There’s a black and white picture on the wall of the Yorkshire textile mill that HUB calls home that any visitor cannot miss.
It depicts a large whitewashed room with wooden beams and a sparse table occupied by the agency’s co-founders, Chris and Helen Hudson, and creative director Simon Pluck.
It could almost pass as minimalist office chic, but the rudimentary set-up is in fact a daily reminder of the humble beginnings of an agency that last month reported annual revenues of over £10 million.
Holly Park Mills dates back to the 1860s, when its various buildings – located seven miles to the west of Leeds city centre – were a hive of weaving, scribbling and spinning.
Today, the looms have been replaced by computers and the mix of marketing services span everything from digital and data to photography and media buying.
That sparse table, meanwhile, has been upgraded to an impressively spacious collection of offices and studios – with expansion plans in the offing.
Such a comfortable, semi-rural setting is what partly convinced Rob Shaw, formerly CEO of Epiphany, Jaywing and CreativeRace, to shun a “semi-retirement” of non-exec directorships and take another agency role.
“I don’t mind saying that I had quite a few options,” Shaw told Prolific North. “I was like, I’m done now, and I had some non exec roles lined up.”
But when Shaw met up with co-founders Chris and Helen Hudson, they hit it off instantly.
“Chris and Helen have an incredible work ethic and an incredibly close connection to both the clients and the people here, and that just completely resonated with me,” he said.
