How much freedom do you allow him and your creator partners?
When you have a really solid brand positioning — and we see this with Guinness — you can allow a lot of creative collaboration to take shape. When you’re clear on your brand, it’s exciting to bring together the spark a creator brings with the essence of what your brand stands for, and explore where that can go together.
We love working with Troye and his team on how ideas could take shape. He brings a very specific personal tone of voice, which is part of why we want to work with him — we love what he stands for. So yes, we absolutely collaborate and treat it as a shared partnership and approach.
But what if things aren’t quite right? How do you have those conversations?
I think it’s about clear expectations going into any partnership. It’s the same as starting a partnership with an agency — if you’re clear on your parameters, your brand guidelines and you’re consistent with them, there’s mutual respect on both sides. Troye has his own approach and agenda, and we now work with so many collaborators across our brands that this has become a real strength for us.
It also comes down to honesty. You have to be quite humble when working with creators. They’re making work that millions of consumers engage with and follow, and we have a lot to learn from them. You need to know what you stand for and be confident in that, but also humble enough to recognise that the reason you’re working with these people is because they bring an extra layer of creative genius we can learn from.
What has creativity meant throughout your career?
I always start with the consumer. One of the greatest gifts you have as a marketer is curiosity — really looking at what’s happening in the world, in people’s lives and in culture, and what that means for brands, for the work we do, and for how consumers absorb the inspiration we put into the world. Everything from how I take in culture — I’ve been obsessed with the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime spot and what it says about engaging people — to how different organisations frame business challenges fascinates me. And consumers, of course, are central to that.
I start with curiosity. The power of storytelling is fundamental to creativity and marketing. All our best work begins with a simple truth and a beautiful story crafted to surprise, delight, entertain and bring magic — the kind of boldness marketers admire and aspire to.
My background is in public relations and earned media, not the paid marketing model, and that shapes how I think about how people absorb and react to our work. I think about how a story moves from what we create into what consumers take on and add to — whether through creators and social communities or through the cultural acts brands put into their lives. That lens, shaped by my training, influences how I approach marketing. And in today’s world, where earned, storytelling and culture‑shaping are increasingly central, I think it serves me well.
How do you get the best out of your agencies?
It comes back to trust and mutual respect. We work with agencies because they bring what we don’t have as a team: strategic clarity, sharpness, creative bravery, boldness, craft, and external inspiration from other categories. I’m always interested when they do better work for other clients — why is that? I hold a mirror up to us and ask why we’re not getting that level, and what we need to explore together.
I try to have long‑term relationships with agencies. Guinness is the best example — 26‑plus years with AMV BBDO and over 40 years with some local agencies. We work for the long term because we believe in building legacy brands that endure. At the same time, we have extremely high standards, so maintaining those relationships requires shared ambition and real honesty when we’re not where we need to be. I think our agencies would call me if they weren’t getting what they needed, and I’ll do the same. We have honest conversations about why and solve it together.
I love being part of the creative process. Being brought into the work is my favourite moment of the week. I like being involved early enough to help shape it and add my experience, not just rubber‑stamp it.
What would be your advice in terms of producing a successful creative brief?
Simplicity. A simple brief is the hardest thing to get to. A simple, truthful brief, a brief that is true about the genuine challenge your brand faces, not necessarily the opportunity you would like it to be accessing. It’s important that we’re able to verbalise that, but ultimately being very truthful about the reality, and then being very truthful about the brand and product truth that you can leverage to access that. And then a great consumer insight – we are best placed to bring that to the briefing, because we have access to all of our consumer data. And then, if agencies have a super insight, a great articulated problem to solve, and a simple articulation of the brand – that’s a great brief. Then wrap around that some inspiration for the sort of work I want to see. I want work that moves me, inspires me. One of my favourite parts of a briefing conversation is that when we’re actually sitting around going, “OK, what other work could inspire this brief? Where could we learn from what work Inspires us?”, or “What’s going on in culture right now that we think is really pertinent?” I enjoy that collaborative conversation in the briefing process as well.
One thing I really think about is whether we are giving enough time for this to be crafted in the right way because there is always that balance between moving fast and due diligence and craft and thinking about whether we jumped so fast into an execution that we’ve lost the thread of an idea. That’s the other thing that, certainly as a leader of a number of teams, I can sometimes help with by providing some space by asking, “What do we need to do? Could I give you an extra month on this?” rather than thinking about having to run furiously at everything at the same time. Prioritisation can be a big part of it as well.
What would you say has been your boldest creative play?
The biggest and boldest, and probably it sounds intuitive now, but when we reframed Bailey’s as a treat brand in a spirits business, I think that was probably the boldest idea. Walking into my boss’s internal team and saying, “OK, I want you to stop thinking of Bailey’s as a liqueur and I want you to start thinking out of its treat. And I want you to think about us competing with chocolate and ice cream. That’s where our heartland lies.” That’s quite a radical, bold move.
Is it a campaign that you’ve seen elsewhere that you wish you’d made
There are many campaigns I wish I have made. The work I admire most is work where it’s usually product work where I think they’re just so bold in their articulation of their product benefits or superiority. I love Heinz as a body of work – it’s excellent how they have executed that in a very bold, brave, confident way with great key business aims. I think that work is really strong.