Smarts Hires Ben Shaw as Group Head of Strategy
Smarts, MSQ’s award-winning PR, social and creative agency, has named Ben Shaw as group head of strategy, as it continues to invest in best-in-class expertise and capabilities that fuel client growth.
Ben will be based in Smarts' London office and will report to Colin Corbridge, the agency's chief strategy and creative officer.
The appointment of Ben underlines Smarts’ commitment to further elevating the work it’s doing for a client list that already includes Diageo, The LEGO Group, Asda, Zalando, People’s Postcode Lottery, Tommy Hilfiger and Booking.com, with significant investment in ensuring it is a world-leader in providing cutting-edge earned expertise across media, social, creator and talent.
Most recently, Ben was the chief strategy officer of MullenLowe UK, where he spent almost two years working on Unilever, The Children’s Society and UK Government activity, amongst others.
Prior to MullenLowe UK, Ben had held both agency and client roles. He was the VP, marketing global of wellbeing business, Unmind, and the director of brand and comms at luxury chauffeur-hailing business, Wheely, and also spent over a decade at BBH, including three years as the head of its social, content and data specialists, BBH Live, as well as two years as head of strategy of BBH London, and a stint as chief strategy officer of BBH USA.
Colin Corbridge, group chief strategy and creative officer, says, “As we work with an ever-growing list of brands that are tapping into culture to help deliver their commercial ambitions, we need the very best in the business on board to ensure that the work we’re producing earns attention and builds meaningful moments that work as hard as they can. Ben brings a track record that speaks for itself, and I couldn’t be happier that we’re able to be his new strategy home.”
Ben says, “The best ideas are famous enough to be talked about and big enough to endure. Where, how and when we find and enjoy those ideas has changed. The whole industry is trying to keep up, but some agencies are on the frontier of something new. Smarts is riding out into the horizon and I’m delighted to be jumping in the wagon to help discover new lands and new riches for our clients.”
Ben joins Smarts following a year of evolution for the group – in 2025 it won new business including Asda, The LEGO Group and People’s Postcode Lottery and made major new hires such as Jess MacIntyre and Nat Moores as brand futures directors.
Meanwhile its Social and Creator Hub units both grew significantly, winning social activity from the likes of Wingstop and Tommy Hilfiger.
Smarts now has around 200 experts working across the UK, Europe and the US. It is part of MSQ, one of the world’s fastest-growing marketing groups, allowing it to tap into market-leading data, martech and AI tools and services.
Pippa Arlow, the global CEO of Smarts, says, “As our industry evolves at such speed, we recognise how important it is to shape our Group in a way that can truly deliver success for our clients. That means investing in areas that match their growing ambitions, enabling us to be growth partners and providing broader and deeper comms capabilities. In Ben, we have a senior leader who knows what it means to be a trusted client partner, who can work closely with our brilliant and talented existing team to set a new agenda in 2026 and beyond.”
