Gavin Ingham Brooke
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Gavin Ingham Brooke leads Spada. He is a writer, film-maker and strategic communications consultant who advises leaders on a range of assignments from brand and corporate documentaries to crisis management.
He has founded several international concerns, most notably a specialist corporate communications consultancy called Infinite Global, with offices in London, New York, San Francisco and Chicago.
This started life in London as Spada which Gavin began in 1994, later merging with its smaller US counterpart, Infinite, in 2014. Gavin sold his majority shareholding to his former US partners and managers but retained the rights to the original Spada name.
With his son, pubtech entrepreneur Christopher Ingham Brooke, he also helped found Scribol Ltd, which now has top 150 US website and secondly, adtech start-up, Hexagram Labs Ltd – both of which have combined to form Pub Ocean, a $25M technology business which helps online publishers boost revenues and profitability.
Gavin is a keen traveller and linguist, an amateur poet and potter and is learning how to sing (which can try the patience of his family).
TORY SAUNDERS
Process and project Manager
Tory is Spada's process and project manager. Her mission is to ensure that all our projects and client programmes run on brief, on time and budget. She also heads Spada's internal systems and processes.
Tory has spent close on a decade in various forms of project management across the renewable energy and property sectors.
Her most recent role was in helping to pilot commercial scale solar farm developments through consent and planning stages. Before that, while at Good Energy's Feed-In Tariff team, she oversaw the growth of the company's small supplier database from 2,500 to 30,000 entries.
Tory graduated with a First in Ecology from Cardiff University and is a keen horse rider in her spare time.
TERESA VERNACCHIA
HEAD COACH (LANGUAGES)
Teresa is the lead coach in our five-strong Italian cultural and technical language programme for global fashion and other iconic brands.
A master practitioner of NLP (neuro linguistic programming), experienced teacher and accessories designer, Teresa has drawn on her varied career strands to create a unique coaching course in Italian for top executives and technical staff.
Coaching is tailored to the design, sourcing, product development, retail, marketing or manufacture sector - with original content adapted from a variety of Italian media, fashion and business sources.
Current and former clients include: Burberry, Paul Smith, Alexander McQueen, Ferrari, SMEG, University of Oxford, UCL, Oxford Brookes.
Education: La Sapienza University, Rome; Central St Martins College of Art and Design; London College of Fashion.
Simon StreTch
Senior Consultant
Property Marketing and PR
Simon is a real estate communications specialist who has advised clients in the investment, development, asset management and professional services space.
He has advised on some of London’s most significant development projects including Chelsea Barracks, Chiswick Park and Westfield Stratford City in addition to providing corporate communications support for clients including Aedas, Gerald Eve, M&G Real Estate and Parkridge (Prologis).
Alongside a long-held passion for media relations, Simon enjoys working with clients to articulate their vision and to deliver brand enhancing initiatives.
Noemie Mourot
Consultant
Property and Corporate PR
Noemie is a corporate and B2B PR professional with 10 years of experience in the retail/real estate, tech and health sectors across Europe. She specialises in helping global clients establish, consolidate or change their reputation through crafted messages that make advocacy more effective.
Noemie was key external PR adviser for Hammerson France between 2013-2019; PR lead around the opening of Les Terrasses du Port (Marseilles) in 2014; PR strategy lead for VIA Outlets in 2018-2019; B2B PR lead for Grosvenor Europe (2018).
MARK PATRON
precision marketing
Mark Patron is our data and CRM lead. He has 30 years’ experience in data driven marketing.
Mark co-founded leading data businesses such as Claritas, Abacus and Transactis. He was part of the management team that developed the revenues of VNU’s marketing information business, now called Nielsen market research, from $150 million in 1994 to $2.5 billion by 2001. More recently as CEO he grew RedEye to be one of the top two UK based email marketing automation businesses.
Mark has been a director of over 50 UK, Continental and US data driven marketing companies. He was voted one of UK’s 15 most influential direct marketers by readers of Precision Marketing magazine.
PAUL HOdgKINSON
Copywriter
Paul read English Language and Linguistics at Leeds University and has over thirty-five years’ experience as a writer and creative director in London’s top ad agencies.
After a decade in the business winning numerous industry awards, he dropped out of advertising altogether and travelled extensively, teaching English from China to Chile.
Years later, he fetched up in adland again, continuing to write highly successful TV campaigns for blue chip clients like NatWest, Nike, British Airways and P&O.
As a freelancer, he now creates a wide range of brand communications for the Gates Foundation, the UN, USAID, Action Aid as well as a wide range of development, public sector and counter-extremism organisations.
PHIL CLEAVER
GRAPHIC DESIGN LEAD
Multi-award winning Professor Phil Cleaver is our brand design guru and one of the UK’s foremost corporate identity and book designers.
Graduating with a First from Central St Martins School of Art and Design, Phil initially honed his craft with many of the industry’s greats – Alan Fletcher of Pentagram, Bob Gill and Wim Crowell of Total Design in Holland.
Phil later worked alongside Michael Wolff of Wolff Olins working on iconic briefs such as 3i before becoming a Creative Director of Allied International Designers (AID) where he led global corporate identity assignments for companies such as Alstrom, Commercial Bank of Kuwait and United Transport.
Since the late 1980s he has led a versatile, heavyweight studio which has tackled every type of design challenge ranging from international banks, lawyers such as Eversheds, Lawrence Graham and Withers, High Street brands such as Douwe Egberts, travel groups such as First Great Western, causes such as Survival International, Countryside Properties and public sector bodies such as Derby and Cardiff City Councils – as well as a series of deluxe specialist books.
In addition to his many publishing awards, Phil is the recipient of a coveted design oscar, the D&AD Yellow Pencil, for the most outstanding corporate identity in a seven year period. He is also a D&AD judge, a founding tustee of the Monotype Museum, a professor in the creative industries for Middlesex University London, and Visiting Professor of Typography at Birmingham City University.
Marco Bettoni
italian Language Coach
Marco has twenty five years of top-level experience as a university lecturer, business language coach and school teacher.
He has taught in the City for organizations such as London Stock Exchange, Goldman Sachs and Visa and has previously given Italian language coaching for fashion & design houses such as Aquascutum, Michael Kors and Designers Guild.
His interest in fashion took root with a fashion drawing course as a teenager. This was followed by a first degree in visual arts from Bergamo and then an MA in Fine Art/Printmaking from Camberwell, University of the Arts.
Always keen to refine his technique, he has attended numerous teacher development courses including the use of drama, interactive games and IT in the classroom.
He remains passionately interested in painting, sculpture, photography and music.
Robert pay
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING PLANNING
A qualified business coach and market researcher based in New York, Robert has previously led the marketing and business development functions at London Stock Exchange, Clifford Chance and Taylor Wessing.
In an international consulting career spanning twenty five years he has also advised scores of professional service firms, ranging from Big Four accountancy practices to Magic Circle law firms as well divers smaller practices.
His forte is in devising key account and developing marketing plans that drive revenues: expertise that is extolled in his own book Designing a Key Relationship Program: Building Stronger Client Relationships.
He is currently writing a book on using social media to underpin relationship management.
A graduate of Oxford University and the Cass Business School, London he speaks fluent French, German and Spanish. He is a UK and US citizen.
barbara resta
italian Language Coach
Barbara originally trained and practised as a lawyer.
She is a graduate of La Sapienza, University of Rome, and worked in various law firms before joining the in-house legal team of Assicurazioni Generali in London.
Having completed successfully her LLM (Master of Law) at UCL, Barbara decided that she needed to do something different – channelling her energies into working with - and for - people as opposed to engaging in adversarial matters.
In addition to her fashion work for Spada she has taught Italian for agencies, mainly organizing Italian courses for law firms and banks, and has also been an Italian tutor for UCL.