Entrepreneurial journeys: Andrew Christophers

University of York alumni Andrew Christophers is the co-founder of Brand Genetics, an award-winning brand growth consultancy specialising in front-end insight, strategy & innovation.

Brand Genetics was co-founded by Andrew in 1996 and is now a £5m business, employing 40 people, with offices in London, New York and Rio de Janeiro. The company helps ambitious, market-leading brands understand the real reasons and motivations behind why people do what they do, what that means for their business and what they should do about it to drive positive impact.

They call this way of approaching challenges ‘human-first’. Global clients include ABInBev, Britvic, Diageo, Electrolux, Meta, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Reckitt and Unilever.

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Andrew's Journey

After graduating from the University of York in 1983 with a degree in English and Related Literature, Andrew worked as Brand Manager for Cadbury before moving to Guiness as Marketing Manager and then to United Biscuits as Head of Innovation. In 1996, Andrew co-founded Brand Genetics, halving his salary but, he says, “doubling my happiness and self-fulfilment; largely by being in control of my own destiny.”

Brand Genetics

The company launched in 1996 proclaiming “All marketing is Darwinian”, using the principles of evolutionary genetics to guide their approach to innovation. Understanding people – the DNA of what makes individuals unique – remains at the heart of their human-first insight and innovation work today. They use a ‘human-first’ approach to insight and innovation to help clients understand what people will want next.

While the company’s principles remain the same as they did in 1996, today’s innovators face new challenges and require new solutions, so they continue to break new ground. Despite being an established business, tackling global projects for major corporations, the company maintains its start-up mentality, with a willingness to challenge innovation inertia.

Company growth hasn’t been without its challenges, Andrew says that “maintaining our "human-first" persona and identity as we have grown has been a challenge which was overcome by defining our company culture, and recruiting "culture add" (as versus "culture fit") people.”

Andrew says that his business role models are “small and creative start-ups, with a people-focused company culture.”

Words of advice

Andrew’s advice to entrepreneurs is to “let go sooner, to empower others.”

Andrew has written a book about the last 25 years, "Starting Up & Scaling Up a Human-First Business"

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