The strategist behind ZGMC
Chartered Marketer. Digital specialist.
I'm Zack Grimes, a Chartered Marketer with over a decade across marketing, communications and PR — most of it spent in organisations where the budget was tight, the scrutiny was high and getting it wrong had consequences beyond a bad quarter.
My specialism is digital. I plan, build and optimise multi-channel campaigns across paid, organic and earned media, and I'm as comfortable inside an ad account, a search console or an analytics platform as I am in a board paper. That combination is rarer than it should be: plenty of strategists can't read the data, and plenty of practitioners can't make the argument to a board. The value is in doing both.
I was Director of Communications at the Laurus Trust, where I built the scalable systems that supported the trust's expansion from 8 to 17 schools over three years. I currently serve as a Trustee at Hulme Grammar School and chair the Business Development Exchange at the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network. I hold Chartered Marketer status through the CIM and a Level 3 in Education and Training.
Education is where I built my reputation, and it remains a core sector. But the discipline transfers: the same work that helps a trust protect its standing helps a business win customers and a charity win funding. Visibility, credibility, decision. The scoreboard changes; the mechanism doesn't.
How we work
I can’t do all of the work on my own. When a project demands specialist capabilities beyond digital strategy and campaign execution, I partner with a trusted network of senior independent consultants, from brand designers and web developers to videographers and specialist PR practitioners. I remain your lead strategist, accountable for the brief, the commercial logic and overall delivery, while assembling the precise talent required for the scope. This model gives you the agility and senior-tier expertise of a full-service agency, with none of the bloated overheads, junior account handoffs, or unnecessary retainers.
We lead with evidence. Strategy that can't be measured as decoration. Every engagement starts with what the numbers actually say and ends with whether they moved.
We build capability, not dependency. We train your team deliberately so the work sustains itself.
We keep governance central. Boards, trustees, regulators, procurement, the public record. We've operated with all of it and we build strategies that survive contact with all of it.
We'll tell you what we think. You're paying for judgement, not agreement. If the plan is wrong, we’ll say so before the board does.
Why work with ZGMC
You get director-level strategic marketing and communications expertise at a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive hire — and without the agency model where senior people sell the work and juniors deliver it. You work with me, throughout.
Outside the work
I'm Manchester-based, a dad, and a school governor by choice rather than obligation. The sectors I work in are ones I have a personal stake in, which is probably why I take the reputational side of this so seriously.
Start with a conversation, not a proposal
A 30-minute discovery call. We’ll tell you what I'd do, whether we’re the right person to do it, and roughly what it costs. No pitch deck.