Founder and CSO (Chief Storytelling Officer)
Sam Howard
Sam is founder of The Crowd. This was her idea – she has a lot of those. Deciding to set up a wholly virtual agency back in 2012, she is a natural disrupter. She is also an award-winning storyteller and has been working in B2B fintech comms since 1995.
As founder, Sam’s role approximates to keeping all the clients happy all of the time. Her commitment to best practise and her mantra that good enough is never ever good enough stands her in good stead, if not affording her the life of semi-leisure she envisioned.
“To be taken seriously as a tech player, you need to know your industry, the regulatory landscape and the issues facing your clients. Our job in comms is to creatively and elegantly articulate that proposition in a way that adds value, engages the target audience and ultimately supports demand generation. Not the easiest of gigs but it keeps us on our toes.”
Sam began her comms career working with fintech Caplin and was soon headhunted to lead European PR for global player SunGard Trading and Risk, before spending 10 years with one of the foremost digital marketing agencies, Metia. Joining as an account director, she was also the creative director behind multiple industry-lauded campaigns. She went on to head up the agency’s large influencer function for London and New York, responsible for nurturing a multi-disciplinary team of 30 comms professionals and the brand reputation of more than 40 clients, including Fidessa, Logica, Temenos and Sun Microsystems.
When she first set up her virtual venture, as a reward for being brave she took in a very big, very rambunctious rescue dog, part black lab, part mastiff, called Moby. A succession of hounds has followed. She’s still not sure they have all been a good idea. She lives in a part of London that is not altogether desirable but does have parakeets by day and owls of an evening.
