Founded by Marianne Waite
Human insight and corporate know-how, accelerated by AI, for real impact.
Explore how we help
The intention. The impact.
Most brands already know who they’re leaving out.
Disabled consumers, and many other groups, still find it hard to choose, buy and enjoy what brands offer. The intent may be there, but what holds progress back is the system: silos, sign-offs, budget cycles, research inefficiencies and pilots that never scale.
We’re built on corporate know-how. We understand how large organisations work, where inclusion gets stuck, and how to move it.
Our Barrier-Free Brand Experience™ approach pairs that know-how with paid insight from disabled people and AI that speeds up the work. The result is impact for communities, for your brand and for your business, faster than you’d expect.
01 / How we help
We meet you where you are and work out whose needs are being missed. Start with the problem you can most relate to.
02 / Our approach
We know how to move organisations.
Our foundation. We come from inside global brand and design consultancies, working with some of the world’s largest organisations. We know how decisions get made, who needs to say yes, and how to make the case in terms a board, a CMO and a CFO will act on. This is how progress speeds up.
The people you’re missing. In the room.
Real, paid insight from disabled people and other under-represented groups. Our contributors make the big calls and find what no data set can. Together we train the AI tools we use, teaching them what the internet can’t.
Faster work. Human judgement.
AI does the heavy lifting: synthesising your existing research, checking work against proven principles, drafting first versions and tracking progress. It makes the work faster and more affordable. It never replaces lived experience. Big decisions always go to real people, and contributors are paid and asked before their insight trains any AI.
03 / The impact
Every project is designed to deliver all three.
Products, services and experiences that disabled people and other underrepresented groups can choose, buy and enjoy, and fair pay for those who co-create them.
Trust and relevance with the people your brand has overlooked, and an inclusive experience across every touchpoint.
New customers, faster progress from insight to launch, less money spent repeating research, and lower risk as accessibility expectations rise.
Our mission
“Brands know access matters. The will is there, but the work gets stuck. We clear the way, giving creative control to those who’ve been left out, and turn good intentions into products and experiences people genuinely love to use.”
Marianne Waite, Founder
04 / About the founder
Founder, Director and International Speaker
Twenty years inside the global branding and design industry.
First as a designer, then as a brand strategist on corporate and consumer projects for organisations including Burberry, Unilever, Haleon and HSBC.
As a Director of The Valuable 500, Marianne was part of the founding leadership team of the global CEO coalition launched at the World Economic Forum in 2019, which secured commitments from 500 of the world’s largest companies and their CEOs to put disability inclusion on the board agenda.
At Interbrand she founded and led the Global Inclusivity Practice, launched in 2020, helping the Best Global Brands operationalise inclusive practices.
She founded The Barrier-Free Brand Studio to help organisations close the gap between intention and impact, faster.
Clients work directly with Marianne and her community of experts, including disability-led specialists and trusted partners in research, technology and creative.
