Brand Champions doubles annual revenue to £3m

Brand Champions has doubled annual revenue from £1.5m in 2025 to £3m in 2026 as demand grows for flexible and fractional marketing expertise.

The agency has expanded its network from 16 to 40 Champions since the start of the year and added six major clients across agriculture, hospitality, pharmaceuticals and the creative industries. New clients include Popeyes, Dexcom, Stada, Kew Green Hotels and AB Nutrition.

Brand Champions supplies experienced marketers for defined projects, growth periods and specialist assignments rather than relying solely on permanent client-side recruitment.

Founder and chief executive Fiona Wylie said: “The doubling of our revenue reflects a much broader change in how businesses are building their marketing teams. Companies are increasingly asking what expertise they need, when they need it and for how long, rather than assuming every capability must come through another permanent hire.”

The company’s growth coincides with increased demand for interim leadership more broadly. Heidrick & Struggles’ 2026 High-End Independent Talent Report found requests for interim chief marketing officers had risen 100% year on year, while requests for interim marketing and sales leaders increased 33%.

Across senior management, organisations are using temporary and fractional executives for restructuring, transformation, expansion and other periods when specialist experience may be required for months rather than years.

Marketing is particularly suited to that approach where requirements change between a brand launch, market entry, acquisition integration or a period of rapid customer growth. A company may need strategic leadership first and different specialist capabilities once execution begins.

The model can also alter the cost of accessing experienced executives. A permanent senior hire creates salary, recruitment and employment costs regardless of how workloads change, while fractional support can be bought around a defined requirement.

Continuity remains an important consideration. External specialists still need sufficient access to understand the organisation, work alongside internal teams and take responsibility for delivery rather than operate as detached advisers.

Brand Champions’ expansion from 16 to 40 people increases the range of skills it can deploy across clients. It also makes management of quality and consistency more important as a larger distributed network works across different sectors and assignments.

Wylie said clients increasingly want flexible support without losing the ownership and sector understanding associated with an internal team. The agency operates remotely, giving it a lower physical overhead than a conventional office-based model.

The £3m revenue figure demonstrates rapid growth in demand during 2026. Maintaining that level will depend on repeat work, client retention and the agency’s ability to preserve consistent delivery as the specialist network continues to expand.