Our Story

We started The Subthread after one too many conferences that felt like déjà vu. We’re two ex‑journalists turned media folk with marketing in our DNA, who’ve earned our stripes at places like The Drum, Digital Frontier, and Broadcast Magazine. We crossed paths for years, joked about starting something of our own, and then – on a sunny Amsterdam terrace in the summer of 2025, fueled by a couple of very strong G&Ts – we stopped joking.

We kept seeing great titles close down and too many others lean into press‑release rewrites and clickbait. The stuff that’s easy to publish, but doesn’t help anyone make sense of what’s next. So we asked around: we invited marketers, creatives, and innovators to a few London pubs and listened. What do you need? What’s missing? What are you sick of?

What we heard was that people want optimistic, future‑facing, genuinely useful content. Plain‑spoken ideas and more honest reporting, warts and all. They didn’t want us to just track the next big thing, but to understand why it matters and how to put it into practice.

So that’s the gap we decided to close. We champion human‑led creativity while embracing the best of technology across the marketing industries. You won’t find spectacle for spectacle’s sake at our events, no virality for virality’s sake in our headlines. Just substance, clarity, and a community of people who are forward-thinking doers.

And yes, as said, we plan to have fun. If you’re leaving your sofa for an evening with us, it should be worth it. If this sounds like you, come join us. We’re building The Subthread in public, and we’d love you along for the ride.

See you at a Subthread Salon, one of our Community Evenings or in your inbox soon. 

Alex & Rich