Despite the UK being in an enforced lockdown due to Covid-19, Cardiff-based website development agency, Illustrate Digital, has managed to attract five new clients to its books across the technology, legal and B2C sectors.

In addition, the agency now has a majority female board thanks to two new board appointments. It has promoted one of its longest standing team members, Melin Edomwonyi, to its board of directors and recruited Margaret Ascroft as the agency’s first Financial Director.

In addition to all this, the agency has also re-branded to support its ambitious marketing strategy and align itself more closely to its clients across the financial services and legal sectors.

Scott Jones, founder and Managing Director of Illustrate Digital, said: “The beginning of 2020 has been a tremendous time of growth and development for Illustrate Digital. We expanded into Bristol at the start of 2020 and that marked a change in confidence and direction for us as a business. The new brand absolutely reflects this and signals a new chapter of growth for us. We are specialists in WordPress so it made sense to bring this to the fore across all of our marketing, and we are really proud of the results.

Regarding the board changes, Scott added: “Melin is a founding member of the Illustrate Digital team in Cardiff and has been a pivotal member of the senior management team for some time, so it was a natural next step to appoint someone so invested and dedicated to the business to the board of directors. Her new role as UX Director signals an area we plan to grow and strengthen, increasing the creative, user-focussed and analytical side of our business to help meet market demand and Melin is the perfect person to do this.”

Margaret Ascroft, who is the agency’s first Financial Director, has joined since relocating to Cardiff in 2019. As a Chartered Accountant and experienced Financial Director she has helped build multi-million pound businesses and aims to guide the agency to similar success in her new role.

Scott added: “Margaret’s appointment is also a key move for Illustrate Digital. It is unusual for an agency of our size to appoint a Financial Director, but we think it shows our ambition and confidence. Margaret is already positively impacting our business and our clients. Her appointment has been a strategic one and will help us prepare for further growth and development in the coming years.”

Illustrate Digital is one of the UK’s leading web development companies for financial services and has this month launched websites for Hodge Bank as well as the SME business banking and accounting startup, CountingUp.

Scott Jones said the addition of five new clients has come as a welcome surprise during lockdown: “It is great that so many companies have the confidence and trust in our business even at this weird time when we are all working remotely and very differently. These wins are a testament to the Illustrate Digital team who have ensured professional continuity during this time.

“In fact, we won two contracts completely virtually, as we pitched and presented the strategy via Google Meet, so we are very pleased with that.”