About
Fifteen years
building things.
I’m Dom Carter, Chief Strategy Officer at Embryo, one of the UK’s largest independent marketing agencies. Brand and performance marketing across sport, property and fashion, most of it from the founder’s chair.
Bio
I’ve had the honour of working with some of the most exciting brands I could have hoped for, from launching sportswear brands on Premier League football shirts to growing global cycling brands worn on the bib shorts of Tour de France teams.
As CEO and co-founder of Serotonin, I grew a team of performance marketers and creative strategists from 5 people in 2020 to 30 by the end of 2025, turning over £5m. Away from sport, we worked heavily in property alongside national PLCs such as Grainger and Legal & General, supporting them end to end on new scheme launches: UX, web design and conversion at one end, lease-up forecasts to fill buildings as quickly as possible at the other.
Fashion brands retained us too, old and new: Etonian outfitters New & Lingwood, modern luxury label Belier, and Manchester born and bred Private White V.C.
In 2026 we rolled the agency into Embryo. We’re now working towards a shared ambition: building the business people point to when they talk about a marketing agency from Manchester.
My role as Chief Strategy Officer sits across the areas where I’m most experienced and most useful. That means helping the current client base expand their channel strategies and find incremental ways to grow, integrating AI into the agency to improve how we work from top to bottom, developing new business across the UK and EMEA, and working with the Board to build an agency people want to work at.
I have a BSc in Geology from the University of Plymouth, which is not the obvious route into marketing and probably explains why I look at most of it slightly sideways.
Outside work I’m happiest running, cycling or sailing.
Career
- 2026 to present
- Chief Strategy Officer, Embryo. Client channel strategy, AI integration across the agency, new business in the UK and EMEA, and Board work on culture.
- 2019 to 2026
- CEO and co-founder, Serotonin. Grew the agency from 5 people to 30 and £5m turnover with Clair Heaviside. Rolled into Embryo in 2026.
- Education
- BSc Geology, University of Plymouth.
What I speak and write about
- Marketing that works
Brand dissections, campaign failures and the commercial mechanics behind marketing that works and marketing that embarrasses everyone. - Building and selling an agency. [PLACEHOLDER: keep or cut]
Recent talks include Reaching the Unreachable at Dagora in September 2025 and a session on agile creative analytics at Lifestyle Innovation Day 2025. The decks, photos and write-ups are on the talks page.
