Yin and Yang
Finance plus Storytelling
The story
Vision Creative Labs was never meant to be a company.
It started as a Creative Studio inside Real Vision (the finance video channel with over half a million subscribers)
Damian was the Co-Founder of Real Vision and with his background as an award-winning brand strategist he ran the storytelling and creative side of things.
Meanwhile, Roger, with thirty-year experience in the markets was Managing Editor.
As Roger says…
“We were just making content, not trying to build anything separate. But the same request kept coming back to us: the companies watching Real Vision wanted to create videos for their own businesses. They were all looking to share their finance research, products, funds and reports a different way. Not through the usual PDFs. They wanted something genuinely informative and engaging, which almost nobody in finance was actually making. That was the moment it made sense. There was real appetite out there. A whole finance community wanting content that could sit alongside (and bring to life) the word-heavy pieces that everyone was used to. The information was already everywhere. The engaging way to deliver it wasn't. So that became the idea. Take the stuff people were used to slogging through, and make it something they would actually want to watch. Funny how it started. Not with a plan, just a request we kept hearing until we did something about it.”
Roger Hirst
Co-Founder
Roger is a co-founder of Vision Creative Labs, with more than thirty years across global macro and institutional markets, including senior roles at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. He studied at Oxford, and is known for making markets genuinely watchable, including his own series, The Man from Macro. At VCL, Roger makes sure every video is right. If it would not stand up in front of a portfolio manager, it does not go out.
Damian Horner
Co-Founder
Damian began in psychology before working in advertising and marketing, winning multiple awards for creativity and strategy. He co-founded Real Vision with Raoul Pal, and has also written books, designed a number one storytelling app, curated design exhibitions and worked with JK Rowling, Stephen King, Lee Child and Damien Hirst.
Find your midfielder
There's a thing that happens in football that nobody quite gets right. A striker scores goals for fun at one club. He transfers, and suddenly the goals dry up. Everyone blames the striker, and I think they're missing what's really going on. It's the supply from midfield. The relationship. That intuitive partnership where someone knows where you'll be before you do. You see it in basketball. You see it in every sport. And you absolutely see it at work.
When you find a partnership that just clicks, you must protect it, because it's where your best work comes from (and honestly, where you're happiest). I found that with Roger. We could not be more different. He's deep into finance, 30+ years across global macro and institutional markets, almost freakishly encyclopedic on how markets actually work. That's very much not my background. I come from brands, storytelling and communication. Very yin and yang. And it works.
So when demand from finance brands pushed me to start Vision Creative Labs, there was only one call to make. Roger was the natural co-founder, and a big part of why clients trust what we put out. The storytelling is mine, but the market credibility behind it is his.
Find your midfielder.
See it for yourself. The first one is on us.
Book a short intro call, and we will produce a test video using an avatar at no cost so you can see it before making any decisions.