FMCG

fmcg

Ori Ben Shai

Vice-president and managing director UK and Ireland, Kimberly-Clark Ori Ben Shai has crossed the globe working for some of the world’s biggest brand-centric FMCG groups over the past two decades. His CV includes spells at Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and Domino’s Pizza, working across markets including the UK, Israel, Switzerland and the US. He joined Kimberly-Clark in January 2017, taking up his current role in May 2019. At Kimberly-Clark – which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2022 – Ben Shai is responsible for a roster of brands that includes household names such as Kleenex and Andrex. He says he believes in trust-based leadership, as it creates better organisations, stronger people, better processes and more efficient structures. The group’s ‘K-C Strategy 2022’ is based on a two-channel approach to elevate core brands in established markets such as the UK, while accelerating category growth in developing and emerging locations. The group saw net sales of $18.5bn (£15bn) in 2019.■

Chief digital and marketing officer, Unilever Conny Braams is a 30-year veteran at Unilever, who took over the top marketing role at the FMCG giant from Keith Weed at the beginning of the year. A new title of chief digital and marketing officer was created for her, to align with the company’s ambition to become a “future-fit, fully digitised organisation”. Braams began her Unilever career as a product manager for soup brands in the Netherlands in 1990 and has impressed many in the company with her leadership skills since then. Unilever chief executive officer Alan Jope called Braams “one of our most successful and talented leaders, as well as a highly effective driver of change”. Developing new ways to promote its brands and advertise online is key to Unilever’s future, and the group had introduced a number of initiatives to achieve this before Braams took up her role. Her extensive operational experience coupled with strong knowledge of local markets from her earlier Unilever roles are seen as key assets in tackling the challenge and getting the company in shape for the future.■

CHARITY & NOT-FOR-PROFIT

consumer goods, tech & luxury

FINANCIAL SERVICES

FMCG

Food & drink

FOOD & DRINK RETAIL

GENERAL RETAIL

MEDIA & TELECOMS

REGULATED INDUSTRIES

TRAVEL, LEISURE & HOSPITALITY

meet the judges

TOP100 hOME

methodology

The top100 list

Conny Braams

Lex Bradshaw-Zanger

Chief marketing officer, L’Oréal UK and Ireland Lex Bradshaw-Zanger seeks to balance the adoption of new technology with a love of techniques and standards from the past. With marketing beliefs rooted in traditional theory, and a self-confessed fondness for British TV adverts of the 1980s, Bradshaw-Zanger says he misses the quality and humour of television from the last millennium. His commitment to employee welfare, however, is certainly up to date. He helped to ensure as much stability and continuity as possible for the cosmetics giant’s marketing teams when they were all forced to work remotely during the Covid-19 crisis. Bradshaw-Zanger’s CV gives some insight into his knowledge of marketing’s back pages. A veteran of agencies – including WPP and Leo Burnett – he held senior client-side roles at Facebook and McDonald’s before joining L’Oréal. And an education that spanned Spain, France, the UK and the US means he has a truly international outlook. ■

Regional marketing director, Essity Health and hygiene group Essity is among the companies that have encouraged consumers to consider their behaviour during the Covid-19 crisis by signing up to the ‘Shop Responsibly’ campaign created by Publicis Groupe UK. Regional marketing director Nicola Coronado was behind the decision to join the campaign, in order to demonstrate the purpose of the Essity group, which owns a portfolio of brands including Cushelle, Plenty, Bodyform and Tena. “We aim to drive heightened consciousness among consumers about the potential impact of their behaviours on others, and, in turn, ensure that everyone – particularly the most vulnerable in our society, as well as our courageous and committed key workers – is able to access the products they need,” she says. She has held several marketing roles at Essity, formerly known as SCA Hygiene Products, where she has worked for nearly two decades.■

Nicola Coronado

Lesley Crowther

Senior vice-president of global marketing, La Mer Lesley Crowther has worked at Estée Lauder Companies for the past 17 years, taking on her current role as senior vice-president of skincare brand La Mer in July. Prior to this she was vice-president of consumer engagement and retail for Estée Lauder in the UK. Despite the diversity of its brand portfolio, she believes the company still has a family feel. “As a family-run company, the warmth and the heart that has existed since our inception remains at our core,” she says. She has played a key role in ensuring a more open dialogue between brands. It was Crowther who set up Estée Lauder’s Consumer Engagement Centre of Excellence in 2016, to help the company collate and share consumer learning and insight from sales, focus groups and social listening activity. The results are used to fuel innovation across the group. “It’s all about driving capability and understanding the consumer,” says Crowther.■

Marketing director Northern Europe, Johnson & Johnson In her current role, Hannah French is at the heart of a pharmaceutical industry that is working to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. French started in the sector in 2002 when she joined Pfizer as group marketing manager, working across a portfolio of over the counter products. A marketing director role at McNeil Consumer Healthcare followed, before she moved to GlaxoSmithKline as category marketing director for Oral Care. French took on her current role in November 2019. Pharmaceutical sales make up slightly more than half of Johnson & Johnson’s revenues, with the remainder coming from consumer healthcare treatments and devices. The global giant has more than 132,000 employees worldwide, and saw revenues of $82bn (£67bn) in 2019. In March, the company created a $50m support package for frontline health workers battling Covid-19.■

Hannah French

Kate Huang

Chief marketing officer, Callaly Kate Huang joined Callaly in 2017, before its launch, to lead on brand strategy and develop its creative and content. She heads a team of designers and marketers with responsibility for sales and marketing strategies that drive growth and hit revenue targets. This year, the brand launched its first major marketing campaign showing how little innovation there has been in the tampon sector compared to categories such as condoms and contraceptives. The campaign’s aim was to promote Callaly’s signature ‘tampliner’ – a tampon with a built-in mini-liner – which aims to shake up the sector. With Callaly still early in its brand journey, Huang sees advertising as a way to raise awareness and drive up talkability rather than push sales. She is also hoping to bust the taboos around menstruation and encourage people to talk more about periods. Callaly’s latest campaign, ‘The Whole Bloody Truth’, aims to showcase the experiences of all people with periods.■

Global chief marketing officer, Method Products Sara Mendez Bermudez joined People Against Dirty (known as Method Products in the US) in 2016 as European head of brand experience in charge of the Method and Ecover brands. In July, she was promoted to global CMO, giving her an international remit and reporting into the CEO. In her new role, she is responsible for a bigger brand portfolio, which covers Mrs Meyers and Babyganics (brands not yet in the UK) as well as Method and Ecover. Mendez Bermudez describes all the Method Products brands as mission-driven and challengers. Its brands aim to “change the world” by creating cleaning products that are environmentally friendly, tapping into a shift to more sustainable business. Mendez Bermudez has a wealth of FMCG experience, from early roles in Spain with Danone and household brands in the RB stable to more senior positions at Johnson & Johnson and Avon. More recently, she spent five years as innovation marketing director at Bacardi. She describes her strengths as international brand building, innovation and building high-performance teams.■

sara Mendez Bermudez

Katharine Newby Grant

Marketing director and vice president of Beauty Care for P&G Northern Europe Katharine Newby Grant has spent the bulk of her career at Procter & Gamble, joining the company in a brand management role in 2001 and quickly rising through the ranks. In July her title was updated to reflect her dual role as marketing director for Northern Europe and vice-president of its Beauty Care division. Newby Grant’s work has seen P&G work with the Football Association to promote women’s sports, sparking a ‘Join the Pride’ campaign to showcase women. “If you want to inspire future generations, they need to see their role models; they need to say, ‘that’s me, and I can do that’. It’s a really important moment, and there’s a lot more social consciousness. As a brand, we felt compelled to take a stance on that,” she says. Last year, P&G chief brand officer Marc Pritchard said the company would focus more on measuring the reach of its advertising rather than spend, by reducing the frequency of many of its ads, particularly online.■

Global chief marketing officer, consumer healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline As a science-led corporation, GlaxoSmithKline is pushing to foster a sense of agility and startup-style thinking. In her role as global CMO for consumer healthcare, Tamara Rogers is behind a strategy to shun the fear of failure, experiment with new approaches and “fail fast” to help GSK to fight back against dynamic direct-to-consumer rivals. “You have to set yourself up to not invest the whole business in those experiments, but instead have lots of experiments and pour gasoline on the ones that work,” says Rogers. The company is making design marketing’s strategic partner in order to create stronger brands and clearer communications, by working as a “creative steward” for GSK’s brand experience. Rogers joined GSK in 2018 as region head EMEA after more than 20 years at Unilever. She extends her try-hard approach to her management style, expecting marketers in her department to shape their own careers and seize opportunities. She believes people, like companies, can be held back by a self-limiting mindset.■

Tamara Rogers

Financial services

Has the pandemic accelerated a digital shift, or is it a temporary blip?

Why marketing transformation is taking on new urgency

Unified data: the key to understanding post-lockdown consumer trends

Has the pandemic accelerated a digital shift, or is it a temporary blip?

Why marketing transformation is taking on new urgency

Unified data: the key to understanding post-lockdown consumer trends

Food & drink retail General retail Media & telecoms Regulated industries Travel, leisure & hospitality

Charity & not-for-profit Consumer goods, tech & luxury Financial services FMCG Food & drink

meet the judges

TOP100 hOME

methodology

The top100 list

CHARITY & NOT-FOR-PROFIT

FOOD & DRINK RETAIL

GENERAL RETAIL

MEDIA & TELECOMS

REGULATED INDUSTRIES

TRAVEL, LEISURE & HOSPITALITY

consumer goods, tech & luxury

FINANCIAL SERVICES

FMCG

Food & drink

Food & drink retail General retail Media & telecoms Regulated industries Travel, leisure & hospitality

Charity & not-for-profit Consumer goods, tech & luxury Financial services FMCG Food & drink