Pro services & utilities

Professional services, utilities, health & life sciences

Chief marketing, innovation & strategy officer Rentokil Initial Insight-led and results-focused, Gary Booker has thrived since joining commercial pest control and hygiene services firm Rentokil Initial in 2018. Describing B2B as “a great space to be creative”, Booker oversees the group’s marketing, innovation, product development, digital and sales functions. Innovation was credited as a key driver of the company’s profitable growth in 2022, with profit before tax up 27.7% to £532m. “It strengthens our brand and cements our leadership position, enabling us to provide enhanced service to customers and target key growth sectors,” the business said. Last year’s innovations included a new and enhanced customer portal, which now has more than 100,000 registered users in 20 countries. Booker encourages accountability for numbers at every level of marketing, regarding it his responsibility to ensure his marketers understand the language of finance. The company kicked 2023 off to a strong start, with reported revenue up 64.4% in the first quarter. While in March Rentokil Initial was named one of Britain’s Most Admired companies for the quality of its products and services.■

Gary Booker

CMO Zoopla From a global pandemic to surging mortgage rates, the property market has faced its fair share of challenges over the past few years, but Zoopla marketing boss Gary Bramall has remained optimistic throughout. “The overriding thing I try to instil in the team during mass uncertainty is my desire and belief that confidence will overcome all,” he told Marketing Week. In fact, despite challenging conditions, Zoopla’s marketing campaigns helped to drive a 17% uplift in valuation leads in the year to April 2023. The online property portal subsequently brought back its ‘Just Ask Zoopla’ campaign for a second year, recreating the awkward situations which can arise when people ask about house prices, and positioning Zoopla as a trusted source of information. Compared to its competitors, Zoopla had the highest share of voice on TV throughout the first half of 2023. Just Ask Zoopla helped drive a 38% increase in vendor leads compared to its pre-campaign average, and an all-time high number of homeowners registered with the property portal during the second half of the campaign, up 22% month on month.■

Gary Bramall

Global CMO KPMG Describing herself as a “creative strategic thinker” focused on delivering strong ROI and real business outcomes, Samantha Burns held the UK CMO role at KPMG for eight years before taking on the global position in October 2021. Having previously spent over a decade at rival EY, Burns knows a thing or two about leading marketing across global professional services networks. KPMG was one of only four UK brands to make it into Brand Finance’s top 100 most valuable B2B brands this year, with a brand valuation of $14.8bn (£12.1bn). The firm also delivered a strong financial performance in 2022 despite the challenging economic backdrop, with global revenues up 14% to $35bn. In the UK alone, KPMG reported a 16% increase in revenue to £2.72bn, while profit before tax jumped from £436m to £449m. The daughter of a miner, Burns has been a driving force behind the business’s commitment towards social mobility. KPMG came third in the Social Mobility Foundation’s 2022 index after overhauling its recruitment infrastructure and introducing talent development programme Grow, designed to elevate colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds.■

Samantha Burns

Rebecca Dibb-Simkin

Rebecca Hirst

Conor McKechnie

Mary-Anne Russell

Antonia Wade

Global marketing & sales leader Malvern Panalytical Before joining lab instruments manufacturer Malvern Panalytical in June this year, John Bernard spent seven years leading international marketing at Dexcom, a brand which develops continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology for people with diabetes. As Dexcom’s first marketing hire in Europe, Bernard was responsible for building a team of 60 marketers from scratch, with his goal to drive adoption of the company’s products and to build its brand awareness. Taking a digital-first approach, campaigns sought to empower people suffering with diabetes, with one recent UK campaign sharing the personal stories of four diabetic celebrities. Thanks in no small part to Bernard’s efforts, Dexcom has experienced considerable growth in the market. International revenue, including EMEA, climbed 28% to $768m in 2022. This year set off to a similarly strong start, with first quarter revenue up 21%. Outside of Dexcom, Bernard has worked to improve digital marketing excellence within the marketing sector through his roles as a non-executive director for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, an advisor for the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Awards (iDEA), and a mentor with The Marketing Society.■

John Bernard

Gemma Cleland

new

CMO Convatec Gemma Cleland cut her teeth as a marketer in FMCG, including 14 years at industry giant Unilever. But at the beginning of 2021 she left her senior role in Unilever’s beauty and personal care division to take on an entirely new challenge: leading marketing at medical technology firm Convatec. No doubt influenced by her experience at Unilever, Cleland has led Convatec through a purpose-driven brand transformation. The company last year unveiled a masterbrand refresh and a new mission statement, ‘Forever Caring’, as it pivots from being product-focused to “care-centric”. As part of this, Convatec has expanded its support programmes for patients and committed to help tackle the stigma associated with certain health conditions. According to the business, the brand refresh has been “well received” by customers and healthcare personnel alike, helping to drive a 1.7% uplift in revenue in 2022 against a challenging market backdrop. Operating profit grew 1.8% to $207m (£169.7m). Looking ahead, Convatec has promised to better leverage its marketing Centre of Excellence and build new customer experience and NPS measurement capabilities – projects Cleland will undoubtedly be spearheading.■

Chief product & marketing officer Octopus Energy With a desire to be as close to the product and the customer as possible, Rebecca Dibb-Simkin joined Octopus Energy in 2017, just two years after the business was founded. Since then Octopus has grown from strength to strength, becoming the second largest energy retailer in the UK after acquiring collapsed rival Bulb in December 2022. As consumer energy bills spiralled last year, all major providers saw their brand health take a hit. Octopus, which claims to have an “obsession” with its customers, was the only one to record consistently positive brand health scores across 2022, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex. By December the brand stood head and shoulders above its competitors with an overall index score of 9.5, while Ovo followed at -1 and British Gas scored -9.3. At Octopus, all customer emails are dealt with by the marketing team and Dibb-Simkin says she often personally responds herself. With a customer score of 73%, Octopus was the only energy company to be named a Which? Recommended Provider in 2023, earning the accolade for the sixth year in a row.■

UK chief marketing & communications officer EY Having spent the previous 18 years of her career in major B2C organisations, including Samsung and The Coca-Cola Company, Rebecca Hirst was initially hesitant when approached by B2B professional services firm EY. But won over by the company’s growth plans, she took on the CMO role in January 2021. Since then she has transformed EY’s marketing approach in the UK, realigning the marketing team and building more storytelling into its brand. During London Climate Action Week last year, for example, EY placed a giant Post-It note in front of its London HQ with a to-do list for the world to engage the public, media and employees. “What I twigged quite early is the way we make clients and potential clients feel about our brand is as important as it is at Coke,” Hirst says. While securing the budget to invest in brand isn’t always easy, particularly in B2B, Hirst says communicating the metrics which “make the boat go faster” and demonstrably driving business results has helped her to win over senior stakeholders. EY reported record UK revenue of more than £3.2bn for 2022.■

Vice-president of marketing & strategy Cytiva After a career in communications, Conor McKechnie took on his first job in marketing in 2016 when he was promoted to CMO of GE Life Sciences. Four years later, after GE Healthcare sold its life sciences division to Danaher Corporation, McKechnie led the business’s rebrand to Cytiva and took on his new role as vice-president of marketing and strategy. Now, McKechnie helps his team of marketers to balance the new and exciting with consistency and stability for customers. That balance is more important than ever this year, following Cytiva’s integration with the life sciences division of Pall Corporation. The move saw the two businesses, both owned by Danaher Corp, unite under the Cytiva brand – a decision driven by customer demand. McKechnie is also playing his part in pushing forward Cytiva’s ‘Designing in Sustainability’ strategy, which is currently a key focus for the business. This year Cytiva launched a recyclable thermal packaging solution, as it drives towards its goal of completely eliminating polystyrene from its packaging by 2025.■

Global managing director of marketing & sales enablement AMS Mary-Anne Russell joined talent solutions firm AMS in January 2022 to lead its global marketing efforts, with a focus on brand awareness, lead generation and bidding. She previously held similar positions at consultancy AlixPartners and law firm Slaughter & May. As AMS navigates the ongoing economic challenges, Russell is encouraging her team to be curious about data and technology such as AI so it can make the most of its marketing budget. As a marketing-generated lead can take anywhere from 15 to 300 days to create, Russell has underlined the importance of data to show senior stakeholders the team is investing its budget wisely. Judging by AMS’s 2022 financial results, Russell’s efforts have so far been effective in shifting the dial. Revenue increased 59% to £665m for the year, while adjusted EBITDA rose 39% to £92.5m. Russell is also heavily involved in AMS’s internal and external diversity agenda, which includes its partnership with the National Autistic Society’s Autism at Work programme. “Neurodiversity inclusion is something I feel passionately about and it has been fantastic to see this programme take shape,” she said.■

Global CMO PwC Antonia Wade’s reputation for delivering significant commercial results in complex B2B organisations was already well established when she joined PwC two years ago, having led marketing transformations at Capita, Thomson Reuters and Accenture. Now Wade is helping to lead PwC’s global strategy, The New Equation. Launched in 2021, the strategy redefines the business as a human-led, tech-powered community of solvers who build trust for clients and deliver sustained outcomes. PwC invested $3.1bn into the strategy in 2022, resulting in gross annual revenues exceeding $50bn for the first time. Up 13% on 2021, it marked PwC’s highest growth rate since 2005. Outside of her day job, Wade last year published her first book. ‘Transforming the B2B Buyer Journey’ challenges the “legacy thinking” she believes is holding B2B marketers back, including the idea of the marketing “funnel”. Arguing the funnel is outdated for today’s buying journeys, Wade suggests an alternative framework to help marketers deliver better commercial returns. Among all this, Wade still finds time to share her knowledge as one of the industry’s regular speakers and as a mentor for the Marketing Academy’s Scholarship programme.■

new

Charities & not-for-profit

FOOD & DRINK RETAIL

GENERAL RETAIL

Media, telecoms & entertainment

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES,UTILITIES, HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES

TRAVEL, LEISURE & HOSPITALITY

Consumer tech, automotive & manufacturing

FINANCIAL SERVICES

FMCG

Food & drink

methodology

judges