The Fortitude Media team

Who does the work at Fortitude Media?

Fortitude Media was founded by three operators: David Adams, Ashley Kenerson and Ross Williams. David and Ashley run it. A founder owns every client plan, runs the monthly review and answers the phone. A senior team of specialists delivers the work, and the technology we built does the research, the weekly tracking of AI answers, the first drafts, the sequencing, the chasing and the reporting. A person reads every output before a client, a prospect or a search engine sees it.

30 yearsbuilding and selling internet businesses

20m+members on platforms our founders built

$350mrevenue generated, almost all of it from being found online

5,000+brands tracked by our own AI search platform

Our founders' record.

The founders

Operators, not theorists.

We have built, scaled and sold our own companies. We run Fortitude's growth on the same system we sell. A founder is accountable for every account.

David Adams, Co-founder and CEO of Fortitude Media

Co-founder and CEO · AI and automation

32 guides on websites and AI search ↗

David Adams

David spent thirteen years in SaaS, starting on retention calls and finishing as COO and then CRO of a £30 million partner-led business. He built a network of 1,500 partners and grew an ad business from nothing to £2 million a year. Today he runs Fortitude with Ashley, designs the automation that lets a firm grow revenue without growing headcount, and runs Pipeline That Fills.

Meet David ↗

Ashley Kenerson, Co-founder of Fortitude Media

Co-founder · Data and insight

29 guides on data, AI and reporting ↗

Ashley Kenerson

Ashley spent thirteen years at Digitas, rising from analyst to Head of Data, Analysis and Insights and building a team of nearly fifty across Europe and Asia. Her job was to say plainly what marketing was working, what was not, and what to do next. She runs Fortitude with David, designs the measurement behind every report, and keeps the people in charge of the technology.

Meet Ashley ↗

Ross Williams, Co-founder, non-executive of Fortitude Media

Co-founder, non-executive · The founder's record

26 guides on buying, PR and sectors ↗

Ross Williams

Built and ran a subscription business for twenty-one years, bootstrapped. Backs David and Ashley, and established the Foundation.

Meet Ross ↗

Behind the team

The tools we built. People in charge of them.

Think of a pit crew. The driver gets the credit; the crew gets the car round in under three seconds. Our technology is part of that crew. It does the work that used to need four juniors, so senior people spend their time on judgement, and a person reads every output before a client sees it.

A racing pit crew working on every corner of the car at once

ResearchBuilds target lists and runs the two-pass check on every firm and person before contact.

VisibilityAsks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google your buyers' questions every week and records who is named.

WritingDrafts pages, articles and posts from interviews and research. Never sends. A founder edits. Outreach messages are written by a person.

OutreachFinds and checks every firm and person, times the approach, runs the email sequences, sorts replies and proposes the next step.

Follow-upChases every open thread, quote and enquiry so nothing goes cold by Friday.

ReportingCompiles the monthly board report from live numbers, with a source for every figure.

A person reads every output.Nothing reaches a client, a prospect or a search engine unread.

Software never writes to a prospect.Research, timing and follow-up reminders are automated. The words are a person's, and a person approves every message before it goes.

Every number has a source.Each figure in a report shows where it came from. If it cannot, it does not go in.

A pit crew working on all four corners of the car at once, seen from above — Every corner at once. That is the job our technology does.

The studio in late afternoon light — Our own growth, run on the same system

Proof we use it

We run Fortitude on exactly this.

This site is a managed website, tracked by our own visibility platform. Our founders' LinkedIn is run the way we run yours. Our pipeline comes from Pipeline That Fills. If you received an email from us, that is the system working: it mentioned something true about your firm because that is how every message is written.

Our own technology. The visibility platform that tracks 5,000+ brands, and the AI-first CMS this site runs on, were built by us.
Our own outreach. If you received an email from us, it mentioned something true about your firm. That is the system working.

What that means for you

Senior people. One plan. One page.

Every account1Founder accountable. Owns the plan, runs the review, answers the phone.

1Plan. Website, reputation and pipeline run together, with costs and owners.

Every month1Page. Pipeline in. Work shipped. Answers won. Written for a board.

The Foundation

Ten per cent of everything we invoice.

We have had the good years and the ones nobody puts on a website. The Fortitude Foundation was established by Ross to help entrepreneurs in crisis, and one of the reasons we started Fortitude Media was to fund it properly, for good. Ten per cent of all the revenue we invoice goes straight to the Foundation.

Revenue, not profit. Ten per cent of every invoice we raise, paid monthly, on every service we sell.
No cost to you. Our prices are the same either way. It comes out of our side of the invoice.
For founders in crisis. The help most founders never ask for, from people who have needed it.

How the 10% works · The Fortitude Foundation ↗