Our People

Michael Allen
Chairman and Managing Director

Michael Allen, founder of allen international, has 30 years experience in international marketing and over 20 years involvement in strategic design.

Michael's specialism in financial services has seen him direct a multitude of high profile banking projects with ABN AMRO Bank (Worldwide), Bank Austria, Anyhyp Spaarbank (Belgium), Sparebanken NOR (Norway), KBC (Belgium), Akbank (Turkey), BBL (Belgium), CIBC (Canada), Boland Bank (South Africa), Banco Real (Brazil), La Caixa (Spain), Arab National Bank (Saudi Arabia), Allied Irish Bank (Ireland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Raiffeisenlandes Bank (Austria) and Garanti Bank (Turkey).

Prior to forming allen international, Michael was Managing Director for RPA/Europe where he was responsible for all RPA's European business. During his successful management of RPA Europe, he supervised a number of major financial services projects with National Westminster Bank, Deutsche Bank (Spain), Yapi Kredi (Turkey), VSB Bank (Netherlands), Caja de Madrid (Spain) and Banco Popular Espanol (Spain).

Mark Howman
Creative Director

Mark is one od allen international's most experienced retail designers.

He is responsible for leading a team of designers on any given retail project, ensuring its overall smooth running as well as establishing and maintaining strong client communications throughout a project's duration.

Previously Mark was at Landor Associates as Design Director for the three years 1993-1996. There he worked with Ackermans in South Africa on the creation of a new identity and instore graphics programme. Other clients included Beyman Department Store in Turkey, new store concepts for Kodak Express and developed new identity and retail applications for Kodak Image Magic, the design of forecourt convenience shops for Total Oil, new store identity and retail concepts for Euromercato hypermarkets and G.S. Supermercati in Italy as well as work for Rank Xerox in Spain.

Nic Preece
Design Director

Since joining allen international Nic has worked on a number of key strategic projects including brand creation and retail environments for Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds TSB, Home Credit, Petrol Ofisi, Bank of Valetta, VAB, Privat Bank, Bank of Scotland and Bancolombia.

Nic has held senior positions in companies in the UK and abroad, as well as running his own business for nine years. He brings expertise in retail, leisure and workspace design, with extensive creative direction experience in graphic design and brand creation.

Under contract to TID International Pte in southeast Asia and India, he worked as senior creative on the design and development of the Singapore Houses of Parliament and the head quarters for Hill Samuel Bank and numerous other retail and leisure project across the region.

He joined design company Revolution as creative director working on brand creation and interior design for companies Scottish and Newcastle, SAB, Ethel Austin, Debenhams and Luminar Leisure. In 1996 Nic became a Partner at Redbird Design Co. his projects included brand creations for Munich Re, Beachcroft Wansbrough, Metropolitan Restaurants, Dupont, City Financial and 20Twenty.

Richard Benson
Design Director

Richard is one of allen international's most experienced brand and retail creatives. Richard has been responsible for directing the development of original brand identities and interior concepts for a diverse collection of retailers and banks alike. These range from a complete rebrand of Cairo Amman Bank in Jordan to the development of a totally new brand strategy and identity for a cosmetics, health and beauty products retailer in Barcelona named Infaradis.

Richard has most recently been involved in the pan-European roll-out of a branch concept for the National Bank of Greece and coordinating the redesign of it's Brand Identity that is being implemented across the NBG group's subsidiaries from Egypt to Eastern Europe. His other clients include: Raiffeisen International, Hansabank, Islandsbanki, BPI, BNP Paribas, Garanti, Fortis Bank, Carlsberg, Superbock and Coca Cola.

Prior to allen international Richard was lead designer on a number of petrochemical retail projects for both Esso and Shell UK. Before this he coordinated a fashion brand/retail design team in Bangkok Thailand for CDI Ltd, developing brand identities and point of purchase retail outlets.

James White
Design Director

James White joined allen international as Senior Designer and was later promoted to the role of Design Director.

Tasked with building on his creative role within the business James has worked with a diverse range of global retail and financial brands including Lloyds TSB, Helm, Mashreq, and BNL, and is excited by the opportunity of expanding his experience.

Prior to joining allen international James' previous experience includes time at Enterprise IG, BDG McColl and Fitch, working on retail, leisure and brand focused schemes.

Suraj Natarajan
Design Director

Since joining allen international Suraj has been working with key clients such as Petrol Ofisi, A1 Communications, Home Credit Finance, Emirates Bank, Union National Bank, BNL, Bancolombia and Helm.

Previously he was Head of Creative for Topaz and The Chase Advertising Design Consultants in Dubai, responsible for concept development and art direction for clients including Gulf Air, La Moda, Inter-Continental Hotel, The British Council, Emmar Propertities, IDEX Expo and Gantoot Racing & Polo Club. Other major clients included The Emirates Industrial Bank, The Dubai Islamic Bank, Majid Al Futtaim, Dubai Municipality, Belhasa Group, Mondial Investments, Feet First (Retail Lesiure).

Prior to Dubai Suraj had twelve years of design and art direction experience in London working at a number of well established branding and retail design firms including RSCG Conran Design where he was responsible for art direction and styling for Habitat UK, Antilla Foodstore (Finland),The London Pavilion (shopping mall), Do It All (DIY chain), Body Shop and Mothercare.

Charles Clark
Marketing Director

Charles leads the marketing team at allen international and brings considerable blue chip consumer brand and retail marketing experience with him.

Managing multi-skilled creative teams across the globe for over 15 years, primarily within the McCann Erickson World Group of agencies, he has worked with Coca Cola, Deutsche Bank, GlaxoSmithKline, Exxon Mobil, Motorola, Sainsbury's, Nestle and Unilever.

Charles's experience in developing global brands within emerging markets has been harnessed by alleninternational in the agency's drive to deliver world class design led solutions that help drive effective business growth for their clients across various market sectors.

Esther Miller-Comrie
Head of Strategy

Esther recently joined allen international to lead, broaden and strengthen the company's strategic offering in order to encompass a full range of business and brand consultancy capabilities. A catalyst for change, her background includes developing innovative business, brand and retail strategies and implementing creative and holistic solutions across a wide range of business, branding and emerging communication platforms.

Esther started her career with The Financial Times and moving agency-side has worked for a number of high profile global agency networks including JWT, Publicis and was a member of the management board at Saatchi & Saatchi where she worked across financial services, retail, fashion, automotive and technology. She then took the role of Managing Partner of global brand agency Lloyd Northover specialising in the Financial Services, Retail and Automotive sectors.

Esther has worked with a diverse range of clients that include: HSBC, Friends Provident, Standard Chartered, Lloyds TSB, Chelsea Building Society, Cardif Pinnacle, Comet, Dr. Martens, Infiniti, T-Mobile, Du Pont, IBM, Reckitt Benckiser and BP.

Christina Blache
Strategist

Christina Blache joined allen international to further strengthen the company's brand development and retail strategy resource. Christina has held senior positions in advertising, branding and strategic consulting companies with a strong focus on retail and brand strategy development.

She has extensive experience in managing a variety of fmcg, retail and service projects, including many Pan-European programmes. Before joining allen international, Christina worked for Allegra Strategies, a London-based strategy consulting firm specialising in retail and consumer lifestyle sectors. In this role she led various strategic research and consulting programmes for large retail and FMCG clients including Marks & Spencer, Samsung, ASDA, Ikea, Vodafone and Disney Corporation. She has also written a number of brand related studies, including Project Flagship and a report on Ethical Branding.

Other agencies Christina had worked for previously include Publicis Berlin, McCann Erickson, BBDO and Rapp Collins.