The Places We'll Go Marketing Show

In this episode, Josh Krichefski, Global CEO of MediaCom, spoke about the power and importance of having a growth mindset and being able to keep a strong perspective on what matters in your working and personal life. Josh's honest and upfront personality is what ensures he stays on top of his game, even during times of struggle which Josh touches on during this episode. It is clear that Josh is one of the most genuine leaders in our industry  and cares deeply about the mental health and wellbeing of those around him and those from underprivileged backgrounds.    Who is Josh Krichefski? 🤩   Josh has been at MediaCom for more than a decade in a variety of leadership positions at Global, Regional and Local levels. He is currently both our Global COO and CEO EMEA, where he is responsible for 4,400 people across 37 offices, driving the vision and culture in EMEA and ensuring that MediaCom is the strongest agency network in the region.  Previously Josh was MediaCom’s UK CEO, the country’s No.1 media agency billing over £1.8bn across 6 offices. He has not only worked in media agencies but on the creative agency side too, working at St. Luke’s in the early 2000s and he also ran his own digital agency, Kword. Sponsored by School of Marketing. Delivering digital and data-led marketing apprenticeships and training.

In this episode, we are joined by Arjoon Bose, International Head of Creative & Growth Ideas at General Mills, who brought his passion for people and creativity to the table to talk about. Arjoon's energy is evident as he shares some mottos that have allowed him to develop such and incredible, international marketing career for himself, when he once thought he was destined to be a Chartered Accountant... Accounting's loss is marketing's gain! Smart creates solutions, stupid creates stories Be a force for joy Share your knowledge Be curious, be courageous and do the brilliant basics Always back yourself and trust your gut Fail fast, bounce back faster Who is Arjoon Bose? 🤩 Arjoon has over 16 years of brand building and business leadership experience  across CPG via personal care products and now food and drink which he hopes to leverage in helping establish or grow the market for brands and create stakeholder viability while always being a vanguard of cultural leadership. He started his career in beauty and worked across the three major brands of the L'Oreal Group (Garnier, Maybelline New York and L'Oreal Paris) for over a decade across Asia, North America and Europe/UK with two major marketing stints at the global headquarters in Paris. After making many beauty dreams a reality with skin creams and hair creams, in the summer of 2015, he took his passion for indulgence up a notch with super-premium ice-cream-a much loved childhood icon that remains eternally popular globally... Haagen-Dazs, giving his career a new orientation in the world of foods with the American giant General Mills. As of 2016, Arjoon then added the 'better-for-you snacks' portfolio to his belt which namely includes Nature Valley, the world #1 snack bar and has doubled the UK business under his leadership together with his team. At the end of 2018, Arjoon transitioned to be a founding member of the General Mills New Ventures incubation team for Europe-Australasia setting up our Natural & Organic Business Unit for as well as our European Venture Capital arm which seeks Sponsored by School of Marketing. Delivering digital and data led marketing apprenticeships and training.

In this episode of The Places We'll Go Marketing Show, Sarah Jenkins, the Marketing Director of Saatchi & Saatchi, demonstrated her passion and excitement for the marketing industry and the power that Saatchi & Saatchi has to influence the world. After getting to know Sarah, it was clear that her passion comes from people, and being surrounded by a diverse and creative team that work together to empower and motivate each other through thick and thin. You'll finish this episode feeling like you can take on the world and that "nothing is impossible"... Topics:  The power of having a tribe around you Make yourself noticed Networking is key to development Don't be afraid to speak up Diversity and inclusion Who is Sarah Jenkins? 🤩 Sarah joined Saatchi & Saatchi in December 2019. She works with Chris Kay, Chief Executive Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi, to both shape the strategic direction of the agency and drive the day-to-day business. Previously a nine year veteran of Grey London where she held the role of Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Account Management and was responsible for some of the agency’s flagship creative accounts - including The British Heart Foundation and Lucozade. Sarah has worked in both global network agencies and start ups and across organisations as diverse as Mars, GSK, P&G and the Home Office. A staunch believer in the need for greater diversity of talent at all levels across advertising, Sarah has been a driving force behind the industry wide Advertising Diversity Task Force, which brings together the most progressive agencies across the communications industry to use their combined energy, expertise and skills to shift the diversity dial. Sponsored by School of Marketing. Delivering digital and data led marketing apprenticeships and training. 

Who is Paul Frampton? Paul is the European President for Control v Exposed, a marketing services consultancy and addressable media specialist. Paul is an experienced business leader and one of the UK’s defining voices in disruption and marketing. He was previously CEO of a hospitality tech scale-up, Tink Labs, scaling the business from 20 to 200 across EMEA. Prior to that, Paul was Group CEO for Havas Media Group, responsible for a £100m turnover, 900 people organisation. The Evening Standard newspaper in London included Paul in their ‘Progress 1000 Brand Builders 2016’ while The Drumvoted him the ‘5th Most Influential Person in UK Digital’. Paul was also honored to accept Twitter’s‘Lifetime Achievement Award’. An active advisor and investor in the start-up community for businesses in the Marketing and HR tech space and an early-stage VC. Paul is an influencer on LinkedIn and Twitter with over 25,000 followers. He serves as Chair of The Youth Group, dedicated to improving job prospects for young people. An advocate for diversity and inclusion, Paul is an advisor for Women in Marketing and was named one of Management Today’s ’30 Male Agents of Change.’ When not working or speaking at industry events, Paul focuses on family life, his five children, and DJ’ing. He is an BA Honours graduate of The University of Southampton.

In this episode, Mimi talks about importance of empathetic leadership and where her passion for empathy came from, she takes a deep dive into what triggered her to write her best selling book "Softening the Edge" and Mimi also spoke to us about how her international career has developed over the years.  Who is Mimi Nicklin? "I believe that Empathetic Influence can make a significant difference to the world of work and society, and I am extremely passionate about conscientious leadership and the impact we can have as leaders today. Today I balance my work in empathy with my strategic and creative leadership in at The Devmark Group, ensuring I integrate my leadership work in the corporate and marketing world with my passion for inspiring empathy globally. A lifelong copywriter, I never thought about becoming an author until I wrote Softening The Edge. Once I identified the reach and impact of the Empathy Deficit globally, I couldn’t stop writing. I am a strategist and writer by nature and this book focuses on something I have been passionate about for my entire career - the sustainable wellness of our workforce, human led leadership, and the future of effective creativity and brand building. My principles are principles of people and I focus on opportunities for enhanced organisational culture as well as brand strategy that heroes consumer empathy and creativity. I am the host of The Empathy for Breakfast Show, a weekly breakfast podcast, with a reach of 85,000. You can view it on all leading podcast platforms. I believe in the systematization of empathetic influence & Regenerative Leadership to create the best of creative work, the happiest of teams and the most sustainable facets of a healthy society. I have worked across twenty-five markets from within independent agencies, as well as within both WPP and Omnicom, and from client side. Having recently changed my role from the Regional Managing Director role at Rapp MEA to focus on strategic and creative delivery as their contracted full time strategic ECD, I am now passionately driving strategic and creative output as part of the agency's growth strategy for 2021. Previously the Global Vice President, GlaxoSmithKline, for Grey Group in Singapore and having held roles as Regional Strategic Director and Chief Marketing Officer, my key strength is in building team culture and cohesion, creative storytelling and strategic concept, insight and brand development. I have honed this living in London, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Singapore and Dubai." Sponsored by School of Marketing. Delivering digital and data-led marketing apprenticeships and training.

This episode was the most inspirational episode of The Places We'll Go Show so far, we were lost for words at how eloquently Cephas Williams spoke about the importance and urgency of people to take real action in order to move the black conversation forward, and start to build a positive reality for future generations of the black community. Cephas also spoke about "the power we hold as marketers, to reinvent the world we live in", and how big of an impact this can have on the black community if the right people cared enough to enforce change. Who is Cephas Williams? Cephas is the founder and photographer behind the ground breaking 56 Black Men campaign and Drummer Boy Studios. He previously studied architecture and started his first business in 2009. After taking a series of portrait photographs of 56 Black Men in hoodies, he launched '56 Black Men' as a campaign in the UK to change the narrative regarding black men in the media and as an introduction to a much wider conversation. Since launching the campaign on the 23rd of December 2018, it has had both a local and global impact, and has since been featured in The Guardian, The Metro, The Independent, on Channel 5, Sky News, BBC and Aljazeera amongst others, creating both a local and global impact. Cephas believes everyone should have a fair chance to change their narrative and so utilising his degree in Architecture, he created Drummer Boy Studios in 2017. Cephas set out to merge his passion for architecture and his passion for the community in a bid to create physical spaces that cater to those who often suffer the brunt of gentrification. The studio ran as a creative hub, a workspace with creative facilities; conducive for growth, innovation and collaboration for people interested in the creative sector including industries such as Music, Film, Media, Enterprise, Fashion and Gaming. Upon doing this, Cephas was confused as to why things like this were not being spotlighted in the media, after all the work and money and time put into creating this space within the community and the success it gained. He had also secured a partnership with BDP to become the official development partner for the business. Despite this, he was still facing opposition from people in the local council office and not being supported with the positive work being done. This pushed him to think about how many more Black men are doing great things but are never heard or spotlighted. Cephas started to question further, why is it that things like this never make headline news? And why the prevailing headline news about Black men was always surrounding knife crime or violence here in the UK. As a result he decided to create the 56 Black Men campaign to challenge the negative stereotypes of Black men in the media and spotlight positive achievements of the black men through the series or portrait images. In recent years Cephas has been successful in galvanising support for his businesses from key partners and industry leaders including companies such as Accenture, EY, O2 Telefonica and Clear Channel as well as people such as, Paul Polman (Ex CEO of Unilever), Simon Pegg and others. At this time Cephas is focused on a new message towards a wider Black British conversation through The Black British Network. In his recent public letter to his son titled Letter to Zion, Cephas explores a heart felt message and his thoughts around the much needed change we need to see in the world, with specific reference to the Black community and the need for us to come together to see long lasting change.

In this episode, Pano talks about his hunger for learning, the importance of believing in yourself and what he wants his legacy to be after a such an incredible career at Pret A Manger.  Who is Pano Christou? Pano is an experienced Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the retail industry. He is skilled in Service Operation, Food & Beverage, Operations Management, Customer Service, and Retail. Pano is also a strong business development professional with an Advanced Management Programme focused in Business/Leadership from Harvard Business School.

In this episode, we were joined by Richard Robinson, Managing Director of Xeim and Oystercastchers, who revealed his love for re-defining the rulebook, his passion for learning and the role mentoring has played in his life.  Who is Richard Robinson? Richard is Managing Director of Xeim Engage, incorporating Econsultancy and Oystercatchers, and committed to making good things happen between brands, agencies and talented folk. He was named as one of the ten most influential leaders in digital & tech by BIMA as well as being a Chartered Marketer. Richard is a specialist in accelerating modern marketing performance & digital transformation. Most days you’ll find him wrestling with some of the biggest strategic challenges facing the world’s best-known brands. Before his current role Richard worked internationally with The Coca-Cola Company, domestically with McDonald’s restaurants heading Adult and Family Marketing, and led Publicis Worldwide’s P&G business across EMEA. In parallel Richard is a multi-award winning diversity advocate and has been recognised as a ‘Male Agent of Change’ by the Women’s Business Council & Management Today, as well being ranked in the top 20 male advocates championing women in business by both the Financial Times and Yahoo Finance. Vice-Chair of The Ideas Foundation, and a board Member of Creative Equals, BAME2020 and Edcom (The European Institute of Education in Commercial Communications). Regular mentor for WhosYourMomma, BIMA, NABS & The Women's Sport Trust. When time allows Richard is a remarkably slow marathon runner.

In this episode, Richard talks about what he learnt throughout the pandemic, the importance of always learning and always balancing both work and home life.  Who is Richard Bon? Richard Bon is Managing Director of Clear Channel UK. He joined the company back in 2000 and subsequently progressed through various roles in the marketing, planning, and trading departments. He now sits on the company's European ExCo and as of 2020, he is additionally Commercial Lead for Clear Channel Europe. Richard has led the digital transformation of Clear Channel in the UK to expand the company's Digital Out of Home footprint. Digital now represents the majority of the company's revenues. Under his leadership, Clear Channel's digital estate has grown to over 5,000 screens. Including Adshel Live, the largest DOOH network, and Malls Live, the leading full video malls network in the UK. Richard is also spearheading the next phase of the company's growth including the delivery of automation and programmatic solutions underpinned by data. Richard hails from France. He is a proud family man, with a natural passion for vin rouge, food and cycling.

In this episode, Russell shared his view on where marketing is today and how it has changed since he entered the industry, how his career journey differed to most and what advice he would give to those just starting their career.   Who is Russell Parsons?   Russell is the editorial lead for the UK's most prominent marketing title and event. He is responsible for leading the content, editorial and strategic direction across several platforms for both brands, he has a track record of conceiving, developing and curating content for highly successful events, editorial products and commercial partnerships that meet the needs and exceed the expectations of the senior marketing audience and those of clients. Russell is also a trusted authority on marketing issues, he regularly hosts podcasts on the biggest issues in marketing, as well as delivers keynote speeches and regularly hosts and appears on panels at industry events.   Career highlights include:  • Rethinking and relaunching The Festival of Marketing as a digital event in 2020 and delivering its highest ever NPS score for content, helping the event exceed its delegate and commercial targets  • Helping steward Marketing Week to record audience satisfaction ratings and deliver a spike in commercial and subscription revenue in 2020  • Helping launch industry initiative School of Marketing, which aims to widen accessibility to marketing  • Winning the British Society of Magazine Editors' 'New Editor of the Year Award' in 2017  • Oversaw the ‘Brand of the Year’ winner in the PPA Digital Awards 2017  • Conceiving and presenting highly regarded sponsored podcast series such as ‘Marketing Week Meets' and ‘Marketing that Matters’