Axe & Kettle Turns Six

This year, we turned six. Six years. No investors. No safety net.

Just two women, sisters, best friends, building the business from scratch, all while having four babies between us in the last four years (I know…), renovating houses, moving cities.

We never set out to build a typical agency, mostly because we’d never worked in one.

We came from in-house. One of us a marketing director, the other an e-commerce director. We wanted to create the agency we couldn’t find, and desperately needed. One that understood luxury, not just adopting the same strategies used in other industries. Actual luxury. Taste, time, nuance.

We also saw the inefficiency in siloed agencies: SEO over here, paid over there, brand somewhere else entirely, each fighting for credit instead of working together to drive better growth and long-term profitability.

But we didn’t want to bolt on services for the sake of it. So we hired real specialists; senior experts, masters of their craft.

We created the agency we always wished we could have hired: an agency rooted in big-picture thinking, rigour, human touch, clarity, and accountability. And we did the only way we knew how: through process, iteration, questions, principles, and perseverance.

Success for us has never been about growth at all costs. It’s been about showing up time after time, and staying committed to our values. And yes, it’s been hard. Especially as women. Especially as mothers.

Our partners are incredible but they didn’t have to grow a human, breastfeed between meetings, edit strategy decks one-handed, or reply to emails at 3am (I’m writing this at 5am with my little one on the boob).

The juggle has been real. But the growth is even more so. We’ve built a business that reflects what we believe at our core: that real value is created in the process, not in shortcuts. That time, thinking, and the human touch are true luxuries, and only becoming more essential in an AI-saturated world. That brands earn their strength slowly, through consistency, care and the kind of attention that compounds over years, not weeks. That people remain both the most challenging and the most rewarding part of any company. And that businesses rooted in integrity endure far longer than those built for speed alone.

We’ve worked with brands we respect: ERDEM, JW Anderson, Nanushka, AKYN, John Smedley, Vogue, Service95, Glassette, Matilda Goad, Studio Ham, Bleach London, Dulce (formerly Haeckels), Hair by Sam McKnight, and more.

We’ve delivered work we’re really proud of for clients who trust us, return to us, and often take us with them when they move brands.

We’ve made mistakes. We’ve had brilliant wins. We’ve learned to back ourselves on pricing, positioning, and pushing for better.

And we’ve grown faster than we expected, while staying grounded by our values.

And we didn’t do any of this alone. 

From the agency leaders who advised us in year one, to the people who referred us, championed us quietly, filled in our surveys, sent opportunities our way, or simply shared a post — thank you. This business has been built on community.

And to every single A&K team member past and present, your thinking, your care, your graft, your resilience, and your humour has shaped this business into what it is today. A&K is the sum of its people.

We’re six years in, still learning, evolving, and building something that feels different in an industry that often defaults to the same. We’ve never been more confident in what we’re building, or why. 

We’re doing it differently, on purpose.

Thanks for being here.

Kelly & Amy