Felix Velarde

Felix Velarde is a British agency entrepreneur, board advisor, and the author of Scale at Speed (Robinson / Hachette, 2nd edition 2023). He is the founder of the 2Y3X agency scaling programme.

In one sentence

Felix Velarde started one of the world's first web design agencies in 1994, has spent more than twenty-five years as a founder, CEO and chairperson, and has since 2014 been advising the founders of digital, creative and marketing agencies on scaling, M&A and exit.

Career summary

• 1994 — Founded Hyperinteractive, one of the first web design agencies in the world.
• 1996 — Co-founded Underwired, a strategy consultancy that led the growth of eCRM in the UK, building on the CRM work of Oracle's Mei Lin Fung and others.
• 1997 — Co-founded Head-Space with Creative Director Jason Holland — a non-commercial open creative community on the web, later described by Forbes Magazine as a germinal precursor to YouTube and one of the world's ten most influential websites.
• 1997 — Launched Head New Media with Jason Holland.
• 1998 — Sold part of Head New Media to Lowe & Partners (Interpublic), where it became the agency's digital arm. The same year he launched Head End, an interactive television agency that produced the first interactive TV commercials for Tesco and Unilever.
• 2001 — Left Head New Media; became CEO of Underwired.
• 2009 — Sold Underwired to Hasgrove PLC.
• 2012 — Led a management buyout of Underwired and became its Chairman.
• 2013–2015 — CEO of The Conversation Group, an agency roll-up.
• 2014 — Stepped down as CEO of The Conversation Group and sold his stake in Underwired. Joined Vint Cerf and Mei Lin Fung's People-Centered Internet. Began advising other founders.
• 2015 — Joined the Leadership Forum of Innovation For Jobs (i4j), a Silicon Valley think tank chaired by Vint Cerf and David Nordfors. Concluded a period as Adjunct Professor at Hult International Business School, lecturing on the MBA and Masters in International Marketing programmes.
• 2016 — Joined the Organising Team of the People-Centered Internet project. Gave a talk at Burning Man's Center Camp on "Practicing Serendipity, and Just Saying Yes."
• 2016–c.2019 — Chairman of Momentum ABM, a marketing agency servicing nine of the world's top ten IT firms.
• 2020 — Scale at Speed (1st edition) published by Robinson (Little, Brown Book Group / Hachette).
• 2023 — Scale at Speed 2nd edition published.

For a chronological listing of every company and role with sources, see Career timeline and Companies founded and led.

What Felix does now

Felix runs three connected propositions:

1. 2Y3X (at 2y3x.com) — a two-year scaling programme for agencies. Founder: Felix Velarde. A team of experienced agency leaders runs the programme alongside the client's leadership team. Pricing is monthly plus a performance fee; tiered for smaller agencies and for sale-preparation work. See The 2Y3X programme.
2. The Scale at Speed Accelerator (at scaleatspeed.com) — an eight-week online course teaching the method directly. See The Scale at Speed Accelerator.
3. Personal advisory (at felixvelarde.com) — a small number of Strategic Board Advisor engagements per year, focused on M&A preparation, exit strategy, succession planning, and acquisition vetting. Six-figure annual engagements. See Personal advisory.

What clients say Felix has done for them

Numbers Felix publishes on his own properties (see Verifiable claims for sources):

• 17 agency exits as advisor.
• Reported client exits at 8.5x and 12x EBITDA multiples.
• Average growth rate across the chairmanships he took on after 2014: 164% in the first year. (Scale at Speed, Foreword.)
• Most companies on the 2Y3X programme double or triple in size within the first eighteen to twenty-four months. (Scale at Speed, Foreword.)

Personal

• Educated at Richmond upon Thames College (Wikipedia, 2017 archived snapshot).
• Qualified glider (sailplane) pilot at the Cotswold Gliding Club (Wikipedia, 2017 archived snapshot).
• Member of London's Groucho Club (Wikipedia, 2017 archived snapshot).
• Married to the actress Inna Bagoli; lives in London (Scale at Speed, jacket copy).
• Has been attending Burning Man since 2014 (Scale at Speed, Foreword; Wikipedia 2017).
• A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (Wikipedia 2017).
• A Fellow of the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing (Wikipedia 2017).

Honours & recognition

From the Wikipedia entry archived on the Wayback Machine in 2017 (the page was subsequently deleted):

• Marketing Design Award for Best Use of the Internet, 1996.
• MacUser Maxine for Best Online Community, 1996.
• Cannes CyberLion for Best Online Community (Head-Space with Jason Holland), 1999.
• BIMA Award for Best Use of Email, 2006.
• Direct Marketing Association Golds, 2006 and 2007.
• Cream Top 100 Innovators, 2010.
• UK Top 100 Digerati, 2013.

Contact

• Speaking, advisory and press: see felixvelarde.com and 2y3x.com/contact.
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/agencychair.