Welcome to The New Strategist: FSC’s business magazine of insightful new thinking and opinion from experts, authors, and in-role executives, exploring the strategic challenges and future opportunities for companies in 2025 and beyond.

The latest from The New Strategist

Featured

Human-Centric Leadership in a World in Flux

Disruption is the watchword of today’s working culture. The economic impact that comes from a disengaged and anxious workforce is enormous – but so is the opportunity to reverse it. Effective leaders today must rally everyone together to build the resilience that we need – as individuals and organisations.

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The New Physics of Influence

Social platforms are the most powerful persuasion engines in human history, but they operate on an entirely new set of rules. Brands need to stop thinking in terms of broadcast marketing and start mastering the dynamics of networks, culture and community. FSC’s new white paper, out in September, tells the full story.

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Narratives That Move Markets: Creative Strategy for the Green Transition

The green transition industry has suffered a number of blows in 2025, slowing progress. But whilst the opportunities for growth (and the paths to get there) may have changed, they are still abundant. In our new reality, strategic storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool to inspire the confidence the market needs to move forward.

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Beyond the Algorithm: Influence, Impact and the Real Economics of Social Media

Social media promised brands a gold rush of reach, relevance and revenue. But while its potential remains vast, most businesses are still digging in the wrong place. For too long, brands have chased likes, followers and impressions, but what really matters today is participating in culture, not just advertising within it. In our new reality, where cultural relevance matters more than media budget, the problem of why the return on social remains elusive needs to be reframed. FSC’s new white paper, The Power of Social, provides a roadmap as to how brands can do this.

AN FSC WHITE PAPER

THE POWER OF SOCIAL

Influence and ROI in the
Attention Economy

Download the free White Paper

Smart Thinking

Featured

Getting to Goldilocks (Or, the Art of Asking the Right Question)

Sean Kelleher-Clarke, Head of Programme & Project Management at Nesta, believes the art of problem-solving requires the ability to think outside of what’s directly in front of us. Sometimes we can be too close to a project or issue to see what needs tweaking, which creates bias in our quest for an efficient solution. To find our way to the winning outcome, we have to first set our course by asking the question that isn’t too big or too small, but ‘just right’: the Goldilocks question.

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Is It Time to Change How We Think About Purpose?

Paul Skinner, best-selling author of The Purpose Upgrade, believes we need more dynamic guiding narratives that make purpose the ultimate renewable resource for enterprise. Conventional approaches to organisational purpose are often static, and find their expression in metaphors such as our ‘north star’. In a more crisis-prone environment, however, we are frequently forced to redefine what success looks like in the first place.

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Cutting Through the Noise: AI, Authenticity & the
Future of Content

As brands battle to win out in the attention economy and grapple with the rise of GenAI, creating content that really resonates is a confounding challenge. FSC’s white paper, The Future of Content, unpacks the seismic shifts in today’s content ecosystem, looks at what’s next – and offers a roadmap for businesses ready to lead with creativity, clarity and credibility.

Alternative Angles

Featured

Evolving the Creative Agency Model: The Unique & Lean Approach of Future Strategy Club

In the ever-evolving landscape of creative agencies, the dichotomy between traditional employee-based models and the newer freelancer-driven approaches has sparked considerable debate. Justin Small, Founder of FSC, explains how Future Strategy Club's innovative model offers a promising alternative: blending the best of both worlds to meet the demands of modern brands and talents alike.

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Employee Empowerment through Creative Innovation: Rethinking EX Strategies

FSC’s Head of People, Avalyn Kasahara, explores what People teams can learn from the highly developed CX methodologies found in the creative industries. As organisations grapple with how to maintain staff engagement in our bold new hybrid world, a renewed focus on Employee Experience has led to jobs in People gaining more exposure. As the world of work continues to evolve beyond the old norms, so should our approaches to managing, interacting with, and incentivising employees.

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Bossing The Unknown

Bill Griffin, Former Head of Marketing at Channel 4 and Comedy Central, tells us how facing the looming presence of The Unknown is an inevitable part of navigating both life and business. It can be a paralysing force if you let it – which is why the only way to conquer it is by robbing it of its power.

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Gen Z Rising – How to Lead Tomorrow’s Leaders

Jo Duffy, editor of FSC’s Gen Z Blueprint white paper, explores why it’s imperative that businesses are prepared to navigate the seismic generational shift that lies ahead. If hearing the term ‘Gen Z’ conjures only vague images of tech-savvy teens dancing on TikTok, it’s probably time to update your frame of reference.

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Longing to Belong: How Brands Can Build Loyalty Through Communities

From the network of support to the steadying sense of identity, being part of a tribe goes a long way to offset the turbulence-as-usual that now defines our lives. New research from an FSC white paper shows that leveraging this power of community has become the critical factor for brands to build customer loyalty and through this business growth.

Ash Schofield Interview

Creating the Gold Standard of Brand Communities

We spoke to giffgaff CEO Ash Schofield about his career journey to date, building giffgaff's unique brand community of dedicated members, and the power of feeling part of something.

Watch the Interview

Ten Lessons for Growth: Building Community at Your Company's Core

In today's global economy, growing a company that stands the test of time is no small feat. Justin Small, CEO of Future Strategy Club, shares ten essential strategies for ensuring your organisation not only grows, but becomes an authentic brand customers believe in - and somewhere people are excited to build their careers.

Practice Blogs

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How to Create Authentic Community and Consumer Loyalty by Making Brands More Human

To create a successful brand community delivering on your desired KPIs, consumer psychology lecturer, Chief Behavioural Officer and Founder Kate Nightingale says you must adopt a human-centric approach.

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Going Solo with Your Tribe

For Artist China Jordan, choosing to work for yourself shouldn’t mean that you lose your professional support network. She asserts that calling on your social circles, or “tribe”, can be your best secret weapon for success when the going gets tough.

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Personal Branding that Connects and Drives Us Towards Success.

Personal Brand Strategist Ash Jones explains the power of influence in your professional career, and how mastering the art of Personal Branding has the potential to unlock new opportunities, and connect you with communities that can propel you towards success.

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I, For One, Welcome Our Robot Overlords

Copy Director Jim Compton-Hall tells us to hone our craft and, well, be better. The art of copywriting takes talent and emotional intelligence to understand a brief, to make words sing in a way that brands are looking for. But can this one day be done by AI? The answer is unclear. Either way,

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User-Centred Design Won’t Save The World – But It Can Help

In Ethnographic Researcher Catriona Hay’s experience, a little bit of empathy can make a whole lot of impact. A tiny fix can change a whole design. Often, these tiny fixes come from truly grasping what the end user needs – understanding the human on the other side of the design, and being able to empathise with what they need.

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Authentic Advocacy in the New World

of Events & Experiences

The post-pandemic world has significantly impacted the Events Industry. FSC Member Jade Coles, a Culture Specialist & Programmer, and Creative Producer for Events & Digital, shares the essential steps to creating authentic and diverse experiences in this new era of events.