Matt Hirst

Matt is a writer, researcher and marketer who has spent his career at the intersection of business and culture. He balances deep experience and an open-mindedness, making him an empathetic leader and brand builder who cuts right to the thesis of any story. Matt sits across the firm’s studio engagements and portfolio companies, ensuring that the full breadth of his own and the team’s experience is deployed to create the maximum value and impact.

Matt joined West in 2016 from Google where he served as the Global Head of Brand Experience alongside the Search, Maps and Translate teams. Prior to Google, Matt spent nearly a decade at Red Bull, in London and Los Angeles, leading the brand’s iconic work in action sports, music and events. His credits include producing an event racing airplanes along the river Thames in front of 40,000 spectators, making front-page news by jumping Tower Bridge on a motocross bike and working with a who’s-who of the music industry in programming 500 music events a year, including month-long festivals in New York and Los Angeles. He built and programed recording studios, art galleries, and has made numerous films and documentaries including a 10 part series memorializing a Google-funded amateur space race which he produced with JJ Abrams and Bad Robot.

Matt advises a number of companies in the culture and tech space and sits on the board of Switcher Studio, a West portfolio company. He is also the co-founder of AGEIST, a media and research consultancy. His writing and research has been published in The Economist, Financial Times, The Guardian, Forbes amongst others, and he spoke at Tedx in New York in 2019. Matt holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Media and Cultural Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London.