Heavenly buys personal branding consultancy

As part of the move, Be A Brand managing director and founder James Fenner will join Heavenly’s senior management team as principal. Fenner will start his new role next week.

Be A Brand was established by Fenner in early 2009. Fenner had previously worked as strategy director for Interbrand in Sydney and planning director for DDB, also in Sydney. Be A Brand specialises in personal branding, and clients include pop stars Westlife and McFly, chefs Marcus Waring and Gary Rhodes, and Irish rugby player Tommy Bowe.

Richard Sunderland, founder and managing director of Heavenly, says, ’James will come in with a personal branding role and a broader client role,’ adding, ’He has strong experience in the fmcg and retail sectors.’ Sunderland says, ’James is a great coup for us and brings some invaluable experience in the burgeoning field of personal branding, which will add great value to our existing offering Halo.’

Fenner says, ’Bringing Be A Brand into Heavenly makes perfect sense. The guys are ambitious and up for redefining the way branding is done in the 21st century.’ Sunderland adds that there are ’definitely’ plans for expansion and more senior hires at Heavenly over the coming weeks.

Last year Heavenly acquired Martin Lambie-Nairn’s company ML-N, bringing partners Lambie-Nairn and Celia Chapman into their business (DW26 November 2009), with Lambie-Nairn joining Heavenly as creative director. Sunderland said at the time, ’We aim to bring in more big names.

We only have about ten designers in our team and want to attract new talent.’ Last December Nikki Jones, formerly a senior consultant at Wolff Olins, joined Heavenly as a principal (10 December 2009).