Claire Hagen

London-based creative strategist and founder working across superyachts and luxury, known for culture-led storytelling, CGI campaigns, and careful AI experimentation.

Claire Hagen is the founder of This is Odyssey, a London-based creative studio working across superyachts, hospitality, and luxury brands. She specialises in content strategy and digital storytelling, helping businesses communicate with clarity and consistency as platforms and audiences shift.

With 17 years of experience across publishing, hotels, music, and technology, Claire brings a blend of creative direction and technical understanding. Her work spans design, video, and social, with a focus on building long-term brand value rather than short-term noise.

She is also the founder of Armada Club, a private network connecting founders, creatives, and industry leaders across luxury, yachting, and culture.

That’s the contrarian philosophy Claire brought from fifteen years of award-winning design and marketing, reshaping how superyachts connect with their audiences.

From an early education in design and IT, through studies spanning fashion, film, and digital media, Claire developed a deep respect for craft in all its forms. A self-confessed nerd, she was experimenting with computing and hacking the school system, she once even engineered letters to parents giving students the day off. She was excluded, but later allowed to return, as she had no significant prior disciplinary issues as she was a nerd.

Her early artwork was later exhibited with support from Urban Outfitters, after a store manager took a shine to her paintings and offered in-store exhibition space. Alongside that, she designed posters, ran events, and built creative projects simply to learn by doing. She also earned a retail role alongside her studies, helping with shop windows; experience that later helped her move to London and pick up weekend work at Topshop’s flagship store. She was among the youngest on the floor supporting the visual merchandising team, learning firsthand how windows, story and detail stop people in their tracks.

Before brands and boardrooms, there was activism done creatively. Claire ran a one-off comedy night called Stand Up or Die in support of Greenpeace and became involved in Long Live Southbank, the campaign to save the Southbank Undercroft skate park, one of London’s most important grassroots creative spaces. She helped shape the campaign’s visual language, treating it more like an infographic-led brochure than a protest, translating complex planning issues into bold, accessible design.

Campaign statistics became clear infographics. Messaging was built to feel familiar and shareable. She created London Underground style tube-card graphics, including an illustration of Boris Johnson on a skateboard.

Claire’s first formal step into advertising came as a junior designer at a London agency, learning how ideas survive pressure, clients, and scale. Early concepts ranged from Sony, Microsoft to Benefit Cosmetics, followed by bespoke creative projects for Angry Birds and small businesses.

Alongside agency life, she worked weekends in retail at Apple, and previously at Tesco, where she was named Customer Service Adviser of the Year. This funded her while she was in education and found freelance work until she had enough clients to transition fully into hotels and publishing under her own social media and digital consultancy.

From real estate to hotel openings

Hospitality became a defining chapter. Working with PPHE Hotel Group, Claire launched and scaled digital and social campaigns for hotel and restaurant openings across the UK and Europe. She worked on the opening of Holmes Hotel, creating bespoke Sherlock Holmes themed digital storytelling, followed by the successful launch of the restaurant TOZI Victoria and then the Amsterdam opening.

At The Dixon Hotel, she helped launch the restored Old Courtroom and Provisioners Bar, both instant hits. Her work leaned into playful, cinematic, food-led ideas, including Wes Anderson–inspired pop-pink burgers that travelled widely on social. She led everything from concept and photography to press pitching.

Creating moments in the restaurant that people would genuinely want to share on Instagram was key.

With her tech background, she travelled to San Francisco for Facebook’s annual F8 conference and became part of the women-in-tech community. She later spoke as a keynote at Social Media Week and joined panels at luxury travel market conferences, sharing her work in the hotel industry.

Best Creative Strategist UK — Ucreate Awards 2014

Second place for Best Creative Strategist awarded by the European Commission

Best Use of Social Media with London Revealed — UK Hotel Marketing Awards 2018