Duet London Launches to Champion Diversity
A new boutique technology communications consultancy, Duet London, has launched to make senior communications expertise truly accessible for fast-growing startups and scale ups that need an ‘A team’ to compete with larger and more established incumbents.
Duet London operates with an inclusive mindset to help technology founders, particularly those from diverse backgrounds, to find and use their voice effectively.
Duet London is led by two veterans of technology communications based in London, UK, who have over 33 years’ experience between them in helping to establish and grow the profiles of B2B technology brands in the UK and Europe:
Lucie Bickerdike is a strategic consultant with over 16 years’ agency-side experience in B2B and corporate communications for technology brands of all sizes, in sectors including AdTech, MarTech, SaaS, MSPs, telecoms and IT Consultancy. Previous clients include high growth challengers such as Twilio and MessageBird, through to global brands such as Facebook, Google Cloud, Microsoft Advertising and Salesforce. She was most recently Head of Enterprise Technology at Diffusion.
Jazz Gandhi is a proficient B2B2C marcomms consultant with over 17 years’ experience devising strategic, integrated PESO campaigns. Following four years’ big-agency training working for global brands including Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, IBM, Vodafone UK and Fujitsu, as an independent consultant Jazz has honed her skills to help dozens of start-ups and high growth scale ups across sectors such as FinTech, MarTech, Agri-Tech, Retail Tech and sustainability to launch into the European market.
Duet London aims to become the partner of choice for ambitious technology brands who need to diversify their portfolios and teams through their skilled communications expertise, especially as the sector continues to be heavily criticised for its lack of race and gender diversity in funding decisions. Duet London offers strategic counsel on maximising all investment and assets across the growth value chain.
Lucie Bickerdike, Co-Founder and Director, Duet London, says: “As investment rounds get more competitive, the technology landscape noisier, and editorial teams more and more squeezed of time and resources, fast-growth technology companies increasingly need a different approach to communications. By occupying a middle ground between freelance consultancy and structured agency teams, we offer real value to startups and scaleups looking for tangible, measurable and trackable results. There’s no such thing as the ‘average’ company founder, and I’m delighted to partner with a true tech PR virtuoso to offer fresh solutions with a diverse, inclusive mindset.”
Jazz Gandhi, Co-Founder and Director, Duet London, adds: “Duet London’s mission is to challenge tech founders in a positive and constructive way, offering them senior comms leadership as well as rolling up our sleeves to help them succeed consistently as a core part of their team. Given the most diverse companies are more likely to outperform less diverse peers on profitability and growth, it’s particularly important to us to help people from backgrounds similar to mine when building a successful career in an industry where you are different, both culturally and aesthetically - as illustrated in the CIPR’s State of PR 2022 report. Being Punjabi Sikh is my DNA that helps to create a fair and balanced communications business, and we’re proud to already be working with some fantastic brands, including sustainability management platform FuturePlus, who share our values.”
Mike Penrose, Co-Founder and Partner, FuturePlus, concludes: “As a company in its early stages with hockey stick growth, we needed to make sure our voice was heard amongst bigger players in sustainability and SaaS. We needed a PR partner who was highly experienced in these sectors, and who shared and represented our values on diversity and inclusion. It’s why working with Duet London has been a godsend. Not only have they helped shape our narrative and messaging to build strong relevance internally and in trade, national and global media, they are extremely well-connected experts and mentors who care about what they do, which is how they have become a vital part of our young, burgeoning team. We’re proud of the work so far and excited to build on this year’s momentum into 2023.”