James Burgess – Founder

James founded Squadron Venture Media in 2013.

He started his career as a media buyer in the early 90s at Carat before becoming part of the team that turned PHD Media from a London agency with 20 people to a global agency with 2,500 employees in 70 countries. After a spell as Media Director at Saatchi & Saatchi in Asia, he joined BBDO in Sydney as Head Of Strategy. 

He returned to the UK to found The Klondike Agency in June 2000, the first of a new wave of media strategy specialists that sprung up around the millennium. It was one of the first agencies to integrate digital media thinking into traditional advertising planning. Clients included BSkyB, General Motors, Travelocity, Clarks Shoes and Coca Cola. In 2003, Klondike consulted on the launch of Sky Italia, Europe’s biggest brand launch of that year. 

He left in 2006 to become part of the management team that launched Seatwave.com, attracting $50m in VC investment. The company gained rapid traction growing revenues to over $10m in little over 18 months as it expanded across Europe. The company was named number one at the top of the Guardian’s Tech 100 list in 2009 and was acquired by Live Nation/Ticketmaster in 2014. 

Since leaving Seatwave, James launched eHarmony into the UK market, spent a year developing brand strategy and the first TV advertising for Zoopla, put MOO.COM onto TV in the UK and US and launched and sold an online fine wine discount site. 

He founded Squadron Venture Media in 2013 with a simple mission – to bring together the UK’s dynamic tech scene and its vibrant media and creative communities to build some of the defining brands of the early 21st century.

Tom Lucas (Partner)

Having worked on both sides of the client/ agency divide in management, creative and media roles, Tom has developed an uncommon versatility which equips him well for the challenges facing growth businesses.

Tom graduated from Cambridge in 1996 with a degree in Social and Political Science and a full blue for boxing. He spent the first ten years of his career in creative agencies, starting at J. Walter Thompson (‘the University of Advertising’), and learning his trade at both the biggest (AMV. BBDO) and, arguably, the best (St Luke’s). This period also included invaluable stints as a strategy consultant (Marakon Associates) and a copywriter (McCann-Erickson). 

At 30, Tom moved client-side and specialised in launching and scaling media brands – initially at ITV and latterly at UKTV, where he was CMO for 4 years and won a slew of awards for marketing creativity and effectiveness.

In 2011, Tom joined Vodafone as Global Head of Comms Planning and Media, responsible for optimising €700m of annual marketing expenditure across 21 markets. In more recent years he has worked across a host of other broadcasters including the BBC and A+E Networks.

Tom joined Squadron as a Partner in January 2018 and has since worked with over 50 growth brands.