director
Rachel founded Start in 2016 after building her career in senior marketing leadership roles across financial services, technology and business support. As a Chartered Marketer, Rachel specialises in marketing strategy, positioning, campaign delivery and communications, helping organisations turn ambitious ideas into practical marketing plans that deliver real results. And when she’s not working, she can be found in the sunny climes of Cheshire, with her family and their cavapoo.
Rachel's career spans senior marketing, communications and business development leadership roles across financial services, technology, professional services and purpose-driven organisations. Before founding Start, she held senior positions within organisations including Santander UK, NatWest Group, The Growth Company and CloudM, leading brand, communications, demand generation and marketing strategy across complex B2B environments.
Today, Rachel leads Start's strategic direction, supporting clients through consultancy, fractional marketing leadership and delivery-led marketing programmes. She is particularly passionate about helping organisations bring clarity to their marketing, develop stronger positioning and messaging, and build the right teams around their ambitions. Through Start's unique curated creatives model, clients also gain access to a trusted network of carefully selected freelance and independent specialists, providing flexible expertise across the full marketing mix – a network Rachel is proud to have spent almost two decades building and supporting.
Rachel is a CIM Chartered Marketer, Fellow of the Institute of Data & Marketing (FIDM) and holds the prestigious High Impact Leadership certification from the University of California, Berkeley. Alongside her commercial work, she is a Trustee of the Greater Manchester Mayor's Charity, mentors for the Creative Mentor Network and is a passionate advocate for healthy marketing ecosystems that bring together in-house teams, agencies, freelancers and fractional specialists to deliver the best possible outcomes for clients.
Whether working with organisations in Manchester, Cheshire, London or further afield, Rachel is known for combining commercial thinking with genuine partnership, helping clients make marketing feel structured, calm and effective. Rachel is affectionately known as the ‘marketing matchmaker’ among her peers. And when she’s not working, she can be found in the sunny climes of Cheshire, with her husband Chris, her children Teddy and Nelly and their dog Ethel.
Client Services Director
With more than two decades of marcomms experience spanning agency, in-house and consultancy roles, Vicky brings strategic communications and marketing expertise and calm project leadership to every client relationship. From PR and media relations to campaign management and stakeholder communications, Vicky thrives on working closely with clients to keep projects moving and teams aligned.
Vicky has built her career helping organisations tell their stories more effectively. From leading PR and communications teams to delivering integrated marketing campaigns, she has worked across sectors including professional services, economic development, charities, business support and the public sector, always combining strategic thinking with practical delivery. Before joining Start, Vicky held senior roles with organisations including The Growth Company, GC Business Growth Hub, gunnercooke and Rumpus PR, developing a reputation for trusted advice, thoughtful communications and strong client relationships.
At Start, Vicky oversees client services, ensuring every project is delivered to the highest standard and every client receives the responsive, personal support that defines the Start approach. She is particularly passionate about communications strategy, media relations, content, stakeholder engagement and helping organisations communicate with authenticity in an increasingly fast-moving digital world.
Whether supporting a retained client, leading a campaign or bringing together our curated creatives around a specific brief, Vicky's focus is always on making marketing feel organised, collaborative and effective.
An Accredited Practitioner of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Vicky believes that great communications are built on trust, empathy and genuine human relationships. She enjoys working collaboratively with clients, colleagues and partners alike, bringing calm leadership and commercial thinking to every project.
Vicky is based in South Manchester, and outside work she's a keen supporter of community initiatives, including offering pro bono communications support to the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity. She's also passionate about helping organisations create meaningful impact through better communication.
What makes Start different is the way we work. Alongside our core team, we collaborate with a trusted network of carefully selected specialists… it’s what we call our ‘curated creatives'. Whether a client needs designers, developers, photographers, videographers, digital experts, copywriters or another specialist, we will build the right team around every project. So clients get the ongoing support they need and experts on demand, at a price that makes sense. This is specialist expertise, without the overheads or complexity of a traditional agency model.
And we don’t just work with freelancers and consultants - we partner with a broad range of agencies, consultancies, studio-sized operations and independents too.
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