Chief customer officer, Centrica
Insight-led and results-focused, Gary Booker joined energy giant Centrica in June this year. The marketing boss has said he embraces new titles like chief customer officer, arguing that “marketing can be too narrow a definition for what a good marketing leader should do”.
Booker spent the prior six years as chief marketing, innovation and strategy officer at international pest-control firm Rentokil Initial. There, he used his B2C background to elevate the B2B company’s approach to marketing, encouraging accountability for numbers at every level of his team and striving to demonstrate ROI.
That approach looks to have paid off. In its 2023 results, the business reported a 45.8% uplift in group revenue and a 43.8% increase in profit before tax. Innovation was highlighted as a notable driver of growth.
On bringing Booker into Centrica, group CEO Chris O’Shea said he was “delighted” to attract a candidate of his calibre, adding he is "very well placed to challenge us to think differently about the experience we create for our customers and how we get the most from our brilliant brands”.■
Global marketing & sales leader, Malvern Panalytical
John Bernard joined lab instruments manufacturer Malvern Panalytical in June 2023, following seven years at medtech firm Dexcom. He describes himself as a “commercially focused” marketer, and it’s a good thing too - Bernard has been tasked with hitting “ambitious” financial objectives as he leads the brand’s marketing team across six continents.
So far, things look promising. Parent company Spectris reported double-digit organic sales growth and record profitability for 2023. Spectris Scientific, Malvern Panalytical’s business division, reported a 7% sales uplift to £704m.
Outside of his day job, 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 as a regular judge at industry awards.
He is also passionate about nurturing the next generation of marketing leaders, acting as a mentor with both the Marketing Society and the School of Marketing. As he recently told Marketing Week: “[Mentoring] puts us all in a better place as an industry.”■
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, UTILITIES, HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES
John Bernard
Gary Booker
CMO, Convatec
Gemma Cleland cut her teeth as an FMCG marketer, 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.
Cleland joined a business in the middle of a turnaround journey, started in 2019 after years of decline. No doubt influenced by her experience at Unilever, Cleland has led Convatec through a purpose-driven brand transformation, unveiling a masterbrand refresh and a new consumer-centric mission statement, ‘Forever Caring’.
To date, the turnaround has been a commendable success. Convatec reported its strongest annual results since 2016 last year, with revenue and operating profit up 7%. Confident in its future outlook, the business has forecast similar growth for 2024. So far, it’s on track to deliver.
Cleland also leads Convatec’s Marketing Centre of Excellence, which the business already claims has had a “positive impact”. She is a fellow of The Marketing Academy’s 2023 programme and is passionate about the professional development of others, coaching and mentoring marketers and parents returning to work.■
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.
Despite a tough market in 2023, KPMG recorded global revenue growth of 8%, surpassing $36bn (£27bn). Brand Finance ranks it as the seventh most valuable UK brand, with a valuation of £12.1bn.
Part of the brand’s strength comes from its consistency. Maintaining consistency can be challenging across complex matrix organisations, but Burns considers it “really important”. KPMG hasn’t changed its logo in 150 years, and its marketers undergo specific training to ensure a consistent tone of voice.
The daughter of a miner, Burns has been a driving force behind the business’s commitment to social mobility. KPMG came fourth in the Social Mobility Foundation’s 2023 index after overhauling its recruitment infrastructure and introducing its talent development programme Grow, designed to elevate colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds.■
Samantha Burns
Gemma Cleland
UK chief marketing & communications officer, EY
After 18 years working 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 UK CMO role in January 2021. Since then she has transformed EY’s approach to marketing, realigning its team and building more storytelling into the brand. Three years later, Brand Finance has ranked EY as the UK’s strongest brand and its second most valuable, with brand value up 16% year on year to £24.7bn.
While securing the budget to invest in brand isn’t always easy - especially in B2B - Hirst says communicating the metrics that “make the boat go faster” and demonstrably driving business results has helped to win over senior stakeholders.
EY once again reported record UK revenue of £3.8bn in 2023, its second year of double-digit revenue growth.
Hirst is also a keen mentor, volunteering with the EY Foundation to support young people who are eligible for free school meals.■
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.
Octopus has enjoyed rapid growth ever since, this year overtaking British Gas as the UK’s largest electricity supplier.
Dibb-Simkin believes in running a lean marketing team, with just 20 marketers across the entire business. All media-buying and marketing is executed in-house, with the marketing boss “ruthless” about budget efficiency. All customer emails are dealt with by her team and Dibb-Simkin says she often personally responds.
Judging by the brand’s Which? report, Dibb-Simkin is investing her budget wisely. With a customer score of 74%, Octopus was named a Which? Recommended Provider for the seventh year in a row in 2024, and was the only energy company to achieve a five-star rating for customer service. It was also awarded five stars for the quality of its communications.
In fact, Octopus was the only large energy supplier to gain market share in 2023, hitting 22%. It also tripled its group revenues to £13bn and achieved its first full-year profit.■
Rebecca Dibb-Simkin
Rebecca Hirst
Global CMO, PwC
Antonia Wade’s reputation for delivering commercial results in complex B2B organisations was already well established when she joined PwC in July 2021, having led marketing transformations at Capita, Thomson Reuters and Accenture. Now, Wade is helping to lead PwC’s global strategy, The New Equation, while advising the global board on marketing strategy, pushing brand awareness, delivering world-leading thought leadership, and running PwC’s flagship campaigns. She has also introduced account-based marketing (ABM) capabilities within the business.
In 2023, PwC won more than 70 awards for its thought leadership and campaigns, launched a CMO Marketing Academy to upskill over 1,000 marketers globally, and accelerated its brand and ABM programmes. Overall, PwC reported record global revenues of $50.3bn, despite a tough market for big consultancies.
Outside of her day job, Wade published her first book last year. ‘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.■
Vice-president of marketing, Pearson
The last two decades have taken Rachel Exton on a somewhat unconventional career path. After starting in FMCG at Unilever and Reckitt, she spent over a decade at consumer tech giant Dyson, before pivoting once again to join education brand Pearson in its English Language Learning division in 2021.
Pearson wasn’t previously a business that knew much about marketing, but Exton is on a mission to change that. She is working to embed a strategic and ROI-focused approach across her global team of 130 marketers and build its reputation as a strategic business partner. With sales in the English Language Learning division up 30% in 2023, followed by a 22% uplift in the first quarter of 2024, it certainly seems that Exton is having a commercial impact.
However, the marketing boss says her “number one goal” as a leader is to create teams that are not only high-performing but inclusive. She has been outspoken in her support for working parents, recently launched a marketing talent exchange scheme, and has created a network of ‘culture champions’ within her team.■
Rachel
Exton
Antonia Wade
Global marketing director, consumer healthcare, Sanofi
Silvina Vilas is one marketer who isn’t afraid to talk about the #PooTaboo. After earning her stripes at FMCG giants P&G and Reckitt, Vilas joined Sanofi in 2018 and four years later was appointed global marketing director for consumer healthcare. Her product portfolio has a particular focus on gut health, meaning Vilas is responsible for shaping the future of the number one laxative brand globally, DulcoLax.
Sanofi Consumer Healthcare is currently overhauling its approach to brand building, wanting people to feel about its brands the same way they do for Nike and Lego. The business is injecting creativity into every campaign it does; a recent activation led by Vilas saw the DulcoLax marketing team "post-hack" the word ‘shit’ on X to fight the stigma of constipation and share gut health advice. This more creative approach to marketing has reportedly delivered better results, greater market share and higher penetration among people using Sanofi’s products.
Describing herself as a “consumer-centric, strategic thinker”, Vilas has also been behind several new product launches at Sanofi, including an app partnership allowing users to track their gut health while taking their treatment.■
UK CMO, Deloitte
Ben Perkins has been with Deloitte for over a decade, having joined in 2012 as head of consumer business research. Ten years later he was appointed UK CMO, praised by managing partner Pauline Bidle for his “strong understanding” of Deloitte’s purpose and market positioning. As CMO, Perkins leads over 350 marketing and client relationship professionals, as well as the firm’s in-house creative agency 368.
Campaigns in the last 18 months include a promotional piece for Deloitte’s podcast, The Green Room, and ‘The First Effect’, a campaign devised in partnership with the International Olympic Committee to celebrate trailblazing athletes who have accomplished never-before-seen feats. According to Brand Finance, Deloitte currently leads as the world’s most valuable commercial services brand, after growing its brand value by 21% last year to $41.8bn (£31.2bn). It also ranks as the sixth strongest brand in the world, with a brand strength score of 90.6 out of 100.
Deloitte reported record revenues of nearly $65bn (£49bn) in 2023, including £5.6bn (£4.2bn) in the UK (up 14%). Last year, in recognition of his contribution to the business, Perkins was promoted to partner.■
Ben Perkins
Silvina Vilas
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