IRL: How to build a £600m challenger brand with Tom Rainsford, Ex-Beavertown & Giffgaff
🔐 THIS IS A PRIVATE MEMBERS ONLY EVENT 🔐
Please do not sign up for this talk unless you are a paying Big Up Club member. Thanks!
This event is sponsored by Ask Us For Ideas
We will kick off at 6pm with a chance to grab a drink and chat to fellow members. Tom's talk will begin from 6:30pm.
Tom doesn't just understand famous challenger brands, he's built them. One of the founding team behind giffgaff. And the Marketing Director who made Beavertown famous beyond craft beer.
He's been there, and done the work. He will share his thoughts on what it takes to build a Challenger business that not only to competes but wins in a market. Tom builds brands people don't just like, they love.
As one of the founders of giffgaff, he helped take the business from a concept on a single sheet of A4 to a £600m-revenue mobile network and, along the way, made it the UK's most-liked mobile brand and a Which?Recommended Provider for over five consecutive years.
At Beavertown Brewery, Tom scaled a cult craft beer brand into a category-challenging player, growing fame without trading away the brand equity that made it special in the first place.
In 2026, Tom founded ‘We Are Thought’, a Strategy House helping ambitious businesses build brands that become impossible to ignore.
He brings brand thinking with teeth, commercial rigour, and a sharp eye for where culture meets creativity.