Louise Lai

Louise has worked in the social impact space for nearly two decades, with the majority of her time working agency-side, building and leading client services teams. She has been with manifesto (part of TPXimpact) for more than four years, joining as Transformation Director to develop new services and propositions to support change and transformation with its not-for profit sector clients. She then moved into an Executive Leadership role to integrate multiple digital agencies into a single digital experience division within TPXimpact, including leading the restructure and co-design of a client services team to align its capabilities and resources with a refreshed business strategy. This led to the successful brand relaunch of manifesto as TPXimpact’s Digital Experience agency for changemaking organisations in March 2024. Louise was recognised for her experience and commitment to the craft of client services in the BIMA100 CEOs and Leaders 2023.

Louise began her journey working at Barnardo’s children’s charity, before taking the leap agency-side where she used her client-side experience to help hone her skills and capabilities. Louise has a wide range of experience, from advertising agencies to creative and strategy, where she built a client services team at one of the leading organisations working with UK and Global not-for-profit brands.

At the heart of Louise’s approach is a truly values-led leader who creates the space and conditions for authentic collaboration and impact. She is passionate about community, connection and helping people achieve their goals, and in 2020 she co founded a volunteer organisation FemMentored, which supports women in the social impact space. Since its launch, it has built an active digital community of more than 2000 women and supported 650 women with its mentoring programme. She is also a Member of the Board of Trustees at Blood Cancer UK, joining them in January 2021 to share her not-for-profit  fundraising and wider digital transformation experience.

Within BIMA, Louise is keen to help showcase the vital role client services play within any agency setting; how to create platforms for change and ultimately, help BIMA continue to inspire its members to be the change we want to see within our industry.