Cyrus is the founder of Insurgent, a venture studio and fund, building net-positive companies where profit and planet reinforce each other. Cyrus rode the late-90s dot-com wave into code, design, and two decades in global agencies; R/GA, BBDO New York, Dare, Naked Communications, shaping work for Nike, Chanel, Samsung, Unicef, and The Guggenheim. The work collected trophies from Cannes Lions to D&AD, but one question lingered: to what end?

That question led him to co-found Mustard Brand Studio in 2017, blending business design, creative craft and behavioural psychology. Initially operating as a venture studio, where Cyrus worked at length with private offices, developing business models and brands to scale.

With Insurgent, he’s taken the fight further: a collective of builders, strategists, and investors who reject extractive capitalism, infinite growth, and short-term thinking. It’s not a consultancy. It’s a crew. A collaborator network that designs ventures where people and planet are non-negotiable stakeholders. Or as Cyrus puts it: “pirates with spreadsheets”; commercial rigour with systemic rebellion. The team is also building a venture fund, which will debut in 2026 and be deployed among startups and scaleups successfully tackling the balancing of planetary purpose with profit.

An IMAGINE Leader, Cyrus works alongside the Insurgent team and its wider network of operators, founders, and investors to out-perform extractive incumbents by out-competing them; on desirability, unit economics, and measurable impact. He still rolls up his sleeves to write, design, and prototype alongside the ventures he backs.

Plain-speaking, mildly allergic to greenwash, and now London-based, he and the Insurgent collective are most at home turning frustration, talent, and ambition into market forces strong enough to bend the future in the right direction.