Richard Addy is the Co-Founder and Director of AKAS, a multi-award-winning international audience strategy consultancy. AKAS provides advice on impact strategies, audience-based strategies, corporate narratives, and research to leading organisations such as The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BBC News, The Guardian, WarnerBros, The World Bank Group, The OECD, and the IMF.  It has served clients in the following spaces: International Institutions, News Media, Creative Industries, International Development, Charities/Foundations/NGOs, Education, Tourism, Consumer Products and Market Research. 

He has over 25 years of experience working as a strategist and government economist, advising CEOs, C-suite executives, government ministers, multilateral organisation executives, charity, and foundation leaders.  Before setting up AKAS, he was the chief adviser to the BBC’s deputy director general on strategic and audience issues in news media, which ensured that BBC News reached a quarter of a billion people every week. He is also a Board member of theguardian.org and author of Africa No Filter’s The Business in Africa Narrative Report.