Cross Jaron Lanier with Joan Jett and you get Jess Riches – the most accomplished and elegant social strategist I’ve had the pleasure of hiring.

With Jess comes three guarantees: (1) she’ll teach you something new about yourself and your business, (2) she’ll entertain you and make you laugh, (3) she’ll smash any KPIs you dare to set.

In this day and age, who could ask for more?

Dan Drage – Social Lead at Things Unlimited, Nelson Bostock Group

Just when you think you’ve mastered the concepts behind social media, any conversation with Jess starts there and zooms off into unknown territory. She has not just an innate grasp of the potential of social media, but has been ahead of the curve on all the developments.

As a student activist she already had clear grasp of the essentially tactical nature of all social media comms: that a meme is not an image, its a reaction to an image; that downloadable knowledge forms a base of assumptions among young people; that the second screen is not anti-social but hypersocial. She’s a great verbal communicator too, when you can get her off her smartphone!

Paul Mason – Economics Editor at Channel 4 News (formerly BBC Newsnight)

I’m not at all a natural twit, I don’t want to share what I had for breakfast and I’m not mad to have trolls in my hair. So I resisted pressure from Jessica for literally months before she finally wore me down. And of course she was right. I still won’t talk about my breakfast, but as a tool for spreading the word Twitter has been a big plus – and she knew that better than anyone, and made it happen. Jessica is relentless, charming, clever and eccentric, but right.

Hugh Grant – Actor and Director of the Hacked Off Campaign

Jess has an unparalleled knowledge of the social media wilderness, making her the perfect guide. Her unique creativity, her engaging presentation skills and her all round friendly personality has helped on many of my research projects.

Oliver Conner – Insight Manager at OMD International (previously OnePoll)