Rebecca Howard, Managing Director, Cynergy

May 11 2010 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette

Rebecca Howard has missed out on a small fortune by turning her back on the private sector. Jez Davison finds out why...

‘DIFFERENT THINKINGLY’ is a grammatically jolting company strap-line to parade on your marketing literature, but Rebecca Howard couldn’t care less.

In fact, she says, that’s exactly the point: she wants people to know that her growing communications and events agency, Cynergy, is thinking outside of the box.

That’s not a bad strategy to adopt in the turbulent ocean of agency work, where point of difference keeps competitor sharks at bay.

But not many agencies have proactively turned away thousands of pounds of business by shunning Britain’s entire, sprawling corporate sector.

Stokesley-based Cynergy refuses, point-blank, to work with private companies, preferring to position itself as a social enterprise champion that can leverage positive change in Government-led organisations and local communities.

This ethos means that Cynergy will not carry out a project unless it changes lives or, at the very least, delivers a tangible, social benefit.

"Our work has to make a positive difference to people’s lives," says Rebecca. "We wouldn’t change our values - our driver is to create change."

And it’s a strategy that seems to be working for the company.

Established by Rebecca in 2002, Cynergy now has more than 300 clients and generated annual revenues of £2.2m in the year to March.

Turnover next year is projected to hit £3m, even though client budgets could be hit by swingeing post-election public sector cuts.

Rebecca will be hoping Conservative Party plans to strip £6bn out of the public sector - with cuts to Whitehall spending on consultants a key component of the plan - won’t come to fruition.

But even if they do she will stick firmly to her tried and trusted strategy.