LDC Top 50 2024
Sam Fenton-Elstone
CEO
Anything is Possible
When Sam Fenton-Elstone started his Brighton-based creative, tech and media agency Anything is Possible in 2018, he chose a pink mountain goat as the logo: “It represents our work ethos: daring, decisive and prepared to leap into the unknown.”
The company employs a team of 70 “Possiblists”, delivering campaigns for the likes of Tate Galleries, the Natural History Museum and Best Western Hotels, and opened its first international office last year in Cape Town. The US and Asia are next on Fenton-Elstone’s radar. “I don’t just want to build another big agency, I want to build a brilliant one that lives on without me.”
I don’t just want to build another big agency, I want to build a brilliant one that lives on without me.”
Q&A
What was your personal aim when you started the business?
As long as I can remember I’ve wanted to run my own business. It always felt important to make a positive impact, and financial freedom was deeply tied up in that. I grew up in pretty challenging circumstances – a single-parent family, free school meals, precarious housing situations – the lot. As the first person in my family to go to university, I wanted to use that opportunity to make something significant, long-lasting, and that could stand as inspiration to others.
How have you grown your business in the last five years?
We’ve targeted the higher education sector, which has been significantly under-served by top-quality agencies. We’ve won multi-year contracts, which has removed financial pressure and allowed us to think long-term. While other agencies were making redundancies during the Covid-19 pandemic, we took a smart risk and hired aggressively, ahead of our revenue curve. We nearly tripled our headcount, which was challenging – but it made us stronger and meant we could pitch for more work.
What’s your international ambition?
We launched in Cape Town last year and now have seven people working out there. I have two young kids so, selfishly, I didn’t want to open our first overseas office in a country that required early mornings or late nights. Africa’s digital economy is set to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, according to Google and the IFC, so we see huge growth potential there.
