Rise at Seven Raids Jellyfish for Two Leaders in an Aggressive International Push
Updated: 6 days ago
TL;DR: Manchester-based search agency Rise at Seven has hired two senior leaders from Jellyfish to spearhead an aggressive international and organic-growth expansion.
Two Senior Hires From a Rival
Rise at Seven, the Manchester-headquartered search agency, has hired two senior leaders from Jellyfish. Rob Philbin, previously Jellyfish's head of earned media with more than seven years at the business, joins as group director of organic growth.
Chris Krizsak, also from Jellyfish, joins to lead European expansion. CEO Carrie Rose pointed to the agency's ambitions around 'multi-million-pound search accounts'.
Taking two of a competitor's senior people in quick succession is not defensive housekeeping. It is a statement of intent.
An Agency Playing Offence
Rise at Seven already works with Red Bull, SIXT, Capital One, Quorn, Primark, JD Sports and SharkNinja, operates from Manchester, London and New York, and employs around 100 staff.
The hires are explicitly tied to international growth and to building out organic capability, the parts of search that compound over time rather than renting traffic by the click.
Poaching senior leadership is one of the clearest signals an agency can send that it intends to scale rather than consolidate.
Search Is Being Rebuilt Around AI
The strategic backdrop is the fragmentation of Google. As AI overviews, chatbots and answer engines absorb queries that once produced ten blue links, discovery is scattering across new surfaces.
Rise at Seven is positioning around answer-engine optimisation and AI-driven discovery, the emerging discipline of being the source an AI cites rather than the tenth result a human scrolls to.
The agencies investing in senior talent here are betting that the next decade of search looks very different from the last.
The Marketing Minute Read
Hiring two of a rival's senior leaders in short order signals an agency playing offence, not defence, and it maps where the smart money in search is moving: toward AI and organic discovery.
For brands, the practical question to put to any search partner is how they are adapting measurement for LLM and AI search. If an agency can only report rankings and clicks, it is measuring the last war.
Ask who can tell you whether an AI is recommending your brand, and why. That is the metric that will matter.
Quick FAQ
Who has Rise at Seven hired from Jellyfish?
Rob Philbin, Jellyfish's former head of earned media, joins as group director of organic growth, and Chris Krizsak joins to lead European expansion.
What is Rise at Seven's strategy?
The agency is pursuing aggressive international and organic-growth expansion, positioning around answer-engine optimisation and AI-driven search as Google fragments.
What should brands ask their search agency now?
Ask how they are adapting measurement for LLM and AI search, including whether they can tell you if and why AI tools are recommending your brand.
Hiring two of a rival's senior leaders in quick succession is an agency playing offence, not defence. The smart money in search is moving toward AI and organic discovery. If your search partner can only report rankings and clicks, they are measuring the last war. Ask them who can tell you whether an AI is recommending your brand, and why. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Search is being rebuilt around AI discovery; if your agency only reports rankings and clicks, it is measuring the last war.
Can your search partner tell you whether AI tools are recommending your brand, and explain why?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Prolific North, BusinessCloud.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
