Fortune Street’s founding partners and directors are experienced practitioners in their own specialist areas.

Tony Allen, CEO, is a Cambridge graduate. He worked in advertising on Coca-Cola, Kodak and GM and then in corporate design for Newell & Sorrell in its London, New York and Amsterdam offices before returning to London to be joint MD of the newly created Interbrand Newell & Sorrell. Tony then became Interbrand UK’s CEO.

Tony set up Fortune Street with Lynne Dobney, Richard Village and Rodney Mylius in 2004. His clients include IBM, PwC, Allen & Overy, Toyota, Bechtel, Barclays and Rabobank. He has led many major branding and brand refresh projects for some of the world’s largest companies including branding for high-profile mergers. His career has been spent mainly working in the international B2B, banking and professional services sectors but he is a good all-rounder. He has extensive experience of the Russian business market. Tony is a contributing author for The Economist book Brands and Branding. His most recent work has been for Allen & Overy, leading a year long global research and positioning exercise.


Lynne Dobney, Managing Director, is a professional business coach and communications expert, with former branding clients including British Airways, Barclays and Selfridges. She is active in the design and branding industry as a past chair of the Design Business Association and co-founder of the London Design Festival.


Strategy Director Richard Village is a linguist and art history specialist whose clients have included Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Knorr, country branding for Estonia, the National Gallery and Kalinka Malinka in Russia. He has just curated the global art collection for Renaissance Group.


Creative Director Debrah Smith’s experience started with her award-winning packaging and retail design, working with brands like Cadbury, The Body Shop, Orange and Boots. Over the past ten years this has broadened to include corporate design projects for clients in telecomms and banking.


Fortune Street is also home to a team of designers and consultants, whose range of expertise extends from type design and illustration to Chinese economics and Mandarin.


back