About Us
We are CRC.
Yes, we are CRC. An international family of Consultants, data experts, reporting experts, and insights experts unified in our mission to help put your relationships back at the heart of business. We see relationships as the key success in our own business too - our people are our strength. We aim to provide them with an energizing, caring environment to thrive and grow wherever they operate. Because we know when our people are thriving and growing, our agency clients are, too. Our values are strong in our culture – Curiosity, Care, Quality and Empathy - and are at the heart of who we are. You’d be amazed at how close-knit this group of different accents, nationalities, cultures, and expertises truly are.
We also are:
An independently owned client-relationship consultancy founded in 2004
Offices in London, Boston, Munich, and Sydney
Working with all the large global agency networks as well as independents - 1,230 agency offices in 92 countries
Across the entire marketing services spectrum – including advertising, PR, digital, and media
Deep industry expertise, with distance and objectivity
Trained relationship experts, providing a fresh perspective and a push when necessary
We put relationships back at the heart of business
Singular focus – we only work with agencies (not with clients) to gather relationship intelligence
Belief – Relationships are one of the most powerful and yet most underutilized levers for growth, morale and margin
Ambition - to support agencies to take a more strategic approach to the way they manage relationships, minimising risk and maximising opportunity
Benefits for agencies working with CRC:
Ultimately it’s about growth
Relationship growth, income growth, improved morale, motivation, productivity and therefore margins
Saving business that was destined for a review
Developing satisfied clients into partnership clients for mutual growth and reward
Our leadership team:
CEO
Phil Reilly
After twenty-five years in advertising, Phil joined The Client Relationship Consultancy in 2012 to run our US Operations. He became the Global CEO of CRC in 2018. Prior to that, Phil was an advertising executive with a unique range of experience over his career at such agencies as Arnold Worldwide, Pagano Schenck and Kay, and DDB Chicago, holding roles ranging from Executive Producer in Broadcast Production, Director of Digital, Director of Integrated Marketing, Director of Business Development, and finally Managing Partner, Chief Brand Officer overseeing the Account Management and Project Management Groups at Arnold Worldwide. It was in his roles at Arnold where Phil experienced TRR for over 5 years before joining the company. He also attended the 4A’s Executive Leadership Program and served on the New England Board of the 4A’s.
HEAD OF EMEA
Anna Hopwood
Anna spent over 20 years of her working life in advertising agencies, most recently at adam&eveDDB running client business from highly creative boutique clients to global business. She spent time as a Strategy Director, has led account management departments (agency and group level) and headed up New Business. Her agency experience fueled her desire to help agencies more effectively manage their client relationships for better work, margin and morale in what is an increasingly challenging climate. Anna is a CRC Relationship Consultant herself and oversees our consultancy offering which seeks to support and empower our agencies by combining the art of relationship management with the insight of our data.
CFO
Chris Jones
Chris is our Chief Financial Officer, joining us in 2022 following our growth investment from Coniston Capital, and serves on our board of directors. Chris has over 25 years of financial, commercial and operational leadership for fast-growth technology businesses, both public and private. Chris will lead CRC through an exciting period of continued growth and innovation.
His prior leadership roles include CFO at Arcus Global Limited, Finance Director at Zinwave Limited and Group Financial Controller at Ubisense Group plc. Chris began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, qualifying as a chartered accountant.
Chris holds degrees in History from the University of Oxford and University of Kent.
Outside of work, Chris is father to a maths genius and budding superstar footballer and, himself a regular but slow parkrunner.
Enneagram Type: 9
MBTI: INTP
Chief Digital Transformation Officer
Emily Ashby
Emily is a leading global digital innovator with 20 years’ experience building outstanding teams and delivering robust revenue generating experiences. Infusing her design ethos across an organisation, enables multidisciplinary teams to cocreate innovative and compelling results for the company and for the end user, across mediums and platforms worldwide. Emily is a big picture thinker that loves to work with visionary CEOs to drive impact and growth across all levels of the business or ecosystem.
When not transforming her working world, Emily enjoys the adventures of mum life, nurturing a blended family of three wonderful children with her husband.
Our team leads:
Diana Fiore
Diana joined CRC in 2014 as an Account Manager and has grown into our Executive General Manager of the US operation. Diana’s background in Account Management, Human Resources and psychology and has fueled her growth and success. Diana has experience partnering with all teams across CRC. As a leader within the organization, Diana is now responsible for the general management of our US operation and is involved with new business, building effective teams to support our agency partners and ensuring work functions are performed successfully in line with our strategic business objectives.
EXECUTIVE GENERAL MANAGER, US
Alicia Poole
Alicia joined CRC in 2017 as an Account Manager and has grown into our US Product Team Lead. Alicia has previous experience in the advertising industry, as well as extensive knowledge of CRC’s products, systems and processes. As a leader overseeing our team’s client facing work and output, Alicia ensures the flawless delivery and execution of our deliverables to our agency partners, in line with our strategic business objectives.
PRODUCT TEAM LEAD, US
Charlotte Hill
Charlotte joined CRC in 2015 as a Product Manager and has grown her career here, now heading up our Product Delivery Team in London. Charlotte is responsible for ensuring the Product Team deliver the highest quality service to our agencies enabling them to get the most from each of our products. Through her keen eye for detail, and a passion for processes, Charlotte has helped develop best practice solutions to support our team in providing a flawless experience for our clients.
PRODUCT TEAM LEAD, UK
Brittney Rizo
Brittney has been with CRC since 2018 and is passionate about transforming data into high-impact insights that provide value to an organization’s strategies and relationships. Leading a team of US Insight Analysts and working across the Business Intelligence team, she works to develop new levels of industry knowledge, and guides a team of data storytellers. Brittney is committed to ensuring client feedback is transformed into compelling stories to support our consultancy and to help agencies effectively manage their relationships.
CLIENT INSIGHTS LEAD
Joe La Torre
Joe joined CRC in 2016 as a Product Manager and has evolved into the role of Industry Insights Lead. He is responsible for transforming our vast base of normative data into impactful industry insights and benchmarks as a support for our consultancy and to ultimately empower our agency partners with actionable outcomes. Joe works across several transformative projects in order to further develop and grow our Insights Centre of Excellence.
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS LEAD
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