Winners of the People’s Choice PR Agency of the Year at The Annual 2025, The Romans continue their unmatched streak of creative excellence. Known for their bold storytelling, cultural impact, and a spirit that fuses innovation with authenticity, the agency has built a reputation that transcends traditional PR. In this exclusive Annual Spotlight, we catch up with our managing director, Indigo Le Fevre to explore how The Romans’ fearless approach to creativity, people-first culture, and future-focused tools like Serpent are reshaping the landscape of modern communications and setting new benchmarks for the PR industry.
Congratulations on your win! How does it feel to have earned the PR Agency of the Year People’s Choice award?
It feels brilliant. We’re ridiculously lucky (and proud) to have been awarded agency of the year every year since 2018 - a reign we’re in no way ready to let go. This is our first time entering the Creative Pool awards, having always admired The Annual and its reputation for celebrating creative excellence. The fact it’s People’s Choice and voted for by a community we hugely respect makes the win all the sweeter. Thank you to the judges and everyone who voted - we appreciate it!
What made you decide to enter into The Annual?
We pride ourselves on championing creativity first and foremost. The Annual is the pinnacle of that, so naturally we couldn’t help but want to see The Romans featured.
What role do you think awards play in motivating creativity and innovation within the industry?
We’re an industry of creatives that love nothing more than a healthy dose of praise, posturing and podium wins. But we’re also ambitious and curious - constantly looking to best ourselves and take things to the next level. There’s nothing like awards to incentivise and foster that growth. We love seeing our teams and client partners celebrate our work, but seeing the industry celebrate it too takes things to another level.
You’ve made recruitment your core strategy this year (60+ hires). What is the hiring ethos or criteria you use beyond just “talent” to ensure culture fit and longevity?
You’ll have to forgive me for talking in clichés, but ‘when you know, you know’. Everyone we meet is talented and has excellent experience, but there’s an intangible quality (or dare I say a spirit?) about the candidates that go on to become Romans and thrive here. Maybe it’s ambition, tenacity, a hunger to deliver exceptional work day in, day out. Whatever it is, we just know.
When two priorities conflict (e.g. client reputation vs boldness, speed vs depth, risk vs safety), what internal framework or decision process do you use to adjudicate?
Our clients come to us because they want to be challenged; to have their boundaries tested and do things differently. It’s our responsibility to share and support their priorities. But if all we said was ‘yes’, ‘sure’, ‘no problem’, we’d be doing them a huge disservice. Which is why we’ll often engage in respectful, transparent discourse that involves lots of: ‘but why?’, ‘or we could…’, ‘and what if…?’. It’s the best way to reach a conclusion all parties are fully behind and excited about.
Benefits like remote weeks, tattoo days, free lunches, training academies are very visible. What are the “invisible” cultural investments (processes, feedback, coaching) that sustain your agency beyond perks?
It’s our people. They’re our most impactful cultural investment by a mile. Of course we have a bunch of thoughtful processes and perks, but all of that would fall by the wayside if it weren’t for the exceptional humans that all uphold that culture and make our agency the brilliant environment that it is.
Your corporate practice now accounts for ~25% of work. How do you ensure your creative voice and brand values carry into that domain, which often demands more formal tone and behaviour?
Our corporate and brand reputation offering is headed up by the inimitable, Sam Hodges. I’ll do my best to give his vision and our team ethos justice… In short, we believe that people see corporate and consumer PR as separate worlds when - in reality - your key stakeholders are scrolling the same media outlets and socials over their morning coffee as the rest of us. We’re on a mission to close that gap, delivering progressive corporate storytelling through our award-winning creativity.
In a volatile external climate (economy, media, public trust), how do you hold the balance between chasing new clients and investing in existing client relationships?
We’re in the extremely fortunate position of not needing to do too much chasing. Our existing clients will always be our priority, and ensuring that’s reflected in the output they receive from us pays off when it comes to client retention and organic growth. That said, there’s nothing like the thrill of a new client win! We always say we treat every pitch like it’s our first, and that’s true. But the larger we get, the more selective we’re able to be in the opportunities we pursue. We appreciate that’s a privileged place to be in given the current climate - and not one we take for granted.
You created “The Romans Training Academy” of 30 modules. How do you avoid people feeling overtrained or burdened, and ensure the academy actually drives quality rather than becoming a check-box?
Oh don’t worry, the 30 modules aren’t for everyone. That sounds exhausting! They’re tailored to different teams and levels, and we roll them out steadily each quarter. Each one has its own lead, different group sizes, and a mix of interactive formats to keep things engaging. We ask for feedback after every session so we can tweak and improve as we go. That’s actually how we ended up with 30 modules: team members suggested new topics and even volunteered to run some themselves. (Told you they were brilliant).
Looking ahead: how do you see PR evolving in the next 3–5 years (AI, measurement, narrative control, reputation risk), and where do The Romans intend to be relative to that shift?
The best way to answer this is to show how The Romans is future-proofing the work we do and the value we bring to our clients. We recently launched our first ever software product: Serpent.
Built with the shift from SEO to GEO in mind, Serpent is a GEO analysis tool designed for this new era of AI-driven search across Google and LLMs. In simple terms, it puts Earned media in the driver’s seat, influencing how we find information, what we read, and where we click.
As our phenomenal Lucy Hart, the product’s mastermind, puts it: “Once we pitched editors. Now we pitch the algorithm.” Serpent will officially launch soon, but if you’re curious (and I know you are), you can join the waitlist online.
Do you have any particularly exciting projects in the pipeline that might be contenders for the awards in 2026?
So many! But you know I can’t tell you about them… yet.
Pipeline aside, we’ve had a brilliant year so far: from LIDL by LIDL (shout out Jordan Kavanagh) to Jaffa Cakes taking on the Biscuit Museum (go on, Jodie Trussler and Scarlet Pughe) and our beautiful Fragments of Hope campaign for the UK for UNHCR (sensitively crafted by Beth Arnold) - there’s lots in the mix. All thanks to our ridiculously talented creative, strategy, design and account delivery teams. Not forgetting the brave clients that trust us to bring the work to life.
What advice would you give to agencies looking to take home their own accolade next year?
Come join The Romans - we’re always hiring and would love to create more award-winning work with you!
