The Last Thursday Club: Beyond Multi-Channel — The Future of Omnichannel Planning

Richard Friar is Managing Director at Spark Foundry. Richard is responsible for senior client leadership, business growth, and the development of integrated, outcome led partnership models that align closely with client priorities.

Richard brings over 20 years of experience leading large, complex client relationships, operating at the intersection of brand, performance, data, and technology. He is recognised for building and leading multi-disciplinary teams at scale, while maintaining clear accountability, pace of decision making, and a strong commercial focus.

He joined Spark Foundry from Starcom UK, where he was managing director for six years, helping to lead the agency to six Campaign ‘Best Places to Work’ in a row. Throughout his career, Richard has partnered closely with executive leadership teams to help navigate periods of transformation, market disruption, and accelerated growth. His work has focused on evolving how agencies and clients collaborate, moving away from traditional, siloed models towards senior led, integrated partnerships that deliver measurable business impact.

Sadie Teasdale is Group Head at Blis, the omnichannel DSP, where she drives commercial growth and champions industry innovation. A proven leader in scaling business operations, Sadie established and launched Blis’ Manchester office, defining the commercial strategy and successfully building a high-performing team over the past four years.

With a career spanning 20 years, Sadie’s deep expertise in the evolving media landscape is built on a foundation of roles at major powerhouses, including Condé Nast, The Guardian, News UK, and ESI Media. Beyond her commercial leadership, she is deeply committed to fostering collaboration and inclusion within the media community; she served as the 2022 President of Bloom North and continues to support the organisation’s mission as a Trustee.

Marco Perin is Growth & Strategy Director at Azerion UK, where he shapes the strategy and positioning behind Azerion’s omnichannel advertising solutions across Display, Video & CTV, DOOH, Audio and Gaming. He brings a practical view on how media planning needs to evolve as channels, data and automation become more connected. His perspective focuses on turning omnichannel from a channel mix into a smarter planning and activation framework - one that reflects real consumer behaviour and helps agencies and advertisers build more cohesive, measurable campaigns.