We are off-the-scale delighted to have our founder, Natalie Burkinshaw shortlisted for Female Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2024 Novi Awards.
Crush stands as part of the extraordinary 0.1% of creative agencies founded by women in the UK. Natalie started Crush over 20 years ago, when she found she was constantly disappointed in the service provided by an agency she was working for.
Since then, Crush has been growing in both size and strength, supporting organisations across the globe with transformative design, authentic brand strategy, website development and marketing.
A story of determination, and meaningful relationships in business
Crush’s journey began when Natalie was just 21 years old. A passionate designer with a strong work ethic, Natalie founded Crush to offer businesses an alternative to the big (often impersonal) agencies – one that would care more deeply for the working relationship and deliver creative projects with purpose.
Natalie wanted to provide the same care and attention to detail for the giant clients – the globally-recognised brands – as she would for the local, fellow independent businesses and charities. Her superpower is not just in providing creative expertise in design and website development, but in her deep understanding of a client’s underlying needs. Crush’s clients are often clients for life, largely due to Natalie’s exceptional communication tools and ability to provide clarity and deliver on every brief.
Over the past 20+ years, the creative industry has faced fast-paced times of change and challenges. Throughout varying market trends and most recently, the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, Crush stayed buoyant when many other similar creative agencies experienced financial ruin and closure.
Even today, 4 years on from the pandemic, the creative industries are ‘on a knife-edge’, with thousands of creative businesses and jobs having been lost.
And yet, Crush continues to evolve with a team of varied specialist roles and expertise.
Natalie has steered Crush through many challenging times by being agile and adaptive.
She surrounds herself with a team of creative, intelligent people who work collaboratively to solve problems and streamline processes. The internal culture of the company is one of trust and flexibility – resulting in a team of skilled, happy and hardworking people that find work at Crush a joyful experience.
Amongst the large scale creative projects, such as rebranding Chesterfield Council and developing the Ministry of Sound website, Natalie and the Crush team deliver projects across a diverse range of sectors, ranging from engineering giants Briggs and Ziemann Holvrieka through to the political movement SheDecides and charity Jai Dog Charity.
The purpose and power behind The Novi Awards
Novi, a leading network of women in business championing gender equality (formerly known as Forward Ladies) encompasses a global, united network of women working in partnership with leaders and progressive organisations to close the gender gap in business.
As of 2024, it’s reported that almost 1 in 5 of UK companies (just 18%) are led by women, with only 39% of women being confident in their capabilities to start a business compared to 55% of men – a perceived gap in ability, rather than an actual gap in skill sets (Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, HM Treasury 2019).
The Novi Awards were created to combat this imbalance in business leadership, through an annual celebration and recognition of inspirational female leaders and male agents of change. Through this investment, they believe in establishing ‘a space where women thrive’, developing female leaders through industry-specific leadership development programmes.
As a creative agency, this sentiment of imbalance in female authority especially hits home. In 2019, only 0.1% of creative agencies were owned by women, and just 12.6% of creative directors – across the globe – were women (2023).
“I’m incredibly honoured to share that I’ve been named a finalist for the Novi Leadership Summit & Awards 2024. I am humbled to find myself standing alongside such a stellar group of women, from such a diverse range of sectors and backgrounds.
Regardless of the outcome on the day, I really am thrilled to have been shortlisted. To every girl and woman out there: your dreams are valid, your ambitions are achievable, and your potential is limitless.
– Natalie Burkinshaw, Founder and Creative Director of Crush
