OUR TEAM

The right mix and balance

OB Consulting has decades of strategic and creative expertise and experience in building brands across multiple industries. Insurance and financial services, construction and property, tech and engineering sectors. Combined with digital and design production, asset delivery and project management.

 

Our core team and supporting strategic partnerships, are all specialists in their field of expertise, from brand, pr, marketing and business strategy, to creative, design, digital and technology.

Jonathan Squirrell

Founder & Director OB Brand Consulting

Jonathan started design agency, Barefoot, in 1993, delivering brand and marketing solutions to professional services clients. He merged his agency with old friend Julian Atkins to form OceanBarefoot in 2006, and more recently they opened OB Brand Consulting. Jon has been key to agency successes throughout the insurance sector, including brand consultation for Pro Global, Ebix, LMG, LIIBA, LIMOSS, Lloyd’s, PPL, CII and TOM. He initiated and led OB’s involvement as Project Manager for the Insurance Museum initiative, alongside building the museum’s brand, strategy and campaigns.

Julian Atkins

Founder & Director OB Brand Consulting

Julian started his professional creative life as an Architect at Aukett Associates, before founding his own agency Ocean Creative in 1999, delivering brand and marketing solutions to insurance software providers. In 2006, he joined forces with his old friend Jonathan Squirrell to form OceanBarefoot, and then more recently they opened OB Brand Consulting together. During this time, Julian has worked with a breadth of clients including AXA, QinetiQ, Equifax, Ebix, LMG, LIIBA, LIMOSS, Lloyd’s, PPL, CII, Carbon Underwriting and TOM, and more recently has been the driving force behind the Insurance Museum initiative, building the museum brand, strategy and campaigns.

Nicola Manning

Marketing Manager OB Consulting

Nicola began her marketing career at London-based branding consultancy CDT, helping the agency to build their reputation within the professional services sector. Building on this experience, in 2008, Nicola then led the marketing department at top 10 brand consultancy, Purpose. Her role focussed on raising the agency profile and project managing campaigns to help achieve key business objectives. Since then, Nicola has been working with OB Brand Consulting managing the marketing activity for the business as well as acting as a key client contact to ensure a smooth running of all brand, marketing and ongoing digital projects.

Vanessa Marchant

Consultant Creative Lead OB Consulting

Vanessa is a senior digital and design strategist, and consultant creative lead on many key projects at OB Brand Consulting. Vanessa has developed expertise from nearly 26 years in the industry, with extensive experience in the publishing sector and agency side at senior and team lead level. She brings to bare her broad skill sets, as well as building and delivering successful, integrated digital campaigns for OB's clients, within both the insurance sector and for wider industry leaders.

Debbie Gossington

Consultant Design Lead OB Consulting

A creative and versatile graphic designer with over twenty years agency experience. Debbie began her career with London agency Wonderland Design, working with clients such as PRS, Swiss Bank and Motorola. After living in Sweden for two years, Debbie returned to the UK, joining a South London based agency, heading up the creative team and later moving to a strategic brand consultancy as a Senior Designer. Debbie is now the Consultant Design Lead at OB and works on a breadth of branding, print and digital focused projects.

Sarah Begley

Account Manager OB Brand Consulting

For almost 20 years, Sarah worked at IPC/Time Magazines, where she led a team of designers and account managers/print buyers, tasked with the creation, coordination and delivery of marketing collateral for well-established brands such as Country Life, Marie Claire and Woman & Home. Sarah led the team through dramatic changes in publishing, as requirements gradually evolved from direct mail and print based promotions, to include a growing emphasis on digital communications. Since joining OB Brand Consulting, Sarah has worked with a number of key clients to ensure all projects are delivered on time through a well-coordinated approach to every aspect of the project.

Helen Wright

Managing Director Lysander PR

Helen is an experienced former journalist and communications professional who has worked in the media since the start of her career as an intern at the Financial Times, in 2007. She held senior reporting and then editing roles at trade publications before moving into PR in 2017 as an associate at Lysander PR. Now Managing Director, she is proud to lead a diverse, good humoured and highly talented team of like-minded experts. Helen is passionate about resilience and the positive role insurance and technology can play in improving lives.

Joe Malone

Account Director Lysander PR

Joe began his career in local newspapers before moving into trade press covering the global construction industry. He went on to become Editor of International Rental News before moving into the insurance sector in 2018, working for AXA Health as Internal Communications Manager. In 2021, Joe was made Head of Internal Communications for AXA Global Healthcare, where he implemented a fresh internal communications strategy, led on a CEO change communications project and helped bring three AXA entities under one International Private Medical Insurance (IPMI) Division. Joe joined Lysander in April 2023, initially on a freelance basis, and became a full-time employee at the start of 2024.

Michelle Worvell

Account Director Lysander PR

Michelle has more than 25 years of strategic communications experience in the insurance and professional and membership body sectors. Michelle was previously Editor of Insurance Age magazine and has held senior Director roles at the Chartered Insurance Institute and the United Grand Lodge of England, where she implemented new PR strategies, generated positive national coverage, managed high profile crisis communications issues, and was also responsible for internal communications, websites, member communications, marketing, and corporate communications.

Jeff Ward

Insurance Technology Entrepreneur

Visionary leader of the team that created the PPL electronic placing platform that is currently proving its value in enabling the London Insurance Market to keep placing and binding re/insurance business remotely.
A highly experienced Insurance Technology specialist and entrepreneur with 30+ years of proven leadership, innovation, business, marketing and sales skills. Insurance Day included Jeff in their list of top 50 industry influencers, and said that, "Jeff is recognised as a driving force behind industry modernisation initiatives, as well as for his vocal honesty about the necessity for the industry to revolutionise the way in which it does business".

OUR PARTNERS

Our strategic partners have years of experience and expertise in the market, and give OB Brand Consulting specialist support across (re)insurance PR, insurtech, and marketing and business strategy.

Staffed by industry experts, Lysander PR specialises in delivering PR, marketing and communications for the global (re)insurance industry and its technology providers.

Our key partnership with Lysander PR has helped us shape and deliver high profile industry focused PR, comms and content, including for the Insurance Museum, the CII and Ebix.

Fifty One Films is a full service production company specialising in creating high-end moving image, their work includes 2D and 3D animation, 360-degree filming, through to cinema-quality promos for large corporate organisations.

Together we’ve created impactful video content for clients such as BCO, Insurance Museum and Pro Global, really helping to bring their brands to life.

OceanBarefoot is an award-winning creative agency, working not only with established market-leading enterprises, but also tech and exciting entrepreneurial start-ups. Their mission is to build distinctive brands that add real value.

OceanBarefoot has provided full service creative design capability and expertise in delivering content, collateral and digital assets for over 10 years, and they have been central to our success across the sector.

Jeff Ward is a highly experienced Insurance Technology specialist and entrepreneur with 30+ years of strong and proven leadership, innovation, business, marketing and sales skills.

We have worked closely with Jeff since 2001 in many different scenarios and capacities, and together we have successfully delivered numerous insurtech brand projects including work for Ebix and PPL.

If you'd like to know more about what we do and how we might be
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