Abby Zihler is a fractional CMO, Chief of Staff-style advisor, executive coach and former agency founder who helps founders and leadership teams create clarity, alignment and sustainable change. She is particularly strong where growth has become messy - priorities are blurred, accountability is unclear, or the team is scaling faster than the structure around it. Abby’s background spans procurement, digital marketing, agency leadership and founder life.
After starting in procurement and electronics supply chains, she moved into marketing through a voluntary role as trustee and marketing manager for Progress Theatre, later completing CIM training and building a 15-year career in digital marketing and agency leadership. She co-founded Become REBEL, a full-service digital agency, holding board-level accountability for strategy, P&L and culture. During COVID, Abby helped redirect retail clients towards DTC as wholesale channels became unviable, contributing to strong revenue growth and high client retention. She has led teams, managed multi-million-pound client portfolios, and worked with brands including Vivobarefoot, Phase Eight, Whistles, Hobbs, Sunspel, Katie Loxton, Joma Jewellery, Merlin Entertainments, Allianz Global Investors, Selfridges, Burberry, Charlotte Tilbury, Gymshark and M&S.
More recently, Abby has worked as a fractional CMO and Chief of Staff, supporting a high-growth business as it scaled from around 10 to 80+ people. Her work has included enterprise tender leadership, strategic positioning, governance infrastructure, KPI frameworks, vision development, accountability structures and leadership support. She is also qualifying as a coach, bringing a people-centred approach to change - helping leaders and teams make progress without burning out. Abby’s style combines commercial oversight, customer insight and calm leadership. She brings a marketing lens to the boardroom, but her work is broader than marketing: she helps leadership teams hear the customer, clarify the strategy, build the right structures, and create the conditions for sustainable growth.
Abby is best suited to founders and leadership teams in early-stage to growth-stage businesses where ambition is high but structure is lagging behind. She has particular depth in agency and services businesses, but can also support product-led startups and consumer-facing businesses where the challenge is commercial clarity, customer understanding, positioning, team alignment or sustainable growth.
A 1:1 with Abby is a practical, reflective session focused on where the business is stuck and what needs to become clearer. She is especially useful for founders who are trying to move from founder-led momentum to a more structured, scalable business.
Typical session themes include:
Abby is particularly well suited to giving feedback on elevator pitches, business plans in a deck, go-to-market strategy and pitch delivery. She typically engages through fractional leadership, coaching, advisory board or NED-style roles - bringing a customer-centred and people-centred perspective to the leadership table.
