Rhiannon Blackwell
ABM leader, global marketing organisation
PwC
Rhiannon Blackwell joined PwC in 2022 as account-based marketing (ABM) leader where she successfully launched and scaled the business’s ABM function, driving revenue in the consultancy’s biggest global accounts. Before that she spent six years leading ABM at Accenture, as well as more than eight years at Zurich Insurance where she held several marketing roles in the business, rising to brand and digital manager.
Described by her nominator as an innovator, she has successfully navigated securing buy-in from the most senior partners to introduce and scale the ABM function at PwC. She is also credited with integrating generative AI into the programme and establishing an ABM community of 100 colleagues to share best practice and lessons.
Since beginning her career, Blackwell has seen the increasing “humanisation” of B2B marketing as the biggest change. She has witnessed a higher number of B2B brands using storytelling and purpose-driven marketing to appeal to buyers on a more emotional level. This has resulted in increasingly creative and relationship-driven approaches, as well as a focus on delivering “personalised client experiences”.
She is excited by the way generative AI can enhance this personalisation. She explains that until now, strategic ABM – where you develop a custom marketing strategy to drive growth within a single account – has been very “high touch and resource intensive”. With generative AI it can be trained in brand voice and fed real-time client insights. As such, personalised briefings for sales to take to client meetings can be generated much more quickly.
“If we apply it [AI] without being responsible, measured, and mindful about where it can really add value, we run the risk of simply uncovering new, lazy ways to do bad marketing.”
She adds that “it can get much more automated than that” but says even in the relationship-driven world of professional services, the tech will be “game-changing” and enable it to “offer personalised experiences at greater scale, efficiency and expediency than ever before”.
While she is excited by the opportunities AI provides, she also sees it as the biggest challenge going forward. She says: “If we apply it without being responsible, measured, and mindful about where it can really add value, we run the risk of simply uncovering new, lazy ways to do bad marketing”, which she considers a surefire way to destroy trusted client relationships.
For Blackwell, the solution lies in a “human-led, tech-powered approach”.
She believes that if marketers can strike the “right balance” they will be “freed up to focus on high value activity, such as strategic and creative thinking”.
