For sibling co-founders, the hardest part isn’t working together—it’s deciding where one person’s responsibility ends and the other’s begins. Aaron and Samantha Edwards have spent 15 years building The Charles Group—which has a client roster that spans luxury, real estate, travel, and hospitality, and includes brands like Ferrari, Cartier, and Bloomberg—around that idea.

The New York City-based creative agency is named after their maternal great-grandfather Charles, a boatwright from the West Indies who challenged the boundaries of race and class inequality. They chose the name to honor his legacy and the values he represented.

Growing up in Manchester, England, the two were surrounded by entrepreneurship. Their parents run multiple businesses—an early exposure which shaped how they think about ownership and accountability inside a company.

Divide and conquer

What began with overlapping responsibilities has gradually evolved into clearer lines between business and creative authority.

Aaron leads finance and business strategy, while Samantha stays closely connected to the creative and project management teams.

“I don’t handle any design,” Aaron said. “We actually have a joke—we call it ‘Aaron’s Designs,’ when I try to design something. ‘Aaron’s Designs’ means it’s this really terrible version of what design should be.”

His role centers on financial decisions and broader business strategy, while Samantha’s proximity to teams gives her insight into how those decisions translate into execution.

“I’m not always in the weeds, but I’ve got a very good pulse based on my relationships with the project management teams and the creative teams of what’s happening,” she said. “Which ultimately helps serve what’s actually happening within the business.”

For Samantha, maintaining that connection to the creative side has always been central to how they built the company.

“From the creative end, working at different agencies, I think culture was always sold, but not necessarily true,” she said. “I really wanted to create an agency where people not only enjoyed what they were doing but enjoyed coming to work as well.”

In the early days, aligning those two perspectives wasn’t always easy.

“We butted heads in the beginning,” said Aaron. “Finance people tend to have a ‘master of the universe’ complex because it’s a very ego-dominated environment.”

Samantha said the tension came from a push toward efficiency that didn’t always fit the realities of creative work.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she said. But she also noted that some of those instincts were useful. Over time, those disagreements became less about proving one approach right and more about combining their different perspectives.

Family values

The siblings credit their parents for their tight knit bond.

“They brought us up to respect and love one another,” Samantha said. “We were always taught to be together, stick together.”

According to Samantha, their sibling relationship removes some of the politics that can exist between co-founders.

“Because we’re equal, there’s no need to fear a power play or anything like that,” she said. “It feels like it’s never that bad because you’re in it together.”

Aaron said the advantage of working with a sibling is knowing neither person will walk away when things become difficult.

“I can never escape [Samantha],” he said. “You always figure out work in some regard.”

When asked what they’ve learned about themselves as founders, Aaron pointed first to resilience.

“When the chips are down or things are tough…we will scrap with anything and anyone and we will win,” he said. “We’re not losing.”

Fifteen years in, they say their ability to adapt has become one of the reasons they’ve lasted. For Samantha, it’s been the willingness to embrace change. For Aaron, curiosity has been key. “Every single year feels like year one,” Aaron said.