Siena Hutchinson is the founder and creative director of Hutch & Co, a London branding and website design agency working with lifestyle and culture-led businesses. A fashion design graduate with a master’s in graphic design, she began working for herself at 21 and incorporated the agency in March 2022.

On 29 September 2026 she was the featured voice in a Talent Times debate on whether creator-founded brands should mirror the creators behind them, drawing on the agency’s work for Agende, the planner business founded by Isobel Lorna. She tells Business Matters why strategy sits at the start of every project, and why she wishes she had learned to let go sooner.

What do you currently do at Hutch & Co?

I am the founder and Creative Director of Hutch & Co., a branding and website design agency helping ambitious brands define who they are and how they show up.

My role is quite varied, which is probably one of the things I love most about running an agency. I lead the creative direction and strategy across our projects, work closely with clients and oversee the wider direction of the business. We work across branding, websites and digital, predominantly with lifestyle and culture-led businesses.

As the agency has grown, my role has naturally started shifting too. I am learning to spend less time being the person doing everything and more time thinking about where the business is going, how we grow sustainably and what Hutch & Co. should look like in the future.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I do not think there was ever one big moment where I decided, “I am going to start an agency.” It happened much more organically.

I have always been creative and studied Fashion Design before going on to do a Master’s in Graphic Design. I started working for myself at 21, initially taking on freelance design projects and running an online print shop. Over time, the freelance side grew, the projects became bigger and I realised I was much more interested in building brands as a whole than simply designing individual assets.

Hutch & Co. really grew from that. I wanted to build the kind of creative agency I would want to work with: collaborative, commercially aware and genuinely invested in understanding the business behind the brand.

I have always been fascinated by the point where creativity and business meet, because beautiful design is important, but the best branding has a reason behind every decision.

How do you approach brands built around a creator?

When we work with creator-founded businesses at Hutch & Co., I always think about the brand beyond launch day. Should the brand simply look and feel like the creator behind it? Not entirely.

When we built the brand for Agende, Isobel Lorna’s planner business, we chose to give it an identity of its own rather than replicate her existing aesthetic. I believe in a middle ground, where the brand feels unmistakably connected to the creator but can stand on its own, separate from their personal social media presence.

Who do you admire?

I am particularly drawn to people who have built businesses with a really strong point of view. Founders who understand that the brand itself can be just as valuable as the product or service they are selling.

I also admire people who are willing to build differently rather than automatically following the traditional blueprint of what a successful business is supposed to look like. Running my own business has made me realise there are so many different definitions of success. I am increasingly inspired by founders who create businesses that are commercially successful but also work for the life they actually want to live.

More broadly, I am constantly inspired by the people around me. Other founders, creatives and even our clients teach me a huge amount. When you work closely with people building businesses from scratch, you get a front-row seat to how differently people think, take risks and solve problems.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have learned to let go sooner. For a long time, I thought being good at running a creative business meant being involved in absolutely everything. When your business starts with you, your skills and your reputation, handing any part of it to someone else can feel incredibly difficult.

But there comes a point where being involved in every detail actually becomes the thing holding the business back. I probably would have put systems in place earlier, asked for help sooner and become more comfortable with the idea that someone else can do something differently to me without doing it badly.

What defines your way of doing business?

Clarity, collaboration and being genuinely invested in the businesses we work with.

One of the biggest things I have learned through branding companies is that design should not exist in isolation. Before we start thinking about a logo, typography or colour palette, I want to understand where the business is going, who it needs to speak to and what it needs to be known for.

That is why strategy sits at the beginning of everything we do at Hutch & Co. I want our clients to come away with more than a beautiful brand. I want them to understand their business more clearly and have something that can genuinely support where they want to go next.

I also believe in making the process collaborative. Some of our services include live design sessions where clients are part of the process rather than disappearing for weeks and being presented with a finished answer. I think the strongest work happens when you combine our expertise with the founder’s knowledge of their own business.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Start before you feel ready.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about starting a business is that everyone else has some kind of master plan. I certainly did not. So much of building Hutch & Co. has been trying something, learning from it, changing it and trying again.

I would also tell people not to obsess over looking bigger or more established than they are. Particularly in the creative industries, there can be a temptation to make yourself look like a huge agency from day one. There is actually a huge advantage in being small. You can move quickly, build close relationships with clients and figure out what you want your business to become without carrying lots of overhead.

And finally, learn about the business side as much as the thing you are selling. Being a great designer did not automatically make me good at pricing, sales, contracts, hiring, managing cash flow or leading a team. Those have all been skills I have had to learn along the way. In many ways, they are the skills that determine whether you can turn something you love doing into a sustainable business.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful tools in the search for treatments that slow or even reverse aging, with recent studies showing AI-designed drugs and proteins producing early signs of rejuvenation in patients and lab experiments.

But researchers caution that the science is still in its early stages. No therapy has yet been proven to extend healthy human lifespan, and experts say measurable changes in biological markers are not the same as adding years of healthy life.

Still, a string of developments over the past year has pushed the question of whether AI can help people live longer, healthier lives from science fiction toward the laboratory and the clinic.

AI-designed drug shows aging signal

The most striking recent result came earlier this month from Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-listed biotech company that uses AI to discover drugs.

In an analysis published Sept. 7 in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the company reported that its experimental drug rentosertib reduced patients’ predicted biological age as measured by six separate “aging clocks,” tools that estimate how old a person’s body appears based on chemical changes in the blood. Patients who received a placebo saw little change.

Rentosertib was developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a rare and deadly lung disease that is strongly associated with aging. Insilico used its AI platform to identify a protein called TNIK as a target linked to both fibrosis and aging biology, then used generative AI to design the drug.

The analysis drew on blood samples from 42 of the 71 patients enrolled in the drug’s mid-stage trial. The six aging clocks were developed independently by teams at Harvard Medical School, Oxford University, Peking University and Insilico.

Alex Zhavoronkov, Insilico’s founder and co-CEO, said the potential economic impact of drugs that slow aging could be enormous.

“If you manage to add 3 years to everyone’s life, the drug should be able to significantly extend the healthy portion of life as well, translating into trillions of dollars in productivity and savings,” he said.

Rentosertib entered a late-stage trial for the lung disease in July, enrolling about 320 patients across 47 centers in China. That study is designed to test whether the drug works for pulmonary fibrosis, not whether it slows aging.

Redesigning the proteins of youth

AI is also being used to re-engineer the biological machinery that scientists believe could rejuvenate cells.

In 2025, OpenAI and Retro Biosciences, a longevity startup backed by $180 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, reported that they had used a specialized AI model called GPT-4b micro to redesign the Yamanaka factors. Those proteins, whose discovery earned a Nobel Prize, can turn adult cells back into stem cells and have drawn intense interest for their potential to rejuvenate aging tissue.

OpenAI said it had “successfully leveraged GPT-4b micro to design novel and significantly enhanced variants of the Yamanaka factors.”

The AI-designed versions produced more than a 50-fold increase in the expression of stem cell reprogramming markers compared with the natural proteins in lab experiments. The companies also reported that cells treated with the redesigned proteins showed less DNA damage, a key hallmark of aging.

The natural Yamanaka factors are notoriously inefficient, converting fewer than 1 in 1,000 cells. Retro Biosciences has said its goal is to add 10 years to healthy human lifespan.

The results remain at the laboratory stage, and further studies are needed to determine whether the redesigned proteins are safe and effective enough for preclinical and clinical testing.

How AI is changing aging research

Scientists say AI is transforming longevity research in several ways.

Machine learning systems can analyze massive amounts of biological data, including genetic information, proteins, the microbiome, lifestyle habits and data from wearable devices, to detect early signs that a person is aging faster than expected, before disease appears, according to a review published in May in a medical journal.

AI is also powering the aging clocks themselves. Since the first deep-learning-based clocks were released in 2018, researchers have built increasingly sophisticated tools to estimate biological age from blood tests, images and other data.

Beyond diagnostics, AI is accelerating drug discovery by identifying new biological targets and designing molecules faster than traditional methods. Some researchers are working toward “digital twins,” detailed computer models of cells or even whole bodies that could be used to test anti-aging treatments virtually before they are tried in people.

Money pours into longevity

The scientific progress has been accompanied by a surge of investment. Longevity startups using AI to develop therapies, including cell rejuvenation, drugs that clear aging cells and epigenetic reprogramming, have attracted billions of dollars from investors.

A growing number of “longevity clinics” also market AI-driven personalized anti-aging plans that combine genetic testing, blood work and continuous monitoring through wearable devices. Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson has become one of the most visible faces of the movement, reportedly spending about $2 million a year on his personal anti-aging program.

Reasons for caution

Despite the excitement, experts warn that major hurdles remain.

The biggest question is whether reducing a person’s biological age as measured by an aging clock actually translates into longer, healthier lives. Aging clocks are relatively new, and scientists are still debating how accurately they reflect overall health.

Researchers have also pointed to broader concerns about AI in longevity medicine, including fragmented health data, unequal access to expensive preventive technologies, the risk of overmedicalizing normal aging, and questions about privacy and oversight.

Many of the most eye-catching results so far come from small studies, early-stage research or company-funded work that has not yet been independently replicated in large trials. Regulators also do not currently recognize aging itself as a disease, which complicates efforts to approve drugs specifically designed to treat it.

Consumers are advised to be skeptical of products or clinics promising to reverse aging, since few such claims are backed by rigorous clinical evidence.

For now, scientists say the most proven ways to support healthy aging remain regular exercise, a balanced diet, adequate sleep, not smoking and managing chronic conditions.

But AI is expected to play a growing role in the coming years, from spotting early warning signs of age-related disease to designing drugs that target the biology of aging itself. Upcoming results from larger clinical trials, including the late-stage rentosertib study, will offer important tests of whether the promise of AI-driven longevity science can deliver real benefits for patients.

His practice is shaped not only by his legal experience, but also by an extensive background in finance that gives him a valuable perspective when family-law disputes involve complex financial questions.

A lifelong Delaware County resident, Stephen Ciarrocchi graduated with honors from Garnet Valley High School before attending Penn State University, where he studied finance and was accepted into the Schreyer Honors College. After graduation, he began his professional career with EY, one of the world’s Big Four accounting firms, gaining early experience analyzing detailed financial information.

That financial foundation would later become an important asset in his family-law practice. Divorce and support cases frequently require a close examination of income, business interests, assets, expenses, investments, and other financial records—often at a time when clients are already facing significant personal stress. In many cases, an opposing party may attempt to underreport income, transfer assets, or otherwise obscure the true financial picture, and a careful analysis of financial records can uncover inconsistencies or information that might otherwise go unnoticed. Ciarrocchi draws on his finance background to identify and analyze those issues while helping clients understand how the financial details may affect the broader legal case.

After building his foundation in finance, Ciarrocchi turned his attention to law, earning his law degree from Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law. He went on to gain experience in private practice before ultimately founding Ciarrocchi Law in Delaware County.

Today, Ciarrocchi represents individuals throughout Delaware County, Pennsylvania facing divorce, custody, support and protection-from-abuse matters. His approach combines thorough legal preparation with an understanding that these cases extend far beyond the courtroom, often affecting a client’s finances, children, home, and everyday life.

For Ciarrocchi, effective representation also means making sure clients understand both the legal process and the practical consequences of the decisions before them. He believes clients are better positioned to make informed choices about their future when they understand not only what is happening in their case, but why it matters.

You started your professional career in finance. What originally drew you to that field?

I studied finance at Penn State because I was drawn to business and the analytical side of the field. I was fortunate to attend the Schreyer Honors College, and after graduation I began my career at EY, where I gained experience analyzing complex financial information and learned to approach problems in a methodical way.

At the time, I had no idea how valuable those skills would later become in my legal career. Financial issues arise constantly in divorce and support matters, and my background in finance helps me understand the numbers, identify inconsistencies, and recognize when something may not add up. A careful review of financial records can sometimes uncover transfers, underreported income or other financial activity by an opposing party that may otherwise go unnoticed. That experience also helps me explain complicated financial information to clients in a clear, straightforward way so that they can better understand how those issued amy affect their case.

How does your finance experience help when you are handling a divorce?

Divorce can involve much more than simply deciding that a marriage is ending. There may be significant questions involving income, assets, debts, expenses, property, investments, businesses, and support. Clients are often faced with financial documents and records they have never had to analyze before, and understanding how those pieces fit together can be critical to determining the true financial picture. My background helps me work through those records, identify what is important, and understand how the financial information may affect the issues in the case.

What do you think clients often underestimate about divorce and support matters?

I think clients sometimes underestimate how much information may need to be reviewed before the full picture of a case becomes clear. Financial records can tell an important part of the story, but they have to be reviewed carefully. Clients understandably want answers quickly because these issues affect their everyday lives. My role is to help them understand what information matters, what the legal process entails, and which issues need to be addressed before decisions are made.

Custody cases involve very different concerns. How does your approach change?

Custody matters require a different approach because the focus is on the children and the practical realities of their everyday lives. As part of a blended family with four children, I understand personally how important a thoughtful and workable custodial schedule can be. Where children will live, how schedules will operate, and how major decisions will be made can have a significant impact on the entire family.

These cases can also be highly emotional, so I try to keep the focus on the issues that truly need to be resolved and on arrangements that are practical for the children and the parents. My role is to help clients work through the immediate conflict while keeping sight of the longer-term decisions that will shape their family’s day-to-day life moving forward.

What role does communication play in family-law cases?

Communication is a major part of what I do. Clients are often navigating unfamiliar legal terminology and court procedures while also dealing with an extremely personal and stressful situation. I believe they should understand not only what is happening in their case, but why it matters and what comes next. Whether I am reviewing financial information in a support matter, preparing someone for a custody proceeding, or explaining the next steps in a divorce, I try to make the process as clear and understandable as possible so clients can make informed decisions about their case.

Your practice also handles protection from abuse matters. What makes those cases different?

Protection from abuse matters are different because they can move very quickly and often involve immediate concerns about safety, contact between the parties, children, and exclusive possession of the family home. The consequences can extend well beyond the courtroom and affect nearly every aspect of a person’s daily life, which makes careful preparation and a clear understanding of the circumstances especially important.

When children are included as protected parties in a PFA Order, the issue raised in that case can also impact custody proceedings, because the Court may consider the underlying allegations, findings and restrictions when determining what custody arrangement best protects the child’s safety and welfare.

I have represented hundreds of clients in protection from abuse matters, including negotiating resolutions and litigating contested hearings. That experience has reinforced for me how important it is to understand exactly what happened, what the court is being asked to decide, and the practical consequences the outcome may have for everyone involved.

PFA cases can also cross into the criminal justice system. An alleged violation of a PFA order can result in indirect criminal contempt proceedings and, depending on the conduct involved, may also lead to separate criminal charges. Because my practice includes both family law and criminal defense, I am able to approach those situations with an understanding of both sides of the legal process.

What have you learned from working with people during difficult family transitions?

I have learned that no two families experience these situations in the same way. Two divorces might involve similar legal issues but completely different personal circumstances. The same is true with custody or support. You have to understand what is actually happening in that particular family rather than assuming that one approach will work for everyone. Listening is an important part of that. Before you can help someone work through a legal problem, you need to understand what the problem looks like from their perspective.

What has kept your career so closely connected to Delaware County?

This is home. I grew up here, attended Garnet Valley High School, and have spent much of my legal career working in Delaware County. My wife and I also live here with our four children. That connection matters to me because family law is very personal work. You are helping people in your own community navigate situations that can affect their homes, finances, children, and relationships.

Practicing regularly in Delaware County also gives me an important familiarity with the people and procedures that shape these cases, including Judges, Hearing Officers and court staff. Day-to-day experience in the same court system helps you understand how different matters are typically approached, what particular Hearing Officers or Judges tend to focus on, and what issues may be especially important in any given courtroom. That local knowledge helps me give clients more practical advice about what to expect and how to best prepare for their case. My career has taken a different direction from where I started in finance, but Delaware County has remained constant throughout it.

Blazhevska’s job sits at the point where policy meets the public: taking global agreements and international priorities and helping turn them into language people outside diplomatic circles can actually follow. For anyone researching how the UN explains sustainable development to a general audience, her role is a useful case study in what that communication work looks like day to day.

From Skopje to the UN’s communications team

Blazhevska grew up in Yugoslavia, in what is now North Macedonia. She attended High School Josip Broz Tito in Skopje, then studied Economics at the Faculty of Economics in Skopje, part of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University. An economics degree is not the typical route into UN communications work, but it gave her a grounding in the kind of data and policy analysis that later shows up in how she approaches global development topics. Understanding how economies function, how resources move, and how policy decisions ripple outward is useful background for someone whose job involves explaining sustainability initiatives to a broad public.

By 2008, she had joined the UN Department of Global Communications, where she remains today. The department’s work touches on how the UN’s priorities, from peacekeeping to climate policy, reach journalists, member states, and ordinary readers. Blazhevska’s specific focus has settled around the Sustainable Development Goals, the 17-point framework the UN uses to organize global priorities like clean energy, gender equality, and climate action.

Why the Sustainable Development Goals shape her focus

Ask Blazhevska what she cares about professionally and the answer tracks closely with specific SDGs: climate action, affordable and clean energy, quality education, gender equality, responsible consumption and production, life below water, sustainable cities, and peace. That is a wide list, but it is not random. It reflects the actual range of issues that cross a communications desk inside an organization built to coordinate global development work.

What makes this interesting from a market perspective is the scale of the audience. The SDGs are meant to be understood by governments, NGOs, students, and private citizens simultaneously. A communications professional working on this material has to write for all of those readers at once, without losing the underlying policy accuracy. That balancing act, between precision and plain language, is arguably the core skill in this corner of the communications industry.

A vegetarian diet as a lived example

Blazhevska has been a vegetarian since 1991, more than three decades, eating cheese, eggs, and yogurt but no meat or fish. She rarely frames it as advocacy. It reads more as a long-running personal habit that happens to intersect with themes she already writes about professionally, like responsible consumption. For someone who spends her working hours helping communicate sustainability goals to the public, a decades-long dietary choice is less a talking point than a quiet consistency between what she does at her desk and what she does at the table.

What her background says about the field

In contrast to policy officers who frequently make headlines, internal communications personnel within major international organizations seldom receive significant public attention. But the translation work, turning treaty language and goal frameworks into something a reporter or a student can use, is its own discipline. Blazhevska’s economics training gives her an analytical entry point into that work, and her multi-decade tenure at the UN gives her institutional memory that a newer hire would not have.

Her interest in spirituality, centered on themes of peace, harmony, and unity across faiths, sits outside her formal job description but is not unrelated to it. Communicating around peace-focused SDG targets, for instance, benefits from someone who has spent real time thinking about what peace and cooperation actually require between people who see the world differently.

The bigger picture for sustainability communicators

Blazhevska’s career is a reminder that the SDGs do not communicate themselves. Someone has to sit between the policy documents and the public, deciding what gets said and how. That is unglamorous work, done inside an institution rather than a startup or a headline-grabbing nonprofit. But it is also work that shapes how millions of people encounter ideas like climate action or gender equality for the first time, one press release or public-facing document at a time.

Any decision would need backing from scheme members

More than 90,000 members of Wiltshire Pension Fund could be consulted on whether their £3.8bn pot should cease investing in arms companies, though not until next year.

Campaigner Alex Hall called on councillors to hold a formal vote on withdrawing investment from weapons manufacturers and to bring forward a planned survey of pension scheme members.

In a response considered by the Wiltshire Pension Fund Committee last week, officers said any decision to divest from aerospace and defence companies would need backing from scheme members.

A fund-wide survey is currently scheduled for early 2027.

Mr Hall argued that a number of local authorities and pension funds elsewhere in the UK had already moved towards divesting from arms companies or firms with links to Israel.

He also drew parallels with Wiltshire Pension Fund’s existing policy of scaling back exposure to fossil fuel investments, contending that the same principles ought to be applied to defence companies.

His submission argued that the distinction between so-called “controversial weapons”, which are already excluded under the fund’s policies, and conventional weapons becomes blurred when conventional weapons are used against civilian populations.

He referenced the conflict in Gaza, arguing that the fund should reconsider its holdings in companies connected to the arms trade.

Officers noted that the committee had already carried out a detailed review of the fund’s exposure to aerospace and defence companies in November 2025.

They said that any future ruling would need to consider fiduciary duties, legal and regulatory obligations, financial implications, practical implementation challenges and the views of both pension scheme members and employers.

Meanwhile, the committee’s responsible investment reports revealed the fund’s continued progress on climate-related investment policies.

Officers confirmed that the fund’s listed equity portfolios had been decarbonised by 57 per cent against a 2019 baseline, while a target to direct 30 per cent of assets towards sustainable investments had already been met.

The reports further confirmed that work on divesting from fossil fuel companies remains an integral part of the fund’s broader climate strategy, underlining the stark contrast between the fund’s established stance on fossil fuels and the ongoing debate surrounding investments in the defence sector.

Wiltshire Pension Fund is the Local Government Pension Scheme administered by Wiltshire Council, serving more than 90,000 active workers, former employees and retirees.

Its 162 participating employers encompass Wiltshire Council, town and parish councils, schools and colleges, along with a variety of other public sector and community organisations.