What it takes to be a true Marketing Leader
In this white paper, Andy Bird, Brand Learning’s Co-Founder and Group Executive Director of its leadership practice, explores the skills and behaviours required by marketing leaders to succeed in today’s business environment. With contributions from leaders at AstraZeneca, Unilever, McDonald's, Google and more, the paper provides practical advice about what it takes for senior marketers to be leaders not just of the Marketing function, but to provide true marketing leadership for the business as a whole. In a nutshell •
Marketing has an increasingly important strategic role to play as businesses seek to drive growth by creating better, more integrated experiences for their customers.
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Marketing leadership has one defining characteristic – it must be centred on the interests of customers. A marketing leader’s license to lead is grounded in their ability to represent the customer’s voice accurately and persuasively within the organization.
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Effective customer-centred leadership requires new capabilities both in what marketing leaders need to DO as strategic marketers and in how they need to BE as business leaders.
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As marketing leaders reflect on how they can excel, Brand Learning has created The Customer-Centred Leadership Framework™ to provide a simple roadmap to help them plan their own leadership journeys.
Andy Bird Group Executive Director and Co-Founder, Brand Learning
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Crunch time for marketing leaders
There is an important change currently underway in the role and status of Marketing. For some time now, a prevailing concern for people in the Marketing function has been their relative lack of presence and influence at the most senior levels in business. Just over two years ago, the Harvard Business Review went as far as to publish an article entitled ‘Marketing is Dead’. It quoted research evidence suggesting that “CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth". 1 But in just a short space of time, the focus of this debate has shifted significantly. The emphasis is now firmly upon the growing strategic importance of marketing in driving commercial performance and shareholder value. IBM’s latest C-Suite study points out that since the global financial crisis, driving business growth has been a vital priority in most companies. As a result, “CMOs are wielding more power in the boardroom, as CEOs increasingly call on them for strategic input". 2 The Economist Intelligence Unit agrees, arguing that the transformation caused by digital technology and social media has been a driving factor. With customers now wielding more power in their conversations and relationships with corporate organisations, “Marketing is on the ascent. It has frequently led at big consumer products companies. Now its influence is growing everywhere: at B2B companies, professional service firms, companies dominated by engineering and logistics”.3
The capability challenge This is encouraging news for marketers, but as the opportunity emerges, so too does an important leadership capability challenge. Whilst there may be a growing need for marketers to play a broader strategic role within their organisations, that does not necessarily mean they are well equipped to play it. Being good at the traditional, brand communications-focused role referred to in the original HBR article is no longer good enough. A key issue is that the things people need to do to get to the top in business are not the same things that help them succeed when they get there. As marketers progress through their careers, the experience they build up will often not equip them with sufficient strategic marketing or business leadership skills to perform in more senior positions. At no point is this more likely than when they make the critical step up to lead the Marketing function and represent it across the business at Board level. In this paper, we will explore the nature of these capability needs and define what it takes for marketing leaders to flourish and succeed. We will introduce the important concept of ‘customer-centred leadership’ and provide practical advice to help both aspiring and current marketing leaders get better at driving their own performance and that of their businesses.
I think the development of leadership skills for marketers is critical. As we grow through our careers, there are two things that get better – our technical skills and our leadership skills. By the time we get to Marketing Director roles, leadership skills are the demarcation – that’s how you cut through the pack and get progressively more senior roles. Andy Fennell, President, Africa, Diageo
1. 'Marketing is Dead' by Bill Lee, Harvard Business Review, 9th August 2012 2. 'Stepping Up To The Challenge', CMO Insights from the Global C-Suite Study 2014, IBM 3. 'How Marketers Will Win', Economist Intelligence Unit, 2014
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The drivers of performance If any business is to flourish and grow over time, there’s one fundamental requirement – it must find ways to create better value for the people that buy its products and services, its customers. Customer value is created through the experiences people have of a company’s brands. Whether the end deliverable is a grocery product, a medicine or a businessto-business service, every single aspect of people’s brand experience counts in shaping their perceptions of what’s on offer and whether they’re prepared to part with their cash to buy it. Driving demand-led growth by identifying opportunities to create better customer value has always been at the heart of Marketing’s role. However, the increasing volatility and competitive intensity in the digital world we now live in means that the speed and skill required to do so has intensified substantially. The life of marketers has become an incredibly complex one. They have to
deal simultaneously with the analysis of the past, the performance of the present and the strategy for the future. This is often played out in a multi-country, multicategory, multi-channel environment with a wide range of external specialist agencies and partners involved. There are internal challenges too. In order to identify the most compelling growth opportunities, marketing leaders need to collaborate closely with other functions to take into account what is both technically feasible and commercially attractive. As explained in a previous Brand Learning white paper – Organising Around the Customer Experience - marketers also need to mobilise people throughout the organisation to ensure that everyone is engaged in delivering the desired customer experience in an integrated way.
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As a result, there are two crucial dimensions in which marketing leaders must build their capabilities and performance. Firstly, they need the professional skills to handle what they need to DO as strategic marketers generating compelling customer and market insight, creating purposeful brand strategies and ideas, engaging customers in bigger relationships and delivering commercial results. Secondly, and at least as importantly, they must also develop the right mindsets and behaviours to support the way they need to BE as business leaders – empathetic and creative, passionate about customers, lifting other people’s spirits, making their colleagues feel valued and driving the delivery of results.
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When you become a $66 billion business you’re not going to market or advertise your way through to success. Your other functions such as sales, finance and supply chain become such a big part of the agenda, you have to maximise your teamwork and your networking ability. As a commercial marketing leader, you have to have the ability to bring people with you. Simon Lowden, CMO Beverages, North America, PepsiCo
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The defining characteristic of marketing leadership There are some well-established principles that apply to any leadership role, whether that be in business, politics or life in general. Strong leaders have a determined commitment to creating something new and exciting in the future. They seek to engage the people involved by inspiring and enabling them to contribute towards the fulfillment of this vision in a collaborative spirit. And they drive through the delivery of the vision in practice, demonstrating creativity and resilience along the way. The role of a marketing leader differs from this general picture in one key respect. Rather than creating their leadership agenda independently, marketing leaders centre their leadership on their customers. The responsibility they shoulder in commercial terms is to find ways to drive sustainable growth by creating more valuable customer experiences. And their right to lead their organisations is grounded in the authority that comes from being able to represent the customer's voice accurately and persuasively within the business.
At one level, all business leaders, whatever their function, need to be customercentred if they are to drive the success of their organisations. The factor which distinguishes the role of the functional marketer is that they bring together the two dimensions we have described - the 'doing' of marketing and the 'being' of leadership. It is through this distinctive combination that marketing leaders are able to define a customer-centred strategic agenda through which they can inspire, guide and enable their organisations to reach new levels of performance. The question is, how can they rise to this challenge in practice?
A focus on patients is critical for marketers working in the pharmaceuticals sector - by gaining deep insight into patient needs and putting the patient at the heart of marketing, they provide the inspiration as well as the license for marketers to play an influential leadership role. Louise Fairburn, Vice President, Global Commercial Academy, AstraZeneca
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The Customer-Centred Leadership Framework A simple roadmap to help marketing leaders navigate their own personal leadership journeys. Brand Learning has drawn on its experience working with over 150 client organisations to help provide some guidance. We have also distilled the lessons from delivering the renowned Marketing Leaders Programme in partnership with The Marketing Society. We are deeply indebted to the inspiration
and support provided by leadership consultants and coaches Steve Radcliffe and Anni Townend in helping to shape the thinking. A big thank you must also go to our clients and the business leaders contributing to the MLP, some of whom we have quoted in this paper. The result is a simple, structured approach to providing customer-centred leadership.
The Brand Learning "Customer-Centred Leadership" Framework™
Purpose Insight
Performance
Partnership
Customer-centred leaders base their leadership on INSIGHT into the mo va ons and values of themselves, their customers and their businesses
Their leadership agenda is then realised by Defining an inspiring PURPOSE for themselves, their team and their whole organiza on Engaging people both inside and outside the organiza on in a spirit of PARTNERSHIP Driving personal and business PERFORMANCE by delivering customer-centred growth in prac ce
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The 4 framework elements 1. Insight Generating insight into the motivations and values of myself, my customers and my business To be a leader requires passion, conviction and a determination to make change happen. It also demands courage, resilience and self-awareness to overcome skepticism and setbacks as they arise. This strength of character and willpower has to come from somewhere. The source of inspiration which ultimately powers a leader’s quest are the things in life they believe in and care about the most. Towards the end of her extremely successful tenure as Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts declared that “the most vital component of my life, which has guided every step of my career, has been my character and its Midwestern values�. She went on to summarise these values as compassion, being the best you can be and humility. “These core values remain the guiding force in my life today. That they are is an epiphany that took 20 years of youth, 30 years of experience and five months of reflection to discover. But they have been with me always�. 4
The customer dimension Deeper insight into one’s own values and motivations can be very inspiring for any leader. But for marketing leaders, there is another essential focus for insight that comes into play – the values and motivations of customers. Shortly after moving on to join Apple as SVP Retail and Online Stores, Angela Ahrendts sent a memo to all Apple’s retail employees highlighting her passion for the last line of the company’s Credo: “We are at our best when we deliver enriching experiences that help owners of our products get more of
our technology and of themselves.� She went on to explain how “cross-functional teams are meeting and gaining incredible insights into the changing customer journey, and how together we can Convince, Care, Customize, and Contribute as one team�.5 The best customer-centred leaders find ways to relate their own personal values to the jobs they can do for their customers and their businesses. The connection between the desire of both Apple and Ahrendts to be "at their best" is clearly an important one.
Combining 'being' and 'doing' Customer-centred leaders have a driving empathy and curiosity about the lives of their customers and the ways in which their category and brands can service their needs. They build an intuitive sense of customer motivations by maintaining regular, direct connections with them and are always on the look out for creative new ways to improve their experiences and engagement.
foresight analysis creates future focus and helps build a sense of where customers are heading. Customer segmentation provides the foundation for portfolio strategy and the alignment of cross-functional strategies and customer experience delivery. And customer data strategy supplies the information needed to strengthen customer relationships and agile in-market execution and experimentation. Using the knowledge and insight that results from these activities, a central role for a marketing leader is then to champion the customer’s interests and ensure they are factored into decision-making throughout the business. To do so effectively, they must also understand very well the business model, culture, strategy and capabilities of their own organisation. Only then will they be able to connect the opportunities they identify to create value for customers with the commercial interests and capacities of the business itself.
Added to these ways of ‘being’, there are also some important tasks that functional marketing leaders need to be ‘doing’ to provide the customer-centred leadership a business requires. Market trend and
DOING
INSIGHT
BEING
Design innova ve approaches to be er understand customer needs, mo va ons and values
Connected and empathe c to the worlds of customers
Iden fy future opportuni es by interpre ng market trends and compe ve dynamics
Curious about what drives my customers and my business
Define and segment markets to drive por olio and go-to- market strategy
Crea ve in genera ng new connec ons and commercial opportuni es
Determine the connec ons in the business model between customer purchasing behaviour, financial performance and shareholder value
In touch with my own values, emo ons and intui on
Build organisa onal insight capabili es and a customer-centred culture
Aware of my personal strengths and limita ons
4. From the Heart: The Importance of Enduring Values, www.linkedin.com/pulse, 5th Nov 2013 5. www.9to5mac.com, 1st Aug 2014
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Integrating customer, organisational and self insight to help transform the performance of the UK’s leading department store When Craig Inglis joined John Lewis as Marketing Director in 2008, he discovered from customer research that there was strong and widespread trust in the brand. This manifested itself in very high penetration levels, but it was not translating through into frequent visits to the company’s stores. A key insight was that people’s relationships with John Lewis were generally quite rational, with visits being driven by ‘mission’ shopping rather than the promise of more appealing and inspiring shopping experiences. As an organisation, John Lewis is an unusual business in that it is owned by its employees. The constitution states that “the Partnership’s ultimate purpose is the happiness of all its members, through their worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business.” Interestingly there is no mention of customers here. Whilst the ownership structure had meant there was tremendous engagement in the business and a very strong service mindset, the level of understanding and support for the need to build John Lewis as a customer-centred brand was limited at best. Indeed, in some ways
the culture could be described as ‘antimarketing’, with the founder himself having written early on about the need to avoid being ‘boastful’ about the company’s products and activities. It was in this context that Craig Inglis saw an opportunity to make a real personal impact. Describing one of his values as ‘relentlessly restless’, he set out with an ambition to bring Marketing to the heart of John Lewis. One of his key beliefs is the importance of connecting with people at a human level and he recognized the importance of doing this not just externally with customers, and also with internal stakeholders and partners.
to be able to lead an organisation or the customer – we’ve got to earn that right.” Marketing’s role has continued to evolve in John Lewis, with significant work undertaken recently to use customer segmentation and econometrics to frame the agenda. The results have been impressive, with sustained improvements in customer engagement, shopping frequency, and ultimately market share, sales and profit growth.
John Lewis’s communication has been famously effective in recent years in building a deeper emotional connection with consumers. This success has fuelled people’s self-confidence and pride internally too and enhanced their appreciation of the contribution Marketing can make to the business. Talking of his own personal insight, Craig states that “the main thing I’ve learnt as a leader of marketing is there is no God-given right
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2. Purpose Defining an inspiring purpose for myself, my team and my whole organisation
My top tip for marketing leaders is that you’ve got to consider what it is you’re leading for. What’s the breadth of the leadership contribution you want to make? My contention is that people who work in Marketing are generally the best equipped in customer insight and are generally quite intuitive about the needs of people. They can choose to play a really influential and powerful role in the way organisations function. Stephen Lehane, Group HR Director, Alliance Boots
Insights into the needs and values of customers, the organisation and oneself personally provide the inspiration for customer-centred leadership. But insights are merely the discovery of motivations and opportunities – they need to be translated into an agenda for action. This is where the role of purpose comes in. For any individual, a sense of purpose comes from a commitment to playing an important role in the world, or to fulfilling an exciting vision of the future. Much research has been done in recent years to demonstrate how important this is to us psychologically as human beings in creating meaning and happiness in life. There are three important levels at which customer-centred leaders work to define a clear purpose:
DOING
Brand/organisation By framing the role an organisation and its brand or brand portfolio plays for customers in an ambitious and meaningful way, marketers can help inspire and engage customers and employees alike. Team/functional In order for marketers to build strategic influence within the organisation, they must clarify the functional role they will play. At the heart of this marketing leadership team purpose is typically the responsibility to drive growth by building strong brands and bringing the outside in by championing the customer’s voice in decision-making. Personal In the context of the agenda set in the two areas above, a marketing leader needs to be clear about their own personal leadership goals. What is it they want to be ‘up to’ themselves to really make a difference? How big a game do they want to play? And what kind of leader do they want to be in the eyes of others?
PURPOSE
BEING
Align the organisa on around a customercentred mission, vision and values
Passionately driven by the value I can create for customers and my business
Generate strategic insights to inspire purposeful value proposi ons
Inspired by an ambi ous and courageous vision of the future I want to create
Create a mo va ng vision of the desired customer experience Construct strategies for innova on and market development to drive future growth Make strategic choices based on robust assessment of commercial risks and returns
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Convic on in being the kind of leader I want to be Assuming responsibility for ini a ng and driving change Bringing a posi ve spirit of op mism and opportunity
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Defining a new purpose for the world’s leading decorative paints company Kerris Bright has been a Marketing Director and CMO in numerous businesses over the years, including Unilever, Akzo Nobel, British Airways and Virgin Mobile. During her time at AkzoNobel, she led the development of a new strategic positioning for the Dulux brand. At a time of austerity when consumer investment in house moves and decoration was under pressure, the Dulux team identified that painting walls provided a relatively affordable way for people to refresh their surroundings and thereby their outlook on life more generally. From a commercial point of view, this had the benefit of encouraging people to buy higher-margin, colourful paints. However, as the project progressed, Kerris spotted an opportunity to lift this idea to a higher level in two respects. Firstly, by thinking bigger about the role the
brand could play for customers, the team initiated the Let’s Colour programme through which they transformed the entire environment in which a number of under-privileged communities lived.
leader is about being more than an excellent functional specialist – I felt inspired with a duty to lift the spirit and engagement of the whole organisation.”
Secondly, by reframing the level at which the brand was playing externally, the marketing team were able to transform the sense of purpose within the company itself. Kerris herself spent a weekend working all hours to create a video montage to bring this new vision to life in time to present it at an important senior management meeting. She explains, “it was a moment in my career when I realized just what an important role marketers can play in inspiring people throughout the business, based on the impact they can have on the lives of our customers. My key learning was that being a marketing
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3. Partnership Engaging people both inside and outside the organisation in a spirit of partnership
Having clarified the strategic role the organisation and its brands will play for customers, the next task facing customercentred leaders is to continue engaging all the relevant stakeholders to make this vision a reality. At the heart of this challenge is the need to build strong partnerships with the people involved, based on a spirit of mutual trust, respect and common purpose. As functional marketers, one key aspect of their ‘doing’ role involves building relationships with customers themselves via brand engagement and communication. Owing to the interactive digital and social media channels now available, customers are no longer passive recipients of a company’s products and services. As Lego has proved with its network of AFOLs (adult fans of Lego), customers can play a hugely valuable role in shaping and advocating a brand’s offerings. This has led to a big shift in the mindset and expertise required by marketers to connect with their customers successfully.
Building relationships internally However, as leaders within the business, marketers also need to shift the way they build their relationships and ways of working with colleagues in other functions. An organisation will only be
DOING
able to deliver an integrated experience that lives up to the promises made by its brands, if people across the company work together in a positive spirit of collaboration. For example, joining up brand planning with the Sales function and innovation programme management with R&D are vital drivers of brand performance in the short and longer term respectively. Collaboration between the CMO and CIO is also of increasing importance to align technological developments with the delivery of the customer experience.
Engaging people personally At one level, customer-centred leaders can succeed in building partnerships with their colleagues by creating a shared customer and commercial agenda. But they also need to engage people at a personal level through the way they behave and come across as human beings. It is vital that marketers listen carefully to the inputs from people in other functions, talk the same jargon-free language and show genuine empathy for their needs and concerns. Just as in building relationships with customers, traits such as humility, honesty and authenticity make a big difference.
PARTNERSHIP
Mindful of the impact my presence and behaviour has on others
Design a customer-centred opera ng model
Sensing and influencing organisa onal and team dynamics
Develop innova ve value proposi ons, communica on ideas and engagement ini a ves Integrate ac vity plans across business areas, func ons and geographies
Jill McDonald, President and CEO, North West Division, McDonald’s
BEING
Define the customer experience and engagement strategy
Engage internal and external partners in customer objec ves and strategies
As well as being a functionally strong marketer who understands their stuff, you also need to engage the business in your vision and in your sense of purpose. I think that if you are to be successful, you need to apply some of the techniques you use to understand customers to understand your internal audience, in order to be able to lead and bring the organisation with you.
Ac vely building a wider range of bigger, empathe c rela onships with others Commi ng to a culture of construc ve challenge and dialogue Valuing individuals for who they are and all they bring
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4. Performance Driving personal, team and business performance by delivering customer-centred growth in practice
No matter how strong one’s purpose or relationships are as a leader, they count for nothing if they don’t end up leading to the delivery of results. Ultimately, the performance of any business is judged by its financial record. However, as explained earlier, this is influenced significantly by the organisation’s performance in creating value for its customers. Tomorrow’s customer demand levels will be determined by the quality of the experiences those customers are receiving today.
Short versus long term results Understanding the drivers of the business model and striking an appropriate balance between performance in the eyes of both customers and shareholders is therefore a key commercial role for a customer-centred leader. At the heart of this challenge is a need to balance short and long term results. The expectations from financial markets to see the numbers delivered each quarter can sometimes force decisions to be taken that aren’t in the interests of customers. The risk is that by succumbing to these short term pressures, the long term health and growth of the business can be jeopardised. The recent experience of Tesco is a good example, all the more striking in the context of its previous reputation as being an exemplar of a customer-centred organisation. Customer-centred leaders must identify the right blend of customer and brand equity metrics that can help assess the extent to which value is being created for customers currently. These then need to be brought to bear in commercial decisions, as they can help gauge where the performance of the business is heading in the future in a way that financial metrics alone cannot.
New ways of ‘being’ Delivering results sustainably in today’s extremely complex and fast-changing digital environment is not easy and requires some important new mindsets and ways of ‘being’. Marketers can no longer rely on the old established ways of doing things and they need to be willing to experiment and learn. They also have an important role to play in blending creativity and rigour to help their organisations address fully the many issues and opportunities they encounter. Perhaps most importantly though, there is a significant consideration of personal performance in being a successful customer-centred leader. People need to find ways to be at their personal best as much of the time as possible, remaining true to their values and their commitments to others even when under pressure. They must find ways to manage their own energy and inspire the energy of those around them in a conscious and positive manner. Only then will they have the resilience and drive to see through the delivery of their personal and organisational leadership ambitions in practice.
DOING
I don’t think you get your numbers better by just focusing on the numbers. You get your numbers better by focusing on the things that drive the numbers. The one recommendation I would make is to start by understanding where the business wants to go and use the right marketing KPIs to help drive it there. Keith Weed, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Unilever
PERFORMANCE
BEING
Construct a data strategy to inform decision-making
Consciously managing my own energy and that of others
Focus the organisa on on integrated customer and financial performance indicators
Enabling change by balancing crea vity and rigour
Design experimenta on and learning into market execu on Establish responsive ways of working to sharpen commercial results Con nuously strengthen organisa onal customer-centred growth capabili es
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Inspiring others to reach new levels of professionalism and performance Ins lling an agile ac on-orienta on to drive outstanding commercial results Remaining true to my values and commitments to others
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Becoming a Customer-Centred Leader
There is a big difference between performing well at the level of an operator and succeeding as a leader. Being an effective customer-centred leader requires a demanding blend of strategic functional skills and leadership mindsets and behaviours. However, the experiences people have as they progress through their careers will not necessarily prepare them with the learning opportunities to build these new capabilities adequately. Martin Glenn has been a CEO with PepsiCo, Birds Eye and United Biscuits and is currently President of The Marketing Society. He pointed out at the Society’s recent annual conference that the days of the old consumer products brand management model are long gone. Marketing roles have fragmented and specialised, with the result that few people now see the whole picture or build general management experience at early stages in their careers.
A lack of broad commercial experience can become a real obstacle in the career development of marketers. This is particularly true at the point when they reach top management positions. For this reason, working to build customercentred leadership capabilities, both personally and for one’s team, is an effort well worth making. Not only will this help people fulfil their true potential, both as marketers and as leaders. It will also help their businesses flourish and grow by ensuring that a drive to create better value for customers is at the very centre of the strategic commercial agenda.
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You have to learn to be in the game without playing the game. Sanjay Gangopadhyay, Senior Marketing Director, South East Asia, Nike
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Are you a Customer-Centred Leader? Try reflecting on your own relative strengths and development needs as a customer-centred leader using these questions as a prompt:
DOING Am I ensuring all strategic business decisions take into account the need to create be er value for our customers? Have I aligned the organisa on around a customer-centred purpose for our brand that provides inspira on and guidance for everyone involved? Have I engaged all external and internal partners to deliver our customer objec ves, plans and experiences in an integrated way? Have I established responsive ways of working to track customer a tudes and behaviour and to sharpen our delivery of commercial results?
Customer-centred leadership
BEING
Insight
Am I consistently in touch with my own personal values, emo ons, strengths and limita ons as a leader?
Purpose
Am I clear and passionate about what I want to be up to as a leader and the future I want to create?
Partnership
How well am I building big, collabora ve rela onships with my key colleagues and stakeholders?
Performance
Am I crea ng the right kind of energy and capability in my team for them to reach the highest possible performance levels? © 2015 Brand Learning
About Brand Learning
Andy Bird
Brand Learning is the leading global consultancy in customer-centred capability development. We have worked for over 150 organisations across the world, including PepsiCo, Unilever, Shell and AstraZeneca.
Group Executive Director and Co-Founder
Our passion is to help companies across the world drive growth by helping them create better value for their customers. How do we do this? By connecting everyone in the organisation around a customercentred strategy: ensuring the organisation, culture, processes, people and skills are optimised to deliver commercial success. In this way, we enable organisations to work cross-functionally to create better value for their customers, as well as to achieve deep functional excellence in marketing, sales and leadership.
Andy is one of the co-founders of Brand Learning. He has a particular focus on customer-centred leadership development and runs coaching and learning programmes for senior clients across a wide range of sectors, including consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, retail and energy.
Before setting up Brand Learning in 2000, Andy had over 14 years’ experience with Unilever working in a variety of marketing roles in the UK, India and the Far East. His last position was as the Vice President leading the Unilever Marketing Academy, driving the development of capabilities for Unilever’s global marketing community. @AndyBird_BL
Andy and his business partner Mhairi McEwan were jointly awarded ‘Best Leader’ and Brand Learning achieved first place in The Sunday Times Top 100 ‘Best Small Companies’ Awards 2011. He leads the Marketing Society’s renowned International Marketing Leaders Programme and is a regular conference speaker, with recent appearances at the Cannes Festival of Creativity, Marketing Week Live and Google’s Think Branding series. He is also co-author of The Growth Drivers and a Fellow of the Marketing Society and the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
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Driving customer-centred growth
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