Meet our judges

ALDERMORE BANK

Nicola is Group Head of Marketing Communications at Aldermore. She is responsible for leading a team in delivering B2B and B2C marketing campaigns, customer communications, strategic initiatives and partnership and event activity. Much of her career to date has been with HSBC. In her last role as Global Head of Brand Activation and Strategic Programmes she led, transformed and enhanced the Global Airport Programme, delivered high profile global campaigns and brand relaunches. She started out working agency side, in smaller boutique agencies and at Haygarth part of the Omnicom group.  

TJX EUROPE

With over 40 years of Retail Marketing / Operational experience, Darren has been with TJX Europe for 19 years. Presently the VP Director of Customer Service for TJX Europe. Prior to this role Darren managed TJX’s Digital Collaboration Strategy for our associates and previous to this managed TJX Europe’s Shopping Experience strategy. Previous to TJX, Darren worked at Levi’s and McDonald’s in various Marketing, Franchise and operational roles. 

THREE

Chris is Head of Marketing and Communications at Three, leading a team that spans Brand Strategy, Advertising, PR, Social, CRM and B2B Marketing. Prior to Three, Chris worked both agency and client side for some of the world’s largest, fastest growing and most innovative businesses. Chris is passionate about creativity, brands and technology. 

FINANCIAL TIMES

With an experienced background in the media industry, particularly in digital transformation and subscriptions, Fiona currently leads the global Consumer Revenue Group at the Financial Times and is responsible for consumer marketing, customer care and business development growth in order to support, fund and champion quality journalism. Prior to this, Spooner was global marketing director. In this role, she was instrumental in developing the FT’s reader revenue model, and developing FT Strategies, a boutique consultancy that helps clients build sustainable digital business models.

CHELSEA FC

Claire joined Chelsea Football Club in August 2023, as Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing the brand, creative, growth marketing and fan engagement teams. Prior to joining Chelsea, Claire served as CMO with the McLaren Formula 1 team, spearheading their entry into Extreme E, a sustainable race series, targeting a new demographic of motor-racing fans. Whilst at McLaren she oversaw a fivefold increase to the marketable fanbase, helping the team to attract premium brand partners such as Jack Daniels and Google. Prior to working in the sports sector, Cronin spent 20 years working in consumer-facing brands across Barclays, NetJets and Virgin. Whilst at Virgin Atlantic, she oversaw the sponsorship of the NFL London Games, securing the airline’s position at the leading transatlantic carrier.

BARCLAYS

Paul leads the Brand Communications team at Barclays and is responsible for the development of all Advertising communications for both Barclays and Barclaycard. He is also responsible for Brand management, Social Media and BUK’s Sponsorship programmes. Paul has been with Barclays for over 10 years, and in this time he has led several teams including Performance Marketing, Communications and Media Planning in addition to leading the Creative Studio teams. Prior to Barclays, Paul worked agency side, leading Account Management, New Business and Marketing teams at Rapier and WWAV Rapp Collins (Rapp).

BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION

A commercially savvy marketing director with rich experience across integrated multi-channel communications, Damion has worked with start-ups and mature brands to build sector leading brand and marketing excellence through insightful and inspiring creative. Offering 15 years of B2B and B2C experience across advertising, digital, campaign, proposition and operational management. 

AMEX GLOBAL BUSINESS TRAVEL

Rich leads global marketing communications, brand, advertising and social at American Express Global Business Travel.  Rich is also responsible for agency relationships and leading communication development for all travel, meetings and events products at Amex GBT.  Rich has over 15 years of experience in marketing, leadership, leading large global teams across brand, media, communications, and digital functions.  Prior to Amex GBT, Rich worked at Barclays where he held various large marketing and brand roles.  Rich is also a Non-Executive Director at the Data & Marketing Association.

INVESTEC

Alison’s career spans marketing roles across the banking sector in investment, corporate, private and retail banking, delivering commercial returns through a juxtaposition of creative story-telling, digital, media and event marketing. Combining this with her experience and passion leading programmes in corporate fundraising, diversity and inclusion, music education and the entrepreneurialism sector, Alison’s approach is underpinned by enabling teams to seeing opportunities through a different lens.

HOVIS

Mark is an incredibly talented and experienced marketer who combines creative skill with a commercial approach. Mark has over 20 years experience of building FMCG brands across a variety of different categories and businesses. 

INNOCENT DRINKS

Irem is Europe Head of Brand and Portfolio, innocent drinks. In her role, she is responsible for group brand and portfolio strategy across Europe, connecting the consumer to innocent’s brand through nurturing the healthy little drinks portfolio of innocent and creating winning brand experiences. She is also responsible for the group’s digital and media strategy. Irem’s drive is inspiring everyone in the organisation to put the consumer at the heart of everything by defining the long-term European brand and portfolio strategy for scalable and profitable growth.

CLEAR CHANNEL

Aimee McKay is UK Client Partnership Director & Europe Lead at Clear Channel. She joined Clear Channel back in 2002 and has worked across a variety of roles within the Commercial Sales team, with 2020 seeing her take on additional responsibility for Clear Channel Europe and its International sales team. With over 22 years media experience, working across the UK, Europe, and Australasia, Aimee has a wealth of industry experience, and as well as her stints at Clear Channel, has worked as Sales Director for blowUP media, responsible for the UK sales and marketing teams. 

WHICH?

Neil is the Director of Audiences, Brand and Communications at Which? He is also the sponsor for Sustainability and for Data Strategy on Which’s leadership team.  Which? is the UK’s leading not-for-profit consumer champion, an organisation tackling consumer harm by making life simpler, fairer and safer for everyone. Previously Neil has headed up brands across a range of client roles, including Audible UK – Amazon’s audiobook company where he launched Audible Original Podcasts, BBC Radio and Music – including network radio brand such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4, and internationally for BBC World Service and BBC World News television. 

METROPOLITAN POLICE

Stephanie is the Head of Campaigns and Marketing at the Metropolitan Police Service where she oversees behavioural change campaigns designed to encourage people to take simple steps to protect themselves and their property from crime. She also delivers always on Police Constable Recruitment Campaigns at scale to increase the diversity of the organisation. 

CITY FIBRE

Dan Ramsay is Chief Marketing Officer at CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent fibre broadband network. He is responsible for product development, PR, marketing promotions and co-marketing with major brands such as Vodafone and TalkTalk. Prior to CityFibre, Dan lead the UK Government’s campaign to promote the UK to the world, growing tourism, trade and UK education in 144 countries. He is formerly the Consumer Marketing Director at BT, leading the growth of a £1bn annual revenue broadband, TV and BT Sport business.

ION

Anthony is a strategic leader in marketing and communications. With 25 years of experience leading in-house marketing and communications agency teams at ION, KPMG, Goldman Sachs, and more, he specialises in building high-performing marketing teams. He thrives on collaboration and sharing expertise to drive industry excellence. His career reflects a commitment to solving business challenges through creative design and technology, guided by the ethos of hiring and nurturing exceptional talent.

VALUE RETAIL GROUP

Ana has 18 years of marketing and communications across both agencies and brands with a strong track record of enhancing brand relevancy and consistently achieving double-digit growth. She is passionate about data transformation and effectively leading cross-geography, performance-minded teams. In 2022, Ana joined Value Retail as their Global Media Director where she orchestrated data-led change through culture and capabilities, with a focus on marketing effectiveness to drive business outcomes across their luxury retail businesses in Europe and the US. 

WARNER MUSIC UK

Natasha has more than 15 years of experience in global leadership roles across disruptive and fast-growing brands such as ASOS, Made.com and NA-KD, where she spearheaded innovative marketing strategies to drive brand positioning and accelerate revenue and product growth. She has also previously worked for Warner Music International between 2007 and 2010 in a strategy and product innovation role. In her current role, Natasha is responsible for partner management, revenue growth strategies, and data-driven decision-making with the goal to amplify audience engagement and fuel innovation and growth throughout the company.

GAIL’S

Maria is Marketing Director for GAIL’s where she heads up a portfolio of craft bakery brands including GAIL’s, Bertinet, The Flour Station and The Bread Factory. As well as full marketing responsibility, Maria leads the GAIL’s Customer Experience team and is on the Sustainability Steering Committee. With close to 20 years in the food retail and hospitality industry, Maria is a dynamic leader with experience building brands, driving sales and scaling teams in businesses that range from start ups to seriously established Goliath’s. Prior to that Maria worked for Byron and itsu as Head of Marketing. Her formative years were spent at McDonald’s and KFC where she honed the craft of marketing.

SAGA

Voted one of the Top 10 Innovative Women in Digital Marketing, Hannah is an accomplished, entrepreneurial, and solution-oriented Marketing Director with over 22 years’ experience working on market leading brands in the most competitive UK marketing environments.  Hannah has been working at Saga Plc for the last 3 years spearheading the Digital Marketing Transformation Strategy, leading the Marketing Strategy to transform the Brand & Communications Marketing mix, Performance, Digital, UX, E-commerce and CRM Transformations delivering record Cruise She effectively manages a team of 32 marketeers and brings a unique blend of client-side and agency experience, with wide industry exposure. Prior to her time with Saga she held senior marketing roles at leading household consumer brands.

OCTOPUS ENERGY

Charlotte is Marketing Director at Octopus Energy, the UK’s most loved, and largest, electricity supplier with 6.7 million customers. Octopus Energy came into the energy market as a tech disruptor obsessed with improving the customer experience across all touch points. Most recently, Charlotte led the launch of Octoplus rewards which has rapidly grown to 1.8M members and along with energy saving scheme Saving Sessions, has helped customers benefit from over £8.5M+ in added value this year. Prior to Octopus, Charlotte has worked across FMCG, pharmaceuticals and began her career consulting at Kantar. 

CONVATEC

As CMO for Convatec, a FTSE 100 healthcare company, Gemma is responsible for building globally competitive capabilities. Gemma has gained over twenty years marketing and commercial experience at Danone and Unilever with board leadership for the Unilever UK&I Homecare Division.

DE BEERS GROUP

Dynamic and innovative leader with cross-sector expertise and an extensive experience in Luxury retail brands, Beatrice blends commercial acumen with creativity. She has over 20 years’ UK & Global experience working in leading media network lately at the Publicis Groupe,and WPP Mindshare Worldwide leading the Rolex account, Through blending technical knowledge, business acumen, engaging storytelling and innovation, she deploys successful campaigns, enhancing brand messaging, and optimising engagement and conversion. 

Benazir has 20 years FMCG Marketing experience across confectionery, wine and cheese. Most recently, she was the Global Brand Director for Treasury Wine Estates. Prior to that, she held Senior Marketing Director roles at Mondelez for iconic and household favourite brands, including Cadbury, Green & Black’s and Maynard’s Bassetts.

Shirley has been at the forefront of marketing at some of the world’s most prominent entertainment, technology and publishing brands, embracing digital disruption and change. She most recently spent 8 years at PayPal, where she led the UK marketing team supporting exponential new customer growth and also delivered the strategy for its first-ever brand relationship with the Football Association. 

BBC

Jane is responsible for shaping and implementing the BBC’s portfolio brand strategy along with the resulting brand identities, and running all marketing campaigns for the BBC motherbrand. Prior to the BBC Jane worked in brand consultancy and advertising planning, developing marketing strategy, brand plans and advertising campaigns for the likes of Waitrose, The Evening Standard, Citroen, Transport for London and the Co-Op bank. Her biggest career highlight however, is still getting in the lift at Television Centre with Louis Theroux. 

DR MARTENS

Kameelah inspires transformational change as an activist, DEIB+ strategist, musician, and mom/caregiver. Kameelah has over 20 years of experience in DEIB+ and Social Impact. Most recently, she served as PTC’s first Chief DEI & Social Impact Officer and is now leading DE&I at the iconic brand Dr. Martens. Kameelah’s DEIB+ journey evolved in remarkable ways during her time at Gillette/P&G and Korn Ferry. She’s led DEI efforts across a diverse set of industries including financial services, social justice, healthcare, correctional facilities, travel, music, and entertainment. Her experience includes designing DEIB+ initiatives across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Prior to PTC, she launched and led Global ED+I at Tripadvisor.