Rhys Hayes
Company: IE
Sector: Internet, marketing and advertising
Rhys Hayes is not even 30, yet already his digital marketing and communications agency IE is almost a decade old and employs 35 people.
What began as an outsourced web development agency for the advertising and marketing industry has been evolved by Hayes and his team to become a full-service agency providing digital only services.
"Our view was that digital was neither a niche nor a channel but in fact a process of change, from one to another, from analogue media to digital media," Hayes says.
His belief has been borne out by IE being named as an Agency of Record on the roster of many clients, and was invited to join the international Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). While being a young entrepreneur has its downsides – namely a lack of established networks to call upon, it also has its benefits.
"It's far, far easier to be a young entrepreneur than an older one - energy, passion and a reasonable helping of naive self-belief go a long way towards creating success," Hayes says.
