Partner Article

Sam Lenehan named Growth and Strategy Director at KOMI Group

Social media, marketing, and licensing business KOMI Group has announced that Sam Lenehan has been appointed as its Growth and Strategy Director. Sam has been a non-executive director of KOMI since 2020 and joins the business on a full-time basis from Urban Splash.

Sam was a Director at House by Urban Splash, a partnership between Manchester-based, regeneration pioneers; Urban Splash, the UK government (via Homes England) and the largest house builder in the world; Japan based Sekisui House.

His new role will see him lead on a number of core areas including refining the company’s growth strategy, its governance and structure and mergers and acquisitions.

Over the past five years, Sam has worked with, and helped execute the vision of some of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, the UK Government and international PLCs. This has allowed him to build up and raft of experience that he now aims to leverage in a high growth start up.

Sam said: “Making the permanent move to KOMI was a huge decision, as was leaving Urban Splash after so many years. I remain passionate about House by Urban Splash and know that is has an incredible future which I will support from afar. It was an amazing privilege to be one of the first employees at House, working directly with the shareholders to build the business to what it is today. In 5 years we have taken something from a brilliant idea and a 43 home pilot scheme in New Islington, to a 300+ staff business with a 3,000 home pipeline, c.£200m in raised growth capital and the most enviable shareholder group in its sector. I am immensely proud of House, and grateful to the Urban Splash shareholders. I will look forward to keeping in touch with the team as they continue to transform UK living.

Sam continued: “My aim is to now take the lessons that I’ve learnt and apply them to KOMI as it ramps up for its next phase of growth. Thanks to the drive and ambition of Andrew Trotman and Ryan Williams - the company’s founders - it has quickly become one of the UK’s leading social media houses with a largely unparalleled ability to make digital brands that really matter.

“The way people engage with brands and consume media is changing rapidly. At KOMI we are at the forefront of this change; learning and understanding our audiences and communities as we grow. This is shown by our huge portfolio reach, attracting over 1billiion content views per month, the companies such as Disney that trust us with their brands, and the global entertainment giants including The Jimmy Fallon Show that continue to come to us for engaging content.

“We are on track to expand even further this year as we continue to secure exciting new clients and build new exciting brands. Following two years of solid, cash backed performance, growing from a turnover of c.£500k in 2018 to rapidly approaching c.£5m in 2021, we are incredibly excited to be in investing in the continued growth and expansion across our media, agency and licencing departments.”

Andrew Trotman commented: “Sam is one of the most respected young professionals in the North West so we are delighted that he made the leap to join us on a permanent basis. As a non-exec he had already added huge value to the business but having his focus full time will, I’m sure, be a gamechanger as we prepare for and enter into our next phase of growth.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by KOMI Group .