Leading audience strategist and outgoing Telegraph SEO Director joins the boutique media consultancy to expand its digital growth offering.
DJB Strategies, the boutique strategy consultancy focused on helping media businesses navigate change, today announces the appointment of Harry Clarkson-Bennett as Partner.
Clarkson-Bennett brings more than a decade of audience leadership to the fast-growing firm. Most recently he served as SEO Director at The Telegraph, where he was responsible for driving search performance across all areas of one of the UK's most widely-read digital news brands. His career spans agency leadership, affiliate and lead generation, and publishing — giving him a breadth of perspectives across both commercial and editorial environments.
Beyond his practitioner work, Clarkson-Bennett is a prominent voice in the audience-development community. He is a contributor to Search Engine Journal, a guest writer for Lumar, and the author of Leadership in SEO, a Substack newsletter with more than 2,000 subscribers focused on strategy, AI and what it means to lead in the discipline. His thinking on topical authority, publisher strategy and the evolving role of engagement signals has shaped how many media organisations approach organic growth.
Clarkson-Bennett's appointment strengthens DJB Strategies' audience strategy advisory capability, at a time when the industry faces significant disruption from artificial intelligence and rapidly shifting platform dynamics. Clarkson-Bennett will also be leading DJB Strategies' product practice, innovating to develop new solutions to help media businesses interpret and respond to changes in their distribution environment.
"Harry is one of the most rigorous thinkers in publisher SEO, but what sets him apart is how commercially grounded he is. He understands that traffic is only valuable if it serves a business purpose. At a moment when media companies are navigating genuine existential questions about AI and platform dependency, that combination of depth and pragmatism is exactly what our clients need. The product practice Harry will lead is a natural and exciting evolution for DJB Strategies — the aim is to turn our thinking into tools that media leaders can use every day."
David Buttle, Founder & CEO, DJB Strategies"The challenges facing media businesses right now are unlike anything the industry has dealt with before. AI is reshaping search, platforms are increasingly unpredictable, and younger audiences are turning away from media brands. The old growth playbooks and the volume model need to evolve along with the industry.
David and DJB Strategies are doing some of the most serious thinking about what comes next, and I wanted to be part of that. Alongside the advisory work, I'm particularly excited to be building out a product practice — there's a real opportunity to develop solutions that are built from first principles for the realities media businesses face, rather than adapted from tools designed for someone else."
Harry Clarkson-Bennett, Partner, DJB StrategiesDJB Strategies is a boutique consultancy created to help companies in media, information services — and adjacent sectors — respond to change, succeed and grow. The approach is to integrate robust analysis with practical execution. We offer:
DJB Strategies was founded by David Buttle. Prior to founding his business, David was Director of Public Affairs and Platform Strategy for the Financial Times, responsible for the FT's interfaces with big tech, relationships with governments and legislators, and the business's response to artificial intelligence, including licensing negotiations. David holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, is a columnist for Press Gazette on media and technology, and serves on the board of the Independent Publishers Alliance.
Harry Clarkson-Bennett was the SEO Director at The Telegraph, responsible for the publication's commercial and editorial SEO strategy and performance. With a decade working in SEO and content-led positions alongside more commercial experience in-house and agency-side, Harry is a leading voice in audience and commercial strategy in the publishing industry. Harry also owns and writes the newsletter Leadership in SEO with over 2,000 subscribers and is a contributor to publications including Search Engine Journal and Lumar.