Licensing company The Point.1888 has announced another three new appointments this week, just weeks after a major restructuring to deal with rapid growth at the firm over the past year.
The company says it is promoting three of its senior team in preparation for the busy year ahead. The senior changes include:
- Sarah Crimes has been promoted to Director of Marketing, to reflect the growth of her role over the last 12 month which now includes marketing for the agency, its clients and the agency’s growing creative division Story.1888.
- Hannah Stevens, promoted from Head of Retail, to Head of Retail & Sport, an acknowledgement of the agency’s rapidly growing sports division which includes Team GB and The British & Irish Lions. The agency will be extremely busy with both clients this year with the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and the South Africa Rugby Tour.
- Janine Richmond has been promoted from Senior Commercial Manager to Head of Product & Brand. This is an important new role for the agency, the company says, and will make her responsible for overseeing the Product Development Team as well as opening up new category opportunities across the brand portfolio.
As with the new appointments announced in January, each promotion is seen as crucial for the company’s continued growth, and will allow the agency to fulfill the new plans it has for 2021 which include international licensing programs, transatlantic sporting events, and a number of hotly anticipated product launches.
When Sarah Crimes joined The Point.1888 in March 2019, it was the first time the agency had had in-house marketing support. Crimes was scouted from her role at The Little Botanical, a brand which she built from scratch and placed in John Lewis within four months of its launch. Prior to this, Sarah worked as Head of Sales at Montezuma’s Chocolates. Not long after the new Marketing Division was launched and had established itself as vital for many of The Point.1888’s clients, she spearheaded the creation of the agency’s second business, its very own creative agency—Story.1888—designed to provide retail-led, consumer-inspired branding, creative and marketing support from a wide team of experts. That division is now thriving and considered an important part of the overall company.
Having won Licensing International’s Global Rising Star Award in 2020 and used the agency’s pioneering retail-first model to secure record-breaking placements for clients’ products, the company says Hannah Stevens was a clear choice to lead The Point.1888’s Sports division in what will be its biggest year yet.
Commenting on her promotion, Hannah said, “I love this company and my role within it. To be able to take on even more responsibility and help The Point.1888 continue on its amazing growth trajectory is a dream come true and I’m delighted to have such a strong team working alongside me.”
Janine Richmond joined The Point.1888 in September 2018 as Retail and Brand Manager, having previously worked in buying at John Lewis & Partners, Hobbycraft and The Science Museum. Since then, she’s been promoted several times thanks to her leadership skills and strong relationships with clients. As an ex-buyer, she possesses extensive experience and knowledge across product and retail and her ability to fully immerse herself into every brand ensures clients always receive the very best service.
“I started The Point.1888 on my own five years ago and while I knew I’d need strong people around me to make the business a success, I never imagined I’d have such an incredible leadership team in place today,” said Will Stewart, Managing Director of The Point.1888. “This has been a disastrous 12 months for businesses all over the world, but our team has demonstrated remarkable resilience and strength and the promotions are all undoubtedly well deserved.”
Established in 2014, The Point.1888 delivers retail focused brand extension programmes by creating new products based on the gaps it sees at retail, rather than what it thinks the brand’s target demographic might like. This supports a higher chance of retailer buy-in and a better sales performance.
g closer to customers is easy when you have the right partner. You go out of your comfort zone, create something new and work with businesses you never thought you would. And the results can be incredible. That’s The Point(.1888) of brand licensing.