The ambition of the Federation was to give political clout to a sector that had been the fastest growing part of the UK economy over the previous decade, but had never punched above its weight with government.

[7] Operations commenced in March 2014, with early development of the organisation led by the Federation's founding CEO, John Kampfner, and originally funded by more than 200 founder supporters prior to the launch of its membership scheme.

This event was attended by more than 500 people from across the creative industries and featured keynote speeches by George Osborne, Martha Lane Fox and UK President of Warner Bros, Josh Berger.

In February 2017, Creative Industries Federation former CEO, John Kampfner, was invited to present evidence on this issue to a DCMS Select Committee,[13] alongside Sir Peter Bazalgette, then chair of Arts Council England, and Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President EMEA for Facebook.

"[4] The Federation was funded through a membership scheme through which it represented more than 1000 organisations drawn from across sectors including advertising and media, animation, architecture, broadcasting, crafts, creative education, creative tech, design, fashion, film, heritage, museums, galleries and libraries, music, performing arts, photography, publishing, video games, visual arts and visual effects.

Members included FTSE 100 companies, multinationals, privately owned businesses, SMEs, charities and non-profit organisations, trade associations, universities and further education colleges, and individual practitioners.