Graze Co-Founder Tom Newton Joins Hell Yeah! as Strategy Head

Tom joins among a raft of senior hires

Tom Newton, co-founder and head of marketing at Graze, has joined creative agency Hell Yeah! as strategy partner, as the agency expands its strategy, creative, design and client services teams. 

As Graze co-founder and head of marketing, Tom helped take the brand from an idea through to a sale to Unilever. He created an in-house agency for the brand, covering packaging, advertising, research, content, copy and design – and oversaw more than 1000 line launches; a launch in the US – and created the most successful FMCG launch in Europe ever (according to The Grocer). Tom has also previously run his own brand consultancy for challenger brands. 

Tom will be supporting Hell Yeah! to develop the agency’s strategic offering, supporting scale up clients with growth strategy and consultancy.

Also joining Hell Yeah! are Joanne Hill as client service director, Fiona White, and Michele Bona as creative directors, along with Shaymus Smith as senior designer.

Joanne Hill brings with her nine years of agency-side experience on global clients. She was most recently at Mother, where she worked on KFC and Adidas, and prior to that worked at Uncommon, St Lukes and Grey. Joanne is also a qualified coach, and mentors through the Bloom network.

Adding to the agency’s creative experience are Fiona White, who joins as creative director with experience on clients including Olio, Cuvva, Bacardi, The Body Shop and LinkedIn. Fiona spent several years as an associate CD at Brands2Life, as well as working client side as a digital marketing manager at Heinz.

Michele joins as creative director and brings above-the-line experience for brands such as Peroni, Nike, KitKat, Beko and Visa from agencies including Ogilvy, Rankin, Wunderman Thompson, R/GA and more. Shamus arrives at Hell Yeah! from Fifty Digital, where he worked on a range of sport and lifestyle brands, including FIFA, New Balance and NBA.

Dulcie Cowling, co-founder and executive creative director at Hell Yeah! said: “We’ve won some great new clients in the past year, from challenger brands to bigger, more established names, and we’re delivering really effective, creative work growing their brands – and so we needed to grow our own too.

“Tom’s  experience at Graze, and continued expertise working with founders and brands to grow between means he brings a unique perspective and expertise as part of the Hell Yeah! team. We’re incredibly working as strategic consultants in our client’s growth journey and Tom brings huge expertise to support this.

“Joanne, along with Tom, will be instrumental in our ambitious client growth plans for the coming years, and Fiona and Michele will be supporting this too with great strategic, creative ideas. We’re committed to being one of the very best places to work in the industry, and we know the new members of the team will help shape the agency as we grow.”