Our Team


Matthew Powell, Director of BIDs and Contracts
Leaving a successful career in retail in 2004, Matt trained as a Business Advisor working with pre-start and existing businesses and brought this experience, along with many innovative project deliveries, a wealth of place-based knowledge and strategic-level BIDs involvement to Revive & Thrive when he helped Mark Barnes to start the company and later joined it himself.
Matt has subsequently worked on a range of projects in towns and cities around the country, developing, delivering and managing BIDs, supporting other town partnerships and working alongside Mark on establishing and growing Revive & Thrive.
Matt is a champion for town centres and the High Street and is committed to helping business groups, BIDs, local authorities and other interested parties

Mark Barnes, Managing Director and Founder
A three-year spell as a town centre manager gave him the understanding of the difficulties faced by place practitioners as he developed the concept for Revive & Thrive supporting and working with solutions providers and strengthening his extensive national network.
Since incorporating the company in 2013, he has grown Revive & Thrive into one of the pillars of the place-based support community and, with the recent addition of the non-executive board, advisory group, ambassadors, a growing team and the company’s corporate advocates, he continues to oversee the evolution of Revive & Thrive and the development of our industry.

Stephen Blackwell, Marketing & Sales Director
Having worked within the Place Management industry for most of his career he’s caught the passion for improving our communities that Revive and Thrive stands for.

Claire Mills, BID Development Manager
Claire’s drive to help people and communities lead to her becoming a Parliamentary Researcher and Senior Caseworker for a Member of Parliament. Within this role she helped many individuals and businesses deal with issues and problems affecting them at many levels. This gave Claire an in-depth knowledge of dealing with not only local and national Government but also large corporations. Claire is an enthusiastic and driven individual with exceptional communication skills.