Cat Turner

Cat Turner, co-founder and CCO, Cult

Cat Turner and her business partner Bridey Lipscombe independently founded the creative agency Cult in 2012. Their ideas and insight take some of the world’s biggest beauty, fashion, luxury and wellness brands beyond their comfort zone to drive tangible business value. They are proud to only work with people that are willing to break new ground. In six years they have won over forty awards with illustrious brands such as Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Agent Provocateur, Nike and Amazon Fashion. Cat and Bridey launched a New York studio in 2018, a global production house in 2019, and now have over 40 staff and an annual turnover of $8m.

As Chief Creative Officer Cat oversees the agency’s creative and cultural output, merging strategic insight with consumer trends to deliver brave creative work. Cult’s innovative creative campaigns deliver authority, personality and relevance for their clients, be they legacy brands or start-ups. New business wins in 2019 included ELEMIS, Burberry, ghd, Rodan + Fields, Kopari and Pepsi-Lipton International’s latest plant powered energy drink YULA. Existing clients Sally Hansen, dunhill and Coty also extended the agency’s remit.

Cat is passionate about a people-first business and people-first creative. She believes the two go hand in hand to create a symbiotic working process and creative work of substance. Driven by establishing a best-in-class working culture, the agency was driven to launch a number of different wellness initiatives, learning programmes, mentorship and young talent schemes over the years. Most notably Cat established Fresh Meat, a direct-to-industry programme with Ravensbourne University that offers multi-level support to grads; from book crits to paid work experience. This has led to multiple pre and post-grads passing through Cult’s studios over the years.

In her ongoing mission to do business differently, in early 2018 Cat launched The Cult Experiment, an R&D initiative to marry emerging technology with human good. The department launched Mindscape in collaboration with the UK’s largest mental health charity, Mind. The app uses voice technology to assist those suffering from anxiety and panic attacks and has received critical acclaim. Mindscape 2.0 will be launched later in 2020.

In 2020 Cat will launch Cult:Futures, an arm of the business that will look at developing insight-led products, creative trendcasts and support up and coming creative talent in on-site incubators in London and NYC.