Zaid is an award-winning brand and communications expert with nearly 20 years experience across some of the world’s most iconic brands, both client and agency side.

At Unilever, Zaid propped up a generation's pulling power with the promise of the Lynx Effect. Over in adland, the scent of success followed him across senior strategic roles at Mother and TBWA, as MD of digital agency Saint and most recently as CEO of McCann London, where he led the agency's transformation agenda.

He is an elected member of the Council at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, a member of the Effie’s UK Steering Committee and was named by City A.M. as one of the UK's Top 30 most influential people in media, advertising and communications. He's even been Alan Sugar's advertising advisor on The Apprentice. But don't hold that against him.

Torn between a life in law or rock and roll, Tom found something that combined both and got a job in advertising. His career started at BBH in New Business and Account Management. Roles at Agency Republic, Wieden+Kennedy, Mother and AMVBBDO followed for the likes of PlayStation, Levi’s, EA Games and Guinness. He joined Above+Beyond in July 2016 from McCann London where he was Head of Account Management and Managing Partner for MasterCard.

Sara is to strategy what the SAS is to the military. A qualified barrister, she decided to ditch the wig and persuaded no less than Richard Branson to appoint her to his 'Special Projects' team in his global foundation. Here, Sara worked with Virgin businesses, well-known global figures and starts ups on a range of purpose-driven and innovation projects, going on to lead the strategic and creative development of new youth leadership brand The NewNow. No slouch when it comes to business travel, she's run workshops everywhere from Silicon Valley to the Atlas Mountains and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dave turned down a doctorate at Cambridge and a life as a concert cellist to hitch a ride on the dotcom train, ending up in senior PR and marketing roles for tech brands. Finally plucking up the courage to scratch the musical itch, he ditched the day job and made the leap into music production and songwriting in 2003. He signed to Universal Music Publishing the same year and over the next decade wrote, produced and remixed artists as diverse as Kylie, Bat For Lashes, Jamelia, The Verve, Lily Allen and Chamonix, bagging a top ten hit, starting a breaking Radio 1 act and appearing as Band Of The Day in The Guardian as well as amassing numerous writing credits. In 2006 he began working with entertainment marketers Creative Partnership as a musical collaborator and creative, writing TV scripts, rescoring trailers and generally making a nuisance of himself. Until they made him head of Creative. Whilst he was there, he came up with some good ideas for LOVEFiLM and Betway. Which came in handy, as it turned out.

Ed fondly remembers a time when digital was called "new media" and AskJeeves was the nation's favourite search engine. It’s a very different landscape now, but one which Ed is incredibly familiar with, having amassed a phenomenal amount of experience in media, digital and data. A decade at Havas saw Ed take roles as Managing Director of Forward Media, O2's dedicated media team, and Group MD of integrated agency Fullsix. Intrigued by the embryonic reintegration of media and creative happening outside network agency land, Ed joined us in 2018 to make sure our ideas are meaningfully and artfully brought to life across every audience channel; helping us define, ironically, what the "new media" looks like.

David is a strategy expert and entrepreneur with close to 20 years’ experience working on some of the world’s most recognisable fashion, retail, food & drink and automotive brands.
David started his career at TBWA, where he working on Nissan, turning complex data into meaningful opportunities for dealerships across the UK. While there, he also worked on Cannes & D&AD award winning campaigns for John Smiths, adidas and Skittles, before moving to Y&R to work on Marks & Spencer, where he created the CSR platform Spark Something Good, which was campaign of the year at the PR Week Awards.
For the past three years, David has held the position of Planning Partner at McCann London, working across Godiva, Premier Foods and L’Oreal, and filling the awards cabinet with a Clio, a Jay Chiat, a Global Effie and an IPA Award during his time there.
In keeping with The Beyond Collective’s cultivation of an entrepreneurial culture, David is also co-founder and managing partner of luxury footwear brand, Fury, which launched in 2010.

Another Beyonder with roots in music, Anita cut her teeth at Channel 4 TV series Popworld. With growing production prowess and the ability to handle the starriest of egos, Anita moved to Pagan, a production company making videos and content for brands and bands alike, including Texas, Robbie Williams, Levi’s, Ford and Guinness. Crossing over to agency side, Anita worked for some of the industry's most famous names, producing great filmed content and handling integrated projects for brands like Sony, Coke, Mastercard, L'Oreal and more. As the guardian of integrated production for the agency, Anita helps us make anything we can imagine.

Nic was destined for a life in the movies. Sort of. Having passed up a law degree to bag the country’s first single honours in film theory, he joined entertainment marketers Creative Partnership, where he quickly became their youngest ever board member. As well as spearheading their push into home entertainment through DVD, Blu-ray, streaming and beyond, Nic found time to handle the UK launch of Avatar, Lord of the Rings and a few other films you may have heard of. In his leisure time, Nic founded pioneering digital agency Perfunktory, working with Egg, Mean Fiddler and Channel 4, the first company to live stream a festival in the UK. Whilst at Creative Partnership, he met Dave. They launched LOVEFiLM, Betway, and then decided it was time to get ambitious. They started Above+Beyond in 2012.

Benje has a natural flair for sniffing out balls, however big or small and wherever they are – under desks, in bins, under leaves – and you’d expect nothing less from a canine. But it’s Benje’s sixth sense that makes him great.

At McCann London, Benje leapt up the ranks from graduate trainee to Head of Client Services. But after twelve dog years, Benje realised that the grass is actually greener, and now enjoys the freedom and boundless energy of Above+Beyond.

As People Officer, Benje is in charge of client-welcome and staff satisfaction. By inviting all people to stroke his beautiful black mane, he is able to break the human convention of personal space which in turn helps liberate the soul and imagination of the agency.