Marketing lead, Department of Health and Social Care
Alana Blair joined the Department of Health and Social Care in October 2023, stepping into the role of marketing lead after nearly five years at Public Health England.
A Chartered Institute of Public Relations diploma-holder with a strong background in community engagement and driving behavioural change, Blair brings deep experience in public health communication to one of the government’s most high-profile departments.
Recent DHSC activity includes ‘Love Your Lungs’, England’s first nationwide campaign warning 13- to 18-year-olds about vaping and nicotine addiction.
Fronted by influencers such as Big Manny and Bodalia, the campaign spans YouTube and Instagram, with a short film that frames vaping as a toxic relationship. It launched alongside a government-backed study tracking 100,000 young people over 10 years to assess vaping’s long-term effects.
Last autumn, the department launched the ‘Change NHS’ campaign, described as the biggest public conversation about the health service since its founding. Citizens, NHS staff and experts were invited to share their experiences to help shape the government’s 10 Year Health Plan.
Outgoing executive director of fundraising & marketing, Cancer Research UK
Few marketers move from brands like Diageo and the BBC into the charity sector, but Philip Almond made that leap in 2019 when he joined Cancer Research UK. Since then, he’s helped steer the charity through a challenging funding landscape, leading a brand refresh in 2023 and launching high-impact campaigns that put CRUK’s mission at the forefront.
In February, the charity partnered with Sky Media on ‘Power of Pledges’, a powerful TV campaign using real-life stories to show the impact of legacy giving. Fundraising momentum continued through long-standing partnerships, including a TK Maxx campaign celebrating 20 years of collaboration. Fronted by actress Naomi Harris in a 50-layer dress, the creative spotlighted the £50m raised so far.
In May, CRUK’s Stand Up to Cancer campaign also marked 10 years of the Sprintathon with The Marketing Society.
In the year to August 2024, CRUK raised £684m. It has also nearly completed its £400m ‘More Research, Less Cancer’ campaign – the UK’s largest-ever philanthropic drive.
Almond is set to retire in May and while he says it “was not an easy decision” he “will leave knowing the charity is in a strong position”, ready for successor Pete Markey to take over.
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Chief communications officer, GambleAware
Alexia Clifford joined GambleAware in 2021, bringing over a decade of experience from Public Health England. Since then, she’s led efforts to reframe gambling harm as a public health issue, break down stigma, and push for industry reform.
Central to this is the charity’s ‘Stigma’ brand platform, launched in 2023. Now in its third year, the platform has driven meaningful action among its target audience, with 94% of those who recognised the campaign going on to take some form of action – be that reducing their gambling or speaking to others about gambling addiction.
Recent work under the platform includes a striking installation at Westfield London featuring 85,000 poker chips, each representing a child thought to be experiencing gambling harm. The broader campaign, spanning TV, radio, out-of-home and digital, aims to challenge perceptions and spark conversation around the normalisation of gambling in children’s lives.
Elsewhere, GambleAware has launched a free self-help app and used moments like the 2024 Euros to highlight gambling’s health risks. With a far smaller budget than gambling brands, Clifford says cutting through means “being as creative, distinctive and innovative as we possibly can”.
Director of marketing & communications, Marie Curie UK
Marie Curie is midway through an ambitious five-year strategy to double the number of people it supports with end-of-life care by 2028, underpinned by a 30% uplift in fundraising targets. Tasked with bringing that vision to life through marketing is Jo Bray, who joined the charity in February.
Bray brings a wealth of experience from the charity, health and public sectors, with previous senior roles at Nuffield Health, Cancer Research UK, the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police. Most recently, she was interim director of marketing and engagement at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Bray prides herself on a “proven record of driving growth and delivering results” for such organisations.
Since joining, she’s helped secure one of Marie Curie’s biggest platforms yet: being named the official 2026 TCS London Marathon Charity of the Year. To support the move, she is now expanding her team to maximise the opportunity.
Bray was also responsible for the launch of 'The Endfluencers', a new documentary Marie Curie has created in partnership with Superdrug. It follows the stories of three influencers living with a terminal illness, who give an honest opinion of what it's like and the challenges they go through, all in the hope of raising awareness and changing perceptions.
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Head of marketing, Teenage Cancer Trust
“The key thing for me was that I wanted to make a difference,” Warren Fiveash recently told Marketing Week, reflecting on his decision to join the Teenage Cancer Trust in 2021. Over the past four years he’s done just that – helping the charity sharpen its strategy, grow awareness and reach more young people affected by cancer.
The organisation is currently running two brand campaigns: ‘Cancer Care, Made for Young People’ and ‘Only Young Once’. The former, launched in 2024, taught Fiveash that “simpler is best” when communicating the charity’s mission, and also marked its first foray into Spotify ads. Both aim to boost familiarity with the Teenage Cancer Trust and highlight the unique challenges young people with cancer face. It's a strategy that seems to be working, with the charity recently achieving brand awareness of 52%, its highest in a decade.
A new year-long partnership with Newsquest is providing £2.5m of donated advertising, focusing first on awareness, later on fundraising. Meanwhile, the charity is ramping up work with influencers and micro-creators. A February 2024 squats challenge delivered a 51.6% landing page conversion rate.
Managing director, fundraising, comms & policy, Action for Children
Action for Children boosted its total income by £5.5m in the year to March 2024, reaching £155.3m – thanks in part to a “fantastic” year for its fundraising teams, which raised £17.2m. Much of that success is down to longstanding fundraising and marketing boss Locks Farmer.
Ambitious, creative and solutions-focused, Farmer has continued to drive momentum through strategic partnerships. A three-year collaboration with Nationwide’s Fairer Futures programme aims to improve the lives of 100,000 vulnerable children and families, while its collaboration with Ella’s Kitchen last Christmas, built on the £91,000 raised previously.
Action for Children also brought back its Starry Night Gala, a star-studded event that raised over £225,000 for vulnerable children, young people and families across the UK in 2024.
Farmer has also helped keep children’s issues on the political agenda. In early 2024, the charity joined a coalition of children’s organisations to launch the #ChildrenAtTheTable campaign ahead of the general election, calling on the new prime minister to prioritise good childhoods.
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Executive director of digital technology, communications & campaigns, RSPB
Few might have predicted the RSPB would become one of the UK’s most talked-about charities on TikTok, but under Emma Marsh’s leadership, that’s exactly what’s happened. With over 35 million views and nearly 200,000 followers, its viral ‘Bird of the Week’ series has turned the 135-year-old institution into a surprise Gen Z favourite.
Marsh joined the charity nearly a decade ago after leading campaigns such as ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ at WRAP. Her mission is clear – to modernise the RSPB without alienating its core audience.
That balancing act plays out across its marketing. While TikTok trends and youth-focused merchandise broaden the charity’s reach, campaigns like ‘Protect Our Birds, Defend Our Nature’ and the newer ‘Together We Fly’ target its over-45s base and encourage deeper conservation action.
Strategic collaborations are also key, from content partnerships with the Natural History Museum and Royal Albert Hall to a £4.9m fundraising tie-up with Omaze. “We’ve been learning from the power of collaboration,” Marsh told Marketing Week recently.
CMO, Alzheimer’s Society
As CMO of the Alzheimer’s Society, Alex Hyde-Smith isn’t afraid to be bold. Promoted to the role in late 2022 after joining as fundraising director in 2019, he has driven a marketing strategy that is unflinching in its mission – even if it ruffles some feathers.
That was clear in the return of the charity’s emotionally raw ‘The Long Goodbye’ campaign. Despite attracting hundreds of complaints when it first aired in 2023, the ad was cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority and credited with generating record results.
Public awareness hit an all-time high, web donations more than doubled, and intent to support the charity rose from 6% to 33%. The only update to the ad this time? A helpline number, which drove a rise in calls.
That momentum continued during Dementia Action Week this year, when the charity ran press ads using ‘symptomatic’ headlines to mirror the experience of living with dementia.
It has also launched a bespoke new storyline partnership with Coronation Street, and extended its long-running tie-up with The FA, helping ensure dementia stays on the national agenda.
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Chief engagement officer, Macmillan Cancer Support
After senior marketing roles at Royal Mail, The Guardian and ITV, Sonia Sudhakar joined Macmillan Cancer Support as its first chief engagement officer in October 2024. The newly created role brings together income and impact – a remit Sudhakar calls “quite an unusual one”, spanning everything from brand campaigns and fundraising to social interaction and online communities.
Her goal is to raise awareness of Macmillan’s services, make them more accessible to marginalised communities, and increase relevance post-pandemic.
Audience understanding and real voices are central to the strategy, as seen in ‘Faces of Cancer’, the first campaign launched under her leadership. The campaign builds on Macmillan’s ‘Whatever It Takes’ platform and is supported by content featuring real people living with cancer.
Sudhakar is also focused on broadening understanding of Macmillan’s work and deepening its connection with those it supports. That includes leaning into influencer marketing, creating content for people with cancer and their loved ones, and using first-party data to enhance the customer experience – whether it’s the charity’s services or flagship fundraising moments like the Macmillan Coffee Morning.
CMO, British Heart Foundation
The British Heart Foundation is finding unexpected ways to reach new audiences and save lives under Claire Sadler’s leadership. A member of the exec team with P&L responsibility, she helped the charity achieve its highest-ever income for its 2025 financial year. BHF generated £180.4m from legacies, while other fundraising efforts raised £58.2m, a 22% increase on the previous year.
Boosting awareness of CPR training tool RevivR has been a particular focus. The 2024 ‘Stream of (un)consciousness’ campaign saw 14 Twitch streamers simultaneously interrupted by a flatlining heart monitor, a creative stunt that reached over 700,000 viewers, with 84% saying they were now very likely to learn CPR. It went on to win Best Use of Influencers at the 2024 Marketing Week Awards.
Another activation took over Coronation Street’s end credits following a character’s on-screen cardiac arrest. Then, in April, the ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign with Sky Bet smashed its goal of getting 270,000 football fans to learn CPR two months earlier than planned.
Sadler is also vice-president of WACL, this year helping to launch the ‘Change the Stats’ campaign to accelerate gender equality in adland.
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