Bristol's Nick Sturge MBE Appointed by Bristol's Diva Agency

Champion of Bristol’s high-tech and creative business economy, and TechSPARK Board Member, Nick Sturge MBE, has been appointed as Chair to the all-new roster of non-executive directors at Diva Agency.

The board is made up of key talent from the national creative, marketing and videogame industries. Together they aim to expand Diva’s full-service creative offering to an impressive roster of blockbuster videogaming clients, all whilst keeping Diva true to its Bristol values.

Nick is a local entrepreneur and business champion who has been appointed alongside several new non-executive directors. They all bring relevant specialist experience to Diva in order to develop and expand the global scope of the business.

Nick is a stalwart of the high-tech community in Bristol and its growth, providing a physical venue (Engine Shed) and leading an ecosystem for tech companies to scale-up through the world-leading SETsquared Incubator and other activities. He’s a Chartered Director, a governor of Bath Spa University, and was awarded an MBE for services to the digital economy in 2019. His role as Chair is to assist with the growth of Diva’s full-service creative offering. Diva already enjoys an impressive roster of videogaming clients, but intends to do more thus making the agency another valuable contributor to the local economy and an attractive employer for talent in the South West and beyond.

Diva specialises in making creative assets – like ads, trailers, logos, posters and more for videogames and has 15 years experience of working with global blockbuster clients – Sony PlayStation, Activision, Bandai Namco, and many more. The Redcliffe based agency will continue to specialise in the games industry: bringing their love and knowledge of videogames to new and established clients.

For the last two years, these advisors have assisted Diva’s founding partners – Suzy and Andy Barnes – in honing their vision for the agency. Their work has included strategic focus, business development, defining Diva’s distinctive identity and creating the framework for the agency’s principles and values.

The Board now comprises:

Suzy Barnes, Diva’s CEO and Founder comments, “It’s undeniable that the pandemic years were challenging for everyone – as leaders, we were trying our best to navigate unprecedented, shocking change and provide stability for our employees and clients. Yet, with the worst of times can come the best of times – and the lockdowns provided an opportunity to take a step back and recalibrate. We reviewed Diva’s foundational values and how we could build on those for the future of the agency. A first step was to create our advisory board, and – two years on – we’re delighted to have officially appointed them all as non-executive directors.

Andy Barnes adds, “The decision to bring in world-class leadership to our board, with Nick as Chair, will help us guide and steer company strategy and ensure Diva’s new Executive Leadership Team can deliver on its potential for growth and remain true to our values.”

Nick Sturge comments on behalf of the board, “Diva’s founding partners – Suzy and Andy Barnes – had a strong vision for Diva, a strong sense that their strengths lie within videogaming, and a strong sense of treating their employees in a fair and equitable manner.

“The task over the last two years has been to hone their vision into a workable, strategic plan for growth and business development, build an effective board and turn their ideas – which are always creative and innovative – into reality. We’re all proud to take the next steps with Diva and help this Bristol-based, gaming native creative company on its journey to global success and recognition.”

Diva is the UK’s leading gaming specialist creative agency and their client roster includes some of the biggest publishers, games and entertainment brands and companies in the world on videogaming. The 30-person-strong company, which is based in Bristol, but whose work has global scope and reach, is populated by talented individuals who live and breathe games and videogaming culture, making Diva almost uniquely placed to make the right creative decisions for clients specialising in videogaming in all its guises.  Recent standout projects have included Elden Ring, Guardians of the Galaxy and PlayStation 5, and Diva has been nominated for numerous awards for their work in tandem with their clients.

Importantly Diva has always striven to be a Good Company – and create a safe and ethical working environment with employee wellbeing front and centre. In addition to Diva’s business development goals, a keystone of the agency’s ambitious growth  strategy is to develop progressive employment policies, addressing burn-out culture and looking at fundamental issues such as the retirement shortfall. Diva will strive to share and hone those ideas with like-minded thought leaders across the creative and videogames industries.  The combined strengths of Diva’s videogames specialism and Good Company ethos attracted the advisory board and have been strong foundations upon which to build over the last two years. Now it’s time for Diva to use their XP to upgrade to the Next Level.