CMO, Carlsberg Britvic
The newly merged Carlsberg Britvic business announced Munnawar Chishty as its CMO in January. Promoted to lead marketing across both the brewer and soft drink maker’s brands, Chishty will be overseeing a diverse portfolio that spans the likes of Robinsons, Tango and J2O, but also beer brands including Carlsberg, Birrificio Angelo Poretti and Brooklyn Brewery.
Chishty makes an excellent choice to lead marketing at the newly merged company, particularly coming off the back of an outstanding year at Britvic.
Joining the business in June 2023, Chishty saw quickly that Britvic’s brands had plenty of headroom to grow. Against the backdrop of an ongoing cost of living crisis, she successfully convinced the business to up its marketing spend by more than 30% in 2024, with the promise this would help tap into that potential.
That investment more than paid off. In 2024, the company achieved its “best ever financial performance”. Going into the newly merged company, Chishty has more than demonstrated her capacity to spot the growth potential in brands, as well as knowing how to invest to deliver on that growth.
CMO, Hovis
Hovis’s CMO Mark Brown is on a self-proclaimed mission to “protect and grow” the bread category. Faced with a decline in sales of pre-packaged sliced bread, Brown, who joined the bakery brand as its first CMO in August 2024 after 13 years at General Mills, sees it as the responsibility of market leaders to reignite growth for the good of the category. He believes this will come from diversifying into new occasions and experimenting with new flavours and formats.
Brown and his team have sought to do that by driving excitement around a raft of innovation that taps into changing demands, such as buttermilk sub rolls, a protein variant, and new farmhouse-style wholemeal loaves made with oats.
He also spearheaded the brand’s first original masterbrand campaign since 2008. The ‘Strength Baked In’ campaign unveiled in May reinforces the brand’s heritage, taking viewers on a cinematic trip through its 140-year history and reiterating its status as a British food and drink staple.
Brown’s steady leadership will be necessary now more than ever, with Kingsmill owner Associated British Foods recently agreeing to buy Hovis for an estimated £75m, which if approved could create the UK’s biggest bread brand.
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BROWN
Munnawar Chishty
UK marketing and innovation director, Pilgrim's Europe
Rather than jump on the latest trends, like many of his competitors, Pilgrim’s UK marketing and innovation director Chris Doe is an advocate for taking a moment to pause, reflect and make more strategic moves for the long-term health of the business.
He was promoted to his current role at Pilgrim’s, which owns leading brands like Moy Park, Fridge Raiders and Richmond, in 2023, and has invested copious time in understanding the company’s core consumers and creating a brand positioning and strategy that aligns with that. Now in place, Doe hasn’t deviated despite the pressures of a cost of living crisis and a global pandemic. In fact, while many food brands pressed pause on innovation during successive lockdowns, Pilgrim’s kept its pipeline going.
The aim is always to demonstrate the quality of brands over private label, particularly in a category like fresh meat where supermarket own lines dominate. In March last year, for example, Doe spearheaded Richmond’s ‘Good Times’ campaign, “an overarching platform” that looks to build an emotional connection beyond sausages.
Vice-president of marketing, UK & Ireland, Mondelēz International
Growth is an “obsession” for David Clements, marketing boss at Cadbury owner Mondelēz International. He is a marketer diligent about balancing both short-term wins with the longer-term health of brands, something that is crucial for a brand like Cadbury, which celebrated its 200th anniversary last year.
Led by Clements, Cadbury has harnessed its legacy in a thoroughly modern way, using experiences like its ‘Worldwide Hide’ and ‘Secret Santa’ initiatives, which combine the generous spirit of the brand with digital interactivity, to better connect with consumers. Under Clements’ leadership, the brand has also harnessed “compound creativity”, with the confectionery brand’s 'Glass and a half for everyone’ campaign enduring since 2018.
Clements knows a thing or two about professional consistency too, having been with Mondelēz for nearly 15 years. He joined from Kraft Foods Group back in 2011, though only made the transition from sales to a marketing role in 2020, when he became senior marketing director for its seasonal and premium lines.
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Clements
Chris Doe
CMO, Valeo Foods UK
Valeo Foods UK, which owns well-known brands like Kettle Chips, Rowse Honey and Fox’s glacier sweets, may have launched in 2010, but it waited until 2024 to appoint its first CMO. Stepping into that role and making it his own was Michael Inpong.
Most recently, founder and managing director at sports consultancy, Sport&Brands, which he set up after almost 10 years as the top marketer at Müller UK and Ireland, Inpong brings invaluable experience and huge credibility to the position. He played a crucial role in reviving Müller’s brand portfolio in the UK, initiating an innovation drive that saw the company take the top spot in the yoghurt and chilled desserts category from rival Danone in 2013.
The creation of the CMO role at Valeo Foods comes as the company creates a single leadership team across all aspects of the business to reflect its global scale. The business has enjoyed rapid expansion, with revenues driven by its more than 80 brands hitting €1.6bn (£1.04bn) as reported in January. Inpong has been tasked with helping to sustain that strong growth trajectory in the UK.
Vice-president of marketing, McCain Foods GB
Having spent two decades at McCain Foods, with nearly 14 years as its vice-president of marketing, few people have been so instrumental in the fortunes of the business as Mark Hodge. The resilience of the grocery and foodservice brand he’s helped create has really shone through in the last year. Despite grappling with rising costs and volatile weather, the brand owner has managed to grow both revenues and profits, with ongoing investments made into its marketing budgets, in particular media advertising, a testament to the value Hodge and his team create.
Indeed, the marketing team’s work in driving margins for the brand was recognised late last year when it won the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix, awarded for McCain’s investment in long-term brand-building to reduce price elasticity over the past decade.
Keenly aware of how younger shoppers engage and evaluate grocery brands in the current climate, Hodge has also invested recently in a campaign to drive consumer awareness about regenerative farming and the ways it mitigates climate change, fronted by actress Rachel Brosnahan.
Mark
Hodge
Michael Inpong
Brand director, Warburtons
Warburtons is one brand worth toasting for its success in the face of a tough category. Traditional sliced and packaged bread is falling out of favour, with volumes having fallen 15% in the last five years, according to Kantar data.
However, Warburtons has bucked that trend, achieving volume growth of 2.9% in 2024. In such a challenging category, the brand is necessarily pulling on all its marketing levers, expertly overseen by brand director Jane McMillan, who can count over two decades of experience at the bread business.
She is leveraging that considerable experience to help the brand continue to defy category norms to grow. Innovation has been a key part of that mission, with NPD in bagels and pittas helping Warburtons maintain relevance amid changing consumer tastes.
In addition to its focus on product, the business has been investing in brand building through advertising. Since McMillan took over as brand director in October 2024, Warburtons has launched ‘The Inspection’, featuring Olivia Colman, which aims to cement the “national treasure” status of one of Warburtons’ core products, the crumpet. The ad follows previous work with Samuel L Jackson and England footballer Mary Earps.
Marketing and ecommerce director, Lucky Saint
Start with a clear end goal and work backwards from there. That message from renowned ad man Rory Sutherland has stayed with Kerttu Inkeroinen, who says she was first drawn to alcohol-free beer brand Lucky Saint, where she’s now marketing and ecommerce director, because of its goal to become the world’s category-defining alcohol-free beer. “Having a hair-raising, ambitious goal helps to drive your thinking and can also help to fire up and inspire your team,” she told Marketing Week.
That philosophy has fuelled exceptional year-on-year growth of 69% at the brand under Inkeroinen’s stewardship. She has shaped clever, consistent messaging around healthy habits and the quality of the product all year round, rather than focusing solely on annual spikes in teetotalism in January.
She has also offset the brand’s relatively smaller marketing budgets with a “surround sound” approach that uses targeted media and channels to give existing drinkers a sense of scale.
All of which is moving Inkeroinen – who joined Lucky Saint after roles at Union Hand Roasted Coffee and The Coca-Cola Company – and the brand closer to that all-important end goal of defining a category.
Kerttu Inkeroinen
Jane
McMillan
Marketing director, Heineken UK
It’s been a tough time for some of Heineken’s core brands as changing customer preferences and dampened spending on discretionary items like alcohol have made growth hard to come by. But experienced marketer Rajeev Sathyesh hasn’t let it ruffle his feathers.
Promoted to Heineken UK’s marketing director last year, he has been leading investment behind key premium brands like Spanish beer Cruzcampo, which the brewer has identified as key to driving growth.
Last year, the brand invested in a £10m campaign backing Cruzcampo with the aim of growing it in a crowded European lager category. In its February results, Heineken highlighted the brand as having been a bright spot in its UK portfolio, suggesting the investment is paying dividends.
The brewer has said that maintaining its brands’ price premium will be crucial for it to continue investing in growth going forward. Brand plays a critical role in businesses being able to charge a premium, meaning marketing’s role within the business is likely to become even more essential. Sathyesh and his team therefore have plenty to do in the coming year, with brand central to growth at Heineken.
Senior vice-president of marketing strategy and operations, Bacardi
Swapping baked beans for Bacardi, Irina Rodina moved from her role as Kraft Heinz CMO for Northern Europe to the drinks giant in April last year, tasked with heading up marketing strategy and operations.
Responsible for “driving strategic alignment and marketing transformation” across all areas at the world’s largest privately held, family-owned spirits business, Rodina’s expansive role sees her take the lead on marketing for both Bacardi’s flagship brand as well as the likes of Martini, Grey Goose and Patrón.
Rodina has praised what she’s called the “entrepreneurial culture" of her new employer and has already embraced its willingness to experiment and innovate.
Earlier this year, she unveiled a brand-new look for 160-year-old Italian vermouth Martini, as well as the accompanying 360-degree ‘Dare To Be’ campaign that aims to reposition the drink as the main event, rather than an aperitivo. Grey Goose, too, has been given the star treatment, with a new campaign featuring actress Zoe Saldaña announced in June, featuring a series of 30-second shorts inspiring people to live as the French do.
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