Regulated Industries

regulated industries

Chief marketing, innovation and strategy officer Rentokil Initial Gary Booker may have spent several years of his career at some top consumer brands, including O2, Electronic Arts and most recently Dixons Carphone. But it’s in the B2B space where he says he feels the most opportunity to add real value. And it’s in his latest role, as chief marketing, innovation and strategy officer at global hygiene firm Rentokil Initial, that he appears to have found peak fulfilment. In fact, since Booker joined the business, which employs 43,000 people across 83 countries, in 2018 its share price has more than tripled in value, and it has picked up numerous accolades for innovation and workng culture. By tapping into the surging interest in health, hygiene and wellness globally, and expanding brand awareness in emerging markets like India where the company unveiled its emotionally engaging ‘Cherish’ campaign in 2021, Booker and his team have achieved “excellent momentum” even amid inflationary pressures.■

Gary Booker

CMO Zoopla Gary Bramall joined online property business Zoopla in 2018, tasked with overseeing marketing strategy, differentiation and growth. Bramall hit the ground running, quickly exploring how to restructure the team for greater efficiencies, drawing on his tech background at Apple and Skype, as well as the world of sport to create a more reactive marketing model. The result was a network of tribes, teams and squads created in December 2019, just a few months before the onset of Covid-19. It's a structure that has fuelled energy, excitement and expertise at the business. Marketers carry out most of their work within tribes and teams but every quarter Bramall looks to create new squads to work on specific projects, such as Zoopla’s rebrand in April 2021. It isn’t the first time Bramall has successfully steered a company through this type of transformation. Prior to joining Zoopla he was CMO of mytaxi, where he led its rapid rebrand following the merger with taxi app Hailo, all while overseeing international expansion into over 14 countries.■

Gary Bramall

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Global CMO KPMG UK Having now led marketing across two of the ‘big four’ accountancy firms, Samantha Burns knows exactly how to navigate both the internal complexities of a major financial organisation, and the external challenges they and their clients face. In recent years that’s led to a growing focus on driving sustainable change, with the launch of both the business’s own Impact Plan and a new global ESG proposal designed to create a framework for progress on key issues. Internally, it’s an approach that has included greater commitment to social mobility. The business is now second only to Browne Jacobson on the Social Mobility Foundation’s 2021 index thanks to overhauling its recruitment infrastructure, and the introduction of Grow, a talent development programme for colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Externally, Burns has kept the business’s expanding roster of experts at the top of the thought leadership food chain, acting as commentators on everything from the economic fallout of Covid-19, to navigating the cost of living crisis and plenty in between, supported by a steady stream of insights, research and reports.■

Samantha Burns

Head of brand and consumer marketing Rightmove Much of the success of Rightmove in recent years is testament to the clever, consistent and creative marketing strategy deployed by head of brand and consumer marketing, Sarah Brown, who has been with the platform for 13 years. The property portal has achieved a search volume index that rarely falls below 20 points, according to the company, putting it far ahead of rivals and – as Brown sees it – proof that it’s level of consumer awareness now “transcends” the category. That position is thanks to a mix of simple but memorable branding and an always on TV strategy, with a series of emotionally engaging ad campaigns that have kept it top of mind in the nation’s house hunt, and removed the need to waste cash on shorter-term activations. The company unveiled its latest TV activity in April, with the ‘One Day Could be Today’ campaign encouraging people to consider the life they may have led if they’d only made that move. It uses the same powerful tug on the heartstrings that has shaped Brown’s campaigns in the past.■

Sarah Brown

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UK marketing director Lowell Neil Costello joined debt collection business Lowell in 2019 after three years at Atom Bank where his work on PR, promotion and branding led to it being crowned the most trusted bank on review platform Trustpilot. While there he’d brought nearly all marketing services in-house, overhauling the skills and output of its internal team with some impressive results. At Lowell, Costello faced a slightly different challenge though, in building engagement and rapport with around 7 million “reluctant” customers. The need to build a trusted brand was one the two businesses had in common though, and so Costello set about upgrading everything from branding to the user experience, with the development of a more sophisticated digital platform and an app. He encouraged his team to put themselves in the shoes of their customers, and created a new feedback platform as well as expanding the complementary services available. With such an empathetic, agile and innovative approach to what is no doubt a challenging arena for any marketer, Costello has achieved an impressive amount in just three years.■

Neil Costello

Chief product and marketing officer Octopus Energy Octopus Energy has established itself as a disruptive force within the energy sector since launching in 2015. It now provides ‘green’ electricity to more than 3 million homes in the UK and differentiates itself from other providers with its tech-driven approach and sustainable ethos. Not only has it absorbed £150m to keep prices affordable for customers during the current energy crisis, but it also says it’s never taken a profit. Its top marketer Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, who joined the business in 2017 after four years at British Gas tech spin-off Hive, has championed agility and an obsessive focus on customer experience – she even responds to some customer emails personally. In doing so, the brand has managed to challenge far bigger rivals in only a few short years. In fact, in just five years the renewable energy provider now claims to be one of the biggest energy companies in the UK, with a 62% year-on-year growth in revenues in its 2020/21 financial year, up from £1.2bn to £2bn.■

Rebecca Dibb-Simkin

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Chief transformation and operating officer, Bupa Global & UK Bupa Health insurance provider Bupa has undergone a real evolution in the last couple of years, with chief transformation and operating officer Rob Edmundson at the helm. Underpinned by its ‘3x6’ strategy, the company not only began the international rollout of its ambitious Bupa Health digital platform in 2021, it also committed to becoming a net zero business by 2040, launched its new global talent and innovation programme, ‘eco-Disruptive’, and set about bolstering core skills across the business, including the launch of its Digital Skills Academy. All the while continuing to navigate the ongoing impact of Covid-19 and vaccine distribution across many of its markets. Edmundson, who has been with the business for nearly 10 years and took on his current role last year, has been tasked with leading on the delivery of this three-year transformation plan, as well as all the associated financial and non-financial KPIs. In addition to an in-depth knowledge of his current employer, Edmundson brings experience of working for some similarly global and complex organisations, including Vodafone, BAE Systems and Accenture.■

Rob Edmundson

CMO UK EY For most people, being the top UK marketer at one of the world’s biggest professional services organisations – one which employs nearly 300,000 people in 150-plus countries – would be enough to keep them busy. But Rebecca Hirst still finds the time to work as a board advisor, motivational speaker and entrepreneur on top of her day job. She brings this enviable dynamism and versatility to her role at EY too, which she took on in January 2021, with the mission of aligning her team behind EY's purpose of ‘Building a Better Working World’. She will also be critical to the rollout of its ambitious three-year expansion plan, with combined investments of $10bn (£8.7bn) between 2022 and 2024 in audit quality, strategy and sustainability, among other areas, as the business looks to grow the ways in which it supports clients going forward. Prior to joining EY Hirst led marketing at Samsung and Coca-Cola. While at Samsung, she oversaw marketing for some of the business’s biggest UK product launches and doubled the active users for Samsung Services, combining apps and wearable tech, among other achievements.■

Rebecca Hirst

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Head of campaigns, content and channels Financial Conduct Authority Having set out its aim to help consumers avoid an ever-growing list of scams, it fell to top marketer Emma Stranack to help the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) create the type of brand awareness and engagement it would need to do that. Though highly influential – the regulator oversees the conduct of 51,000 financial services companies in the UK – the FCA has traditionally lacked a consumer presence, something which Stranack set about changing with a series of creative and sometimes colourful campaigns. In 2018, for example, it deployed an animatronic Arnold Schwarzenegger to encourage people to claim if they’d been mis-sold PPI. Now Covid-19 and a cost of living crisis has created new vulnerabilities to fraud, with the FCA once again turning to the talents of Stranack to make its support known. Its ongoing ‘InvestSmart’ campaign, for instance, draws on retro computer games to get its message across, with high engagement on the likes of TikTok and Facebook too. The success Stranack has achieved with this overhaul of the FCA’s public brand – not least the number of PPI claims – has helped make marketing a central part of its remit.■

Emma Stranack

Global CMO PwC As CMO at PwC, Antonia Wade is tasked with overseeing brand positioning, advertising and thought leadership for one of the world’s largest professional services businesses, with about $43bn (£38bn) in revenue and offices across 155 countries. Having joined the business in July 2021, Wade brings with her plenty of experience, having delivered significant commercial results for the likes of Capita, Thomson Reuters and Accenture. At PwC, Wade is now tasked with demonstrating the value of its global strategy, ‘The New Equation’, which aims to build trust in the organisation via transparency and stakeholder engagement. Already she has sought to solidify its reputation as an expert voice in tumultuous times, creating a rich catalogue of content and resources itself as well as lending its expert voice to external publications on everything from sustainability to cost of living and supply chain woes, as well as its own workplace culture. Results so far couldn’t be much stronger, with reports in July that the global firm was set for record revenues, despite a decision to keep its audit and consulting services combined.■

Antonia Wade

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