Challenger consultancy celebrates period of client growth, successful project go-live and hire of George Mayou from Fjord
LONDON, 17th July: Class35, the challenger consultancy, focused on solving the most complex organisational challenges of the digital era, has capped a successful period of client growth by hiring George Mayou as partner. George joins from Fjord, where he was a director, working across several high-profile accounts, including prestigious high-street retailers, as well as sitting on the UK leadership team of Accenture Interactive’s Design and Innovation agency.
The hire is a key milestone in Class35’s journey. Since beginning trading in January 2018, and officially launching six months ago, Class35 has grown its network of practitioners to over 250, and worked on a wide array of client challenges, including partnering with Pollinate to develop payments platform NatWest Tyl.
Class35 sets out to challenge the traditional consultancy model. The team specialises in delivering cross-discipline, change-focused digital programmes in complex environments. The founders created the business frustrated by a lack of value on offer for client businesses, and as an antidote to the inexperienced teams, generic frameworks and broken incentives of traditional consultancies.
Now, George Mayou is set to bolster the Class35 ranks and push the challenger onto a new level of growth, as the firm expands its capacity in the UK and moves further in its plans to launch internationally.
George Mayou said: “Our industry is becoming increasingly broken and clients are calling out for something new, and different. Nick and I have always shared a desire to challenge conventional wisdom, which has led us to do some great work together for our clients.
“It’s been a long-held dream to run my own design studio and recent experiences have changed what that means for me. In a world of connected working, the studio is no longer the four walls of an agency. It’s an interconnected workforce, brought together by virtual networks and spaces, and a shared mission, and Class35 is at the forefront of that movement. It’s amazing the impact that experienced and incentivised design practitioners can have for clients when you remove the nonsense and bureaucracy of big client service organisations, and that’s exactly what we are intending to do.”
George spent four years working across the design spectrum at Fjord as Design Director. Prior to this, George worked at Monitise Create, where he led the award-winning product design team behind the official FIFA World Cup App, Hub by Premier Inn, Santander’s Monzo frontrunner ‘Smartbank’ and an array of other flagship mobile apps for blue chip clients. At Fjord, his most high-profile contributions were in retail innovation projects, where he was instrumental in helping a high street home improvement giant, as well as an iconic health and beauty pharmacy, embrace new business models and launch new services.
It is not the first time that Parminter and Mayou have worked together. Both were early employees of Grapple and went on to hold leadership positions during a period of global growth for the mobile innovation agency, following its £39m acquisition by AIM-listed Monitise in 2013.
Nick Parminter, CEO and co-founder of Class35, said: “George is a real coup and a great sign of the progress we’ve been making. His vision, character and craft have always set him apart and his achievements speak for themselves. Few people have had a better vantage point from which to observe the converging consultancy and agency minefield and I can’t think of anyone better to help us reinvent our industry, which is so desperately in need of a new model.”
Ben Langdon, Chairman and co-founder of Class35, commented: “The team have made outstanding progress in a short time, proving their model and delivering impressive client work. The business has big ambitions and an exciting future. Characters like George are vital to delivering on this potential.”
George Mayou joins Class35’s UK leadership team and will be tasked with further developing Class35’s design and innovation offer, as well as its ever-expanding talent and partner network.
