Meet the UK Team Who Launched Smartwater & Popchips

Our team

A small, experienced team with decades of collective experience building some of the world's best brands.

Philippa Classey

Business and brand strategy, operational and executional planning, marketing and comms strategy from consumer to customer, full P&L management

Philippa is a seasoned leader with 20+ years of experience specialising in UK and European brand expansions and disruptive innovation launches. She has a proven track record at Coca-Cola, Glaceau, and within high-growth, purpose-driven startups, particularly in areas of organic food and plant-based Wellness.
Career highlights include: leading the launch of vitaminwater into its first international market, the UK, spearheading the launch of Smartwater from ideation to execution in 6 months, step changing the marketing & comms plans for Harmless Harvest expansion and acquisition.
Phil thrives in scaling brands and navigating challenges. She is a pragmatic leader committed to delivering results in dynamic business environments, making her a standout commercial force in her field.
Phil lives in London with her partner, their cheeky twin boys and the most laid-back Labrador ever, Ray.

Ruth Fittock

Brand, marketing, brand positioning, comms, marketing strategy

Ruth is a brand and marketing expert with over 15 years experience helping brands launch and grow. Specialising in challenger brands, and with a keen interest in better-for-you and sustainable brands, Ruth has worked from early brand concepts all the way through to acquisition, and everything in between, covering all elements of marketing from brand positioning and creative comms through to tiktok viral activations and brand campaigns.
Career highlights include — launching vitaminwater in the UK (where she met Phil!), being the 2nd employee at Popchips UK and growing the brand all the way through to acquisition, adapting it for the UK & EU market along the way, and creating the Simply Roasted brand from scratch and rolling out successfully into the UK.
When she’s not building the brands of tomorrow you can find Ruth at her beach hut in her hometown of Brighton.

Sofia De Crescentiis

commercial sales, routes to market, retail pitches & launches, trade & promotional planning, P&L forecasting and management

Sofia has over 10 years experience working in commercial sales across many channels including wholesale, export, national on-trade, restaurant chains, and retail. This experience has been gained primarily through working in high growth startups challenging the category status quo: Camden Town Brewery, Minor Figures and Wildfarmed. Sofia has also worked for a specialty importer and distributor, so understands the unique challenges that importers face and how to stand out from a portfolio.

Career highlights include launching new routes to market and managing Camden Town Brewery outside of London (both within the UK and internationally) and seeing the brand through to acquisition, launching Minor Figures into retail & subsequently managing the entire EMEA P&L, and leveraging Wildfarmed’s regenerative flour into a completed food product to sell into national food chains.

When Sofia isn’t working, she’s enjoying everything London has to offer by way of food, drink… then running laps around London Fields as penance.