Optimise. Propel. Win.
We plug into agencies, studios and in-house teams, helping produce award-winning creative, while developing strategies, leaders and systems that increase pitch wins, enhance quality and scale operations.
Built by senior industry pros, Kinsfolk partners across Advertising, PR, Marketing, Design, Film, Video & Games, to fill the gaps and bolster strategic growth, people development and creative workflows.
Clarity
Strategic Direction & Transformation
We help agencies and studios set clear, practical, and future-proof paths for growth.
We work on shaping your commercial positioning, projections, defining ideal clients, and improving conversion and pitch wins - all while helping to support confident decisions about hiring, suppliers, partners, investment, and expansion.
The focus is on creating strategies and workflows that allow your business to scale sustainably without wastage, and stay creatively ambitious in a growingly fragmented and agile market.
Culture
People & Leadership Development
We strengthen your foundations, helping you attract and retain the right talent, build teams that communicate and collaborate effectively, and foster a culture that supports professional development, personal wellbeing, and a balance of creativity and commercial impact.
Using Myers-Briggs and Insights, we also clarify values and reveal how individuals think, communicate, and perform.
Learn more about our approach to Culture here.
Craft
Creative & Production Operations
We plug into your existing teams as creatives, producers, and operations specialists, improving pitch win rates, project quality, and workflow clarity.
We build scalable creative operations across video, design, brand, and tech, spanning in-house teams and external supplier networks.
This includes commercially aligned studio roadmaps, cross-department workflows, hybrid hiring plans across production and agency disciplines, and AI-enabled systems that improve pitch efficiency, resourcing, quality control, and delivery.
In practice, we install the operational, commercial, and cultural infrastructure required for creative and production services to succeed.
Workshops & Training
Projects
Team Incubations
Join a Kinsfolk Retreat Day
The Kinsfolk Collective hosts regular workshop and training days for agency and studio founders, leadership teams, and freelance creatives. Each session is tailored to the needs of attendees, creating practical space to learn, connect, and solve real business challenges. Tickets start at £399 per person, with concessions available.
Our expert-led bespoke sessions often include:
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building effective strategies for stability and success
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winning more pitches and defining ideal clients
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making better commercial and business decisions
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building effective creative operations
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strengthening leadership, culture, and wellbeing
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understanding emerging market, audience, and platform trends and challenges
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connecting with like-minded peers and industry experts
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creating a culture of commerciality across your team
Leading a business can be lonely...
Think of us as fractional senior support. We typically work with Founders, CEOs, COOs, CMOs and CFOs, alongside SLTs, Boards and Chairs, to build cultures of commercially-minded creativity that are practical, proven, scalable and tailored to the realities of agency and studio life.
Our Founder
Mike Buonaiuto has over 20 years’ experience supporting creative businesses in the UK and USA. He is an Exited Agency Founder and Former UN Creative Director.
Before Kinsfolk, Mike founded Shape History in 2015, leading the award-winning agency in global projects with institutions including the United Nations, Amnesty International and WHO.
Following his exit, he has worked as a senior advisor and coach with top-performing agencies, studios and creative businesses, alongside supporting NatWest Business, Virgin Startup, and UNREST Accelerator, often utilising the Myers-Briggs framework.
Previously, he served as Creative Director for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and built the creative studio within Weber Shandwick’s (IPG, Omnicom) EMEA offering.
Learn more about Mike here.
Group M.D / Chair / Executive Coach
Eva Reynolds
Eva has spent the last 20 years building award-winning communication companies focused on improving people’s lives. She now supports leaders, teams and organisations as a Certified Executive Coach. Whether developing individual leadership or strengthening high-performing teams, Eva brings clarity that leads to better decisions, stronger collaboration and meaningful results.
Production Director / Exec Producer
Kyle Gladman
Kyle has built an impressive career across blockbuster gaming and film, as Production Director on leading titles both in the UK and Canada. Credits include Dune, The King, and First Man. With a history of leading teams of up to 300 people utilising 9 figure budgets, Kyle focuses on ensuring successful commercial products, by blending process and people-informed strategies in equal measure.
Creative Operations Director
Jennifer Kaplan-Ortiz
Jennifer's career spans production and public relations with renowned creative agencies and blue-chip companies across the US and UK. With experience managing teams and productions in galleries, in-house studios at agencies, and independent design and video houses, Jennifer knows what it takes to balance creative vision with operational discipline.
Managing Director - Agency
Bennett Golder
Bennett Golder is a digital campaigner with 15 years’ experience in corporate, political, financial, and crisis communications, including roles at FGS Global and Weber Shandwick. He has built integrated digital functions, leveraged employees’ social media voices, managed reputational crises, and trained c-suite executives on personal branding. Originally from Atlanta, he moved to London in 2010 for an LSE Masters.
Director - Workplace Investigations
Robert Pigot
Robert is a specialist in employee relations, complex investigations and dispute resolution, with 16+ years’ experience across policing, multinationals and high‑growth tech. He brings calm authority, behavioural insight and rigorous process to moments of organisational strain, helping creative businesses protect trust, resolve conflict and grow with integrity.
Chief Financial Officer
Heather Jones
Heather is a commercially focused Fractional CFO and strategic advisor to founder-led and growing businesses. She helps leadership teams improve financial visibility, strengthen commercial performance and navigate growth with confidence. Combining financial rigour with a practical, operational mindset, Heather is known for bringing clarity to complex situations and helping businesses make better decisions.
Our clients’ work spans collaborations with global brands and international organisations, including the United Nations, Emirates, Porsche, TikTok, Vogue, Gucci, Cartier and many more.
Here's a snapshot of some of the award-winning campaigns launched by those we've supported.
Campaigns our partners have powered
Our Experience
Powering work with...
Kinsfolk supported us during a critical phase of scaling our agency. With their guidance, we established in-house procedures that are both healthy for the business and supportive of the team. Mike is not only an experienced business consultant but also genuinely personable and attentive to the people behind the company. It was a true pleasure working with him, and I would highly recommend him to anyone seeking support in scaling their creative business.
Alex Aalto, Creative Director
AALTO PRODUCTION
This support has really helped unlock the next phase for the company. The guidance has been incredibly valuable in running the studio effectively and planning for future growth - from reworking the operations to guiding us through sustainable P&L projections.
It's helped us break the cycle and given a clear direction on where we want the business to go moving forward.
Ben Taylor, Creative Director
TAILORED STUDIOS
Mike is one of the few people I know who really understands what it takes to be a progressive business leader in the world today. Not only has he setup and grown his own successful creative agency, but he's taken the time to truly get to grips with the most salient issues impacting people today, such as mental heath in the workplace. If you want to help get your business in better shape for the next decade, listen to what Mike has to say.
Tom Tapper, CEO
NICE & SERIOUS
A unique approach to people
We take a tailored, hands-on approach, combining practical methods with tools such as Myers-Briggs and Insights personality profiling.
Rather than relying on long lectures or heavy information dumps, our workshops and coaching sessions are collaborative, interactive, and often gamified to make the experience engaging and memorable.
Teams discover not only their own strengths but also those of their peers through activities designed to foster communication, trust, and creative problem-solving.
This method empowers individuals and teams to understand how they operate together, strengthen their collective identity, and develop the skills and confidence needed to thrive in fast-paced, creative environments.
Our workshops and coaching aims to help your team think, reflect, plan and identify development opportunities. Sessions include organisational and project reviews, identity awareness team building (using tools such as Myers-Briggs and Insights), and deep dives into culture, operations, and workflow. The goal is to uncover opportunities, identify friction points, and equip your people with practical strategies to perform at their best while supporting long-term creative growth.
Workshops and Coaching
We offer fractional leadership support and residencies for teams that need hands-on guidance, stepping into roles traditionally held by Head of People, Strategy, Creative, Production, or Operations. We work with your teams to fill gaps, streamline processes, and introduce AI-driven workflows that make creative operations more efficient and scalable. We also provide tools, software, and process guidance for data-informed decisions, alongside foundational project set-up support. This helps teams focus on delivering creative work without getting stuck in day-to-day firefighting.
Embedded Support and AI Workflows
We provide conflict mediation, formal grievance and misconduct investigations, and leadership alignment sessions to resolve disputes, clarify responsibilities, and protect culture. Our support extends to designing communication frameworks, coaching managers on difficult conversations, and facilitating team reset sessions after periods of change or tension. By building clarity, trust, and effective collaboration, we ensure teams stay motivated, resilient, and focused on producing exceptional creative work.
Mediation, Investigation and Review
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