The scene opens on a public bar. Two guys are hunched over a laptop, beers at their elbows. One is in his late thirties, Mark McArthur-Christie. The other, James Freeman-Gray, just twenty one. But it’s clearly a relationship of equals as the ideas fly between them. They still don’t know which one of them it was who leaned back and said “You know, we really should start a business doing what we believe in…” A business built on trust, respect and freedom – one focused on improving the conversations and relationships in organisations.
So that’s what they did. With nothing more than a dream and the collection of their experiences they founded Freeman Christie in 2004 – a business created to use the simplest but most powerful tool we all have – communication – and do it in a way that no-one else was. During the early days it wasn’t easy. People laughed. Plenty of blank faces and confused looks in meetings as James & Mark tried to convince people that using comms as a business asset could transform who and why they were.
But there were the believers too…the ones who just got it. The ones who saw the huge value in communication not just as an outcome but an adhesive and a lubricant that binds organisations together and eases the way they function. Not just the reserve of the marketing department, but with a much wider remit. Something with the power to change everything.
And so, the following years revolved around finding the right people, skill sets that would normally never interact, but all focused on aspects of communication. Finding new ways of using communication to help with problems where everything else has failed. Most importantly – continuing to develop authentic ways of helping organisations become more than they ever thought they could be.
Since those early days Freeman Christie has grown into a unique business, helping government departments, third sector organisations and bluechips.
So what was – and is – FC? It’s certainly not easy to define. It’s the vehicle for a group of like-minded but very different people to make the world a better place through realising the power of communication.