Brave Bison Promotes Ric Hayes to Chief Strategy Officer

Today, media, marketing and technology company Brave Bison announces the promotion of Ric Hayes to Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), marking a major step in the business’s ambition to lead the next evolution of marketing strategy for global brands.  

After three years as Group Strategy Director at SocialChain, Ric will be stepping up to join Brave Bison’s executive leadership team, taking charge of a newly centralised strategy function across the three of the company’s agency brands: Brave Bison, SocialChain, and Engage Digital Partners.  

In his new role, Ric will lead a connected team, including Brave Bison Performance’s Director of Strategy Brenda Imeson and SocialChain’s Strategy and Innovation Director Gareth Harrison, on a mission to work alongside clients to help them adapt to shifting media and tech dynamics and seize emerging opportunities. He will also work closely with other strategic leaders across the wider Brave Bison business including founder of the MiniMBA Professor Mark Ritson and MTM’s Richard Ellis to build new solutions that encompass consultancy, training and execution. 

With over 20 years' experience across agency, consultancy and brand-side strategy roles, Ric has held senior leadership positions at Carat, Dentsu and McCann, delivering brand, communications and media strategies for clients in the UK, USA and ANZ. From supporting the legacy programme of the London 2012 Olympics to shaping Aldi’s rise in the UK, his focus is always on aligning insight, creativity, and commercial objectives to help organisations make better decisions and deliver work that drives real-world outcomes.  

During his tenure as Group Strategy Director for SocialChain, Ric led the development of SharkNinja’s global social strategy and oversaw the deployment of sport and influencer partnership activation across EMEA, helping build cultural relevance and market traction for the challenger consumer technology brand who recently reported net income YOY increases of 42.6% in their Q3 results. He also oversaw the launch of StrategyChain, the company’s social-first consultancy offer, which counts Royal Mail and global investment firm EQT among its clients.  

As CSO, Ric will continue to develop both the StrategyChain offer and Brave Bison’s FutureFit consultancy which combines strategic frameworks with proprietary AI tools to help brands decode complexity and identify and action growth opportunities at pace. His promotion signals Brave Bison’s continued investment in IP-led, outcome-focused strategy built for today, and what’s next. 

Commenting on the appointment, Ric Hayes said:

“In today’s rapidly changing landscape, strategic support must move beyond boardroom presentations and become embedded in how brands operate, staying close to customers and effectiveness drivers while harnessing new insight sources, new ways of working and better decision-making to capitalise on complexity. 

As clients grapple with the shift from broadcast-led to networked marketing, I’m incredibly excited to lead Brave Bison’s brilliant strategy team in the development of new solutions that keep our clients ahead in an evolving market.

With partners like MTM and Mark Ritson in our corner, and AI tools like AudienceGPT in our arsenal, we’ve got everything we need to capitalise on what’s coming next.” 

Executive Chairman Oli Green added:

“Ric’s new role reflects the critical role strategy plays across every part of our business, and his ability to combine deep audience insight with commercial impact makes him an invaluable new addition to our executive team.  

As we continue to grow Brave Bison’s consultancy and AI-powered planning capabilities, Ric will play a central role in shaping how we deliver measurable outcomes for our clients—at speed, and at scale.”