Mr B & Friends accelerates growth plans with senior promotions and Board appointments

By Peter Davison

18 September 2023

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Kate Gorringe and Adam Partridge

Two of the senior leadership team at Bristol-based branding agency Mr B & Friends have been promoted and appointed to the agency’s board level as the independent brand consultancy forges ahead with expansion plans.

Effective immediately, Kate Gorringe will become Executive Creative Director, and Strategy Director, Adam Partridge will step up to become Executive Strategy Director. They will take up places on the agency Board alongside CEO Simon Barbato, Chairman Peter Gandolfi and Managing Partner Ellie Wilson.

Kate Gorringe has been with Mr B & Friends for almost a decade. In her capacity as Creative Director she has led large-scale projects for Principality Building Society, Persimmon and Canada Life among others.

Leading the team of 13 creatives based in the Bristol office, Kate inspires the team to deliver truly extraordinary work to clients across a range of sectors.

Adam Partridge has led the agency Strategy and Planning department for the last seven years counting Bristol Bears, Bristol City Football Club and Hoare Lea among his successes.

His ability to identify and articulate a distinctive brand positioning is highly valued by both existing and prospective clients.

His new role has a broader strategic mandate to include the agency brand and marketing operation, product and service innovation and development and overseeing the strategic output of the Bristol and soon to be opened London office.

The promotions will enable Mr B & Friends CEO, Simon Barbato, more time to concentrate on the company’s expansion plans including the imminent opening of London. Once Mr B & Friends London is up and running in autumn, he’ll be exploring options for a US base, having already scoped out opportunities in the market over the last couple of years.

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Barbato said: “The appointment of Kate and Adam to Board level is testament to the skill and commitment they have shown over the years that I’ve worked with them.

"They’re both hugely talented and the best qualified people to drive the vision for Mr B & Friends forward. It also provides some much-needed headroom for other ambitious staff within the ranks.

"With such an array of talent on our Board now, I’m excited to be able to forge ahead with expanding our presence in new markets as we look to challenge the ordinary for brands on a global scale.”

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.