Emma Whitehair

Emma has worked in PR since the 1990s, with a career spanning senior in-house roles at brands including agnès b. and REISS, alongside agency-side experience at Finch & Partners. Her final staff role was Head of PR at Selfridges, before founding WHITEHAIR.CO in 2012.

From the outset, Emma recognised that PR worked best as part of a wider digital marketing strategy, and launched the business with the tagline "More Than PR" - a mission to guide brands into a new era of communications. For its first decade, WHITEHAIR.CO operated from a central London showroom with a full-time team, within a traditional agency structure. But as the industry evolved, Emma saw the model itself was becoming outdated. Significant client budget was being absorbed by overheads - leases, headcount, and physical space - that had less and less to do with the work that actually moved brands forward. Meanwhile, the most experienced people in the industry, particularly senior women at major brands and agencies, were stepping away from rigid corporate structures while still at the height of their creative and strategic powers.

Emma began inviting this senior talent to contribute as associates - bringing their expertise, perspective and creative magic to client accounts in a more flexible, collaborative way. This was the beginning of the Collective: a deliberate move away from the traditional agency model, and toward something better suited to how brands actually need to work today.

The result is an agency where clients are not paying for infrastructure they don't use. Every account is built from the top down, with senior practitioners - former Heads of PR, Brand Directors, Digital and Content leads - working directly on the business. There are no junior account handlers learning on the client's time, and no overheads funding space the client never sets foot in. Budget goes where it earns its keep: into strategy, relationships, content, digital reach and measurable results.

Many of the associates who joined in the early years of the Collective continue to work with the business today, providing a depth of experience, continuity and genuine collaboration that conventional agencies struggle to match.

WHITEHAIR.CO now operates as an established and trusted collective of brand communications talent, offering strategy, repositioning, SEO, content, social media and traditional PR. As Managing Director, Emma ensures every client relationship is thoughtfully structured, creatively led and consistently delivered, with senior teams aligned around shared goals.

Contact Emma for new business enquiries.