Find out more about William Russell
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As Director and Co-Owner, William Cooper helps shape William Russell’s strategic direction, leading work across marketing, digital evolution, member experience, and distribution.
He works alongside his mother, Inez Cooper, who founded the business in 1992. His current focus includes product and proposition work for the directly distributed (B2C) channel.
William is the second generation of his family in the business and, as he points out, has been on-site since infancy: William Russell’s first office doubled as his nursery. The firm is even partially named after him. (Or, as he has always feared, he is partially named after the firm!)
William’s role covers strategy, ownership stewardship, and the direction of the marketing function.
He sits on the senior leadership team with the Managing Director, the Finance Director, the Commercial Director, and the Head of HR, contributing to decisions on growth, product strategy, capital allocation, and the firm’s evolution as a high-performance, family-owned business.
His day-to-day focus is on the parts of the business closest to the customer experience, particularly marketing, digital, and the experience policyholders have of the firm.
As Co-Owner, he takes a long view on the firm’s evolution: how William Russell invests in culture, capability, and brand for the next generation of members and staff.
William has been a director at William Russell since 2019, when he was appointed Marketing Director. In 2026, he stepped into a broader role as Director and Co-Owner.
Before joining the family business, William gained experience through an internship at a Lloyd’s brokerage in the City of London, a marketing role at an e-commerce start-up in Paris, and a period in the art and fashion world working for fine artists and producers.
William writes regularly on LinkedIn across three themes:
He has been featured in or quoted by The Telegraph, The Times, FT Adviser, Health & Protection, and ITIJ.
He is a member of Family Business UK and contributes to the network’s discussions on succession, intergenerational ownership, and policy. He is also a member of the Business Leader network.
William has a young family, so most of his time outside the office is spent on that. What’s left goes on running, and on helping run a cricket club in Hackney, east London.
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