Megan Towers has returned from retirement to head up brand strategy collaboration platform Yes&.

Towers, who left the industry with her departure from the chief strategy officer post at John St. in May 2022, succeeds Trent Fulton, who founded the business in 2021. After a consultation period to ease the transition, Fulton will exit the business to pursue a new, unannounced opportunity.

Towers assumes the helm of a company that has provided project-based, strategic support to agencies including Salt, Juliet, Church+State, Mint, Jacknife, Ogilvy, Bleublancrouge and many others. While she turned down other opportunities during her retirement, Towers says the return with Yes& felt right.

“What I love about this opportunity is both that Trent is a good friend and I have watched this journey firsthand, understand the momentum he’s built and some of the challenges he’s had, but also, it’s an interesting perspective to take yourself out of the day-to-day grind and think about the industry holistically,” she says. “There’s still a huge need for this service and it has some traction.”

While Towers says that one of Fulton’s strengths was developing ongoing relationships on the agency side, where freelancers are used on a project-based model, “it’s been a bit more challenging for brand clients to wrap their head around.” With that in mind, Towers intends to “build more of the brand side of the business.”

“There’s a real opportunity to help [brands] with that and make it easier for them to identify needs and justify the cost,” she says. “That’s where I’ll be focused.”

Still, the business won’t neglect its agency partnerships, particularly because they “continue to struggle to maintain a full set of resources in many departments,” which often includes strategy.

Towers says that Yes& has had several partners who have had positive experiences “using different specialists for different projects.”

“I think that demonstrates the power of the platform the best,” she adds.