Angus Crowther

Founding Partner, Client Services Lead

Angus is the Co-Founder of Alchemists and is a specialist at new business and growth, having led over 300 high-impact pitches for some of the world's leading brands including Lloyds Banking Group, Delta Air Lines, Samsung and GoCompare. He is also the Client Lead for some of our other services including in-house agency creation, Client/Agency evaluations and Ways of Working. Prior to founding Alchemists in 2019, Angus helped set up Oystercatchers and was part of the management team who sold the company to Centaur Media in 2017. Angus also has 15 years' experience agency side working in Hong Kong, Madrid and London and has invaluable knowledge of the agencies and their key people. He also understands how to get the best out of agencies and how to empower Marketing teams to do so. Angus speaks French, Spanish and German but is nonetheless a champion for English wine. 

Vlad Komanicky

Founding Partner, Commercial & Strategy Lead

Vlad co-founded Alchemists in early 2019 with Angus, and was part of the team that sold Oystercatchers to Centaur Media, where he headed up the Consultancy practice. Vlad has run major consultancy projects for EY, Post Office and Invesco among others. Vlad has worked client side for GSK where he was the Global Category Leader for Creative/Professional agencies and prior to that, worked in senior procurement positions for Vodafone, Mars, John Lewis and RBS. Vlad has a remarkable ability to combine creativity with an ability to master numbers, data and complex strategic concepts. 

Anna Gregori

Programme Director

Anna joined us in January 2021 from Virgin Atlantic. She leads the Alchemists' delivery team and manages client consultations, focused on global agency consolidation, internal ways of working and stakeholder alignment. Anna places real pride in her focus on building upon Alchemists' strong client reputation by creating a framework for excellence to ensure every customer touch point is coherent, consistent and exceptional.

Henry Wisdom

Head of Commercial Consultancy

Henry leads numerous agency relationship management and evaluation initiatives at Alchemists alongside brokering deals between agencies and clients.  He is passionate about setting partnerships up for success from the very start with commercial components and approaches that are right for the maturity and sophistication of the relationship. Henry returns to Marketing Advisory after time client-side leading the Marketing procurement function across Intersnack Group.  During his time there he led the organisation through an extensive media agency consolidation exercise and pitch.  Henry has previously delivered commercially game-changing projects for the likes of Samsung, McDonald's, AXA IM and Sainsbury's.

Maria Kiuber

Project Director 

Maria is an expert Project Director with experience working on various complex projects including consolidation and pitch processes. Maria has a wealth of experience working in both agencies and marketing consultancies, most recently managing L'Oréal and eBay at McCann. 

Emma Harrison

Project Manager

Emma is an experienced Project Manager who supports a number of our projects for including agency evaluation and pitch processes. Emma joined Alchemists from NatWest Group where she spent 5 years working across a range of customer facing projects and supported the successful delivery of a large, high-profile project in India. 

Lenka Ornova

Data Analytics, Budget & Finance Consultant

Lenka is an experienced finance and commercial professional with agency and accounting background. Lenka has led several data and commercial analytics consultancy assignments for some of our biggest clients. Prior to joining Alchemists she was overseeing inter-company reporting in a global Tier 1 agency on a regional level (60+ offices).

Roo Mackie

Strategy Lead

Roo is an expert in helping to empower marketing organisations using her understanding of the potential in brand, marketing and people. A strategic planner by training Roo has helped shaped brands and businesses such as EY, UBS, Capco, Joelsons Law and ThinCats as well as, Brintons, Xbox & McVities. Roo has worked extensively across North America and Canada, Australia and EMEA. Roo combines her knowledge of brand and marketing to help build more effective marketing functions – through structural change, ways of working and people development. She has led transformation projects for organisations including EY, BlackRock, TSB, Sanofi, Anglian Water and Royal Mail. Roo is also an AOEC Accredited Executive Coach.

Louise Fowler

Strategy Lead

Louise’s talent lies in her ability to combine clear strategic thinking with pragmatic, commercial insight and a collaborative style. A former CMO, Louise has deep service-sector experience including 15 years in financial services. Louise has led customer & marketing for Barclays, Co-op Bank, first direct, Post Office & British Airways. Louise has had C-suite commercial, operational and P&L accountability, understanding how solutions work for our clients’ business and has led transformation programmes for M&S, AXA, O2, BBC, RBS, HSBC, & Allianz among others. Louise speaks fluent French, Spanish and has worked in USA, South Africa & France.

Allisyn James

Senior Consultant, Ways of Working & Training

Allisyn blends intellectual curiosity with a real practitioners drive for delivery and results, balancing the needs of the consumer with the needs of the business. Allisyn has had over 20 years experience working in multiple categories functions and geographies. Allisyn had run global marketing ways of working and training programmes for brands including Royal Mail, GSK and McDonald’s.

Russel Wohlwerth

Head of Agency Search, USA

For more than 20 years, Russel has been advising companies around the world on all aspects of marketing agency supplier management. His curiosity, broad experience and creativity have made him one of the most highly regarded consultants in the field. Russel sees marketing agency supplier management as a complex system involving much more than just firing and hiring agencies. Although he has conducted searches accounting for billions of dollars in billings, Russel’s greatest achievements have been revitalizing client-agency relationships and reengineering marketing departments and agency rosters. Russel has previously led projects for Activision Blizzard, Adobe, BMW, GSK, HP, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Major League Soccer, Nintendo, Porsche, Pringles, Wells Fargo Bank, Visa and many others. Russel has conducted more than 25 complex global consulting assignments and searches including several prominent international media reviews.

Simon Tilden

Senior Consultant

Simon likes to stand in the future to defined innovative solutions to marketing challenges and turns these into reality. He spent 20+ years agency side in London and Moscow working for Saatchi, D’Arcy and McCann leading assignments for brand owners such as Mars, P&G, Unilever, Philips, Reebok, Wrangler and Gillette to name but a few. In 2006 he joined Diageo as Global Category Director Advertising leading a global commercial team responsible for improving value and effectiveness from A&P, the development and implementation of marketing operational change programs and bringing innovations and the best agency, production, M&E and technology talent to Diageo marketing. Simon led global creative pitches for all Diageo brands Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, J&B etc. He’s passionate about the power of consumer insight to inform creativity and was an IPA Effectiveness' Awards judge in 2012.

Geoff Parkin

Chairman and Strategic Council

Geoff Parkin is a consumer markets expert and has broad experience assisting UK and international corporate and private equity clients with mission critical strategic issues, commercial performance improvement plans and due diligence assignments. He is a partner at L.E.K and previously worked in commercial line management roles for British Airways and American Express, based in London, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Geoff graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Sciences from U.M.I.S.T. and studied Corporate Finance at London Business School.

Yasar Khan

Financial Director

Yasar is a pragmatic business leader and entrepreneur with a background encompassing some of the world’s biggest brands. Yasar graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Engineering before joining accountancy giant Deloitte as an auditor. Over the following 20 years Yasar enjoyed high profile positions with one of the world’s major beverage companies Pepsi Co, followed by roles at Celerant Consulting and DHL.