Co-Founder, MIDSMITH

Oliver Smith offers 19 years of marketing experience, including but not limited to his role as Head of Marketing & Sales for his own luxury fashion retail brand, established in 2005, as well as marketing for music, dance, education, events, care, nutrition, and recruitment services. He is extremely empathetic to niche business needs and possesses a broad knowledge base of different industries, languages, cultures, and strategies, combined with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Oliver is truly vocationally driven and people-centric, having additionally spent nine years working in education, including special education needs. He is confident and passionate about developing solutions that activate brand DNA across different experiential touchpoints, using data and creativity to optimise sales campaigns for maximum conversions. Oliver loves to develop and participate in communities for inspiration and draws upon authenticity to build trust while supporting brands in achieving their bespoke business goals.

Oliver brings a holistic outlook to his work due to a broad life experience, including time spent overseas. This approach allows him to connect with diverse audiences, cultivate a wide network, and consider a global business landscape for measured results.

Possessing a deep understanding of unique business needs—including supply chain dynamics, inflation challenges, sales growth, evolving consumer behaviour, and market trends—Oliver ensures that each plan aligns with the brand’s core values.

In tandem with his creative, scientific, and analytical methodologies, he highly values networking and provides outreach solutions to drive brand partnerships, offering thoughtful and transformative solutions for emerging brands. Whether conceptualising innovative campaigns, implementing effective omnichannel approaches, providing creative direction, managing community engagement, or driving point-of-sale conversions across physical and digital channels such as in-store, at events, or via e-commerce, Oliver is an asset to any business.

With extensive experience balancing website development, social media, analytics, email marketing, and CRM, along with business-to-consumer and business-to-business development such as wholesale, he knows how to manage multiple projects quickly and to a high standard.

Co-Founder, MIDSMITH

Sophie is a hospitality marketing specialist with 10 years of experience who is passionate about brand, marketing, and communications strategy. She began her career with a professional food blog called “The Fabulous Foodie,” which led to an opportunity to write for the Mail on Sunday newspaper. She understands the importance of well-aligned influencer endorsement, having been a full-time professional food influencer from 2015 to 2018.

Over the last eight years, Sophie has worked for hotel groups in London and Dubai, including Jumeirah, Marriott, Sofitel, InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, and Hilton. She has supported restaurant renovations such as Bounty Beets at Le Méridien Mina Seyahi Dubai and Kinaara at InterContinental London – The O2, guiding businesses through research and development, conceptualisation, pre-opening, and successful launches with robust marketing and communications planning.

Sophie spearheads performance-driven plans that align with clear KPIs and business objectives. She focuses on delivering competitive solutions that help businesses dominate their markets, increase share, and achieve measurable results. With expertise in online and offline campaigns, including out-of-home advertising, Sophie builds 360-degree marketing plans that activate all touchpoints to reach target audiences effectively.

Through creating competitor sets and insight reports, Sophie loves to craft brand narratives and marketing strategies that transform marketing positioning, drive sales and capture new clients. With Marriott International, she won a Loyalty Portfolio Pitch, choosing her brand activation campaign to be the campaign for Le Meridien in the Middle East and Africa with $10,000 to use towards a flagship launch party in Dubai.

Using her exuberant creativity, Sophie loves to educate and inspire consumers through unique brand activations, allowing them to build their own personal relationships to a brand across their lifetime.

'Like Art and Music, messaging and visuals can be subjective, but with Digital Marketing, the numbers don't lie. I love that complexion; it's never black or white.' More recently, Sophie has been interested in strategies that enhance customer lifetime value and loyalty; in a saturated market of rewards, she loves a challenge of providing value to customers that is mindful, ethical marketing yet still supports business success.