Senior marketers from BT and News UK among 17 chosen for fellowship

Seventeen marketing leaders including BT’s Dan Ramsay and Chris Duncan from News UK have been chosen to take part in this year’s The Marketing Academy fellowship programme.

The programme is designed to equip CMOs and marketing bosses with the skills needed to make the transition on to boards and into the CEO role. Now in its fourth year, this year’s list (below) includes execs based in six European countries, including the US and the Middle East for the first time.

The Marketing Academy’s fellowship is developed in partnership with McKinsey & Co and sponsored by ISBA. It includes three residential events with masterclasses covering all elements of Board stewardship including corporate finance and governance, organisational health and leading transformational change, operational effectiveness and stakeholder influence.

Alongside this there is a mentoring scheme, as well as access to an extended network of top business leaders. Previous participants include John Lewis’s Craig Inglis, who is now on the board at the retailer, and Keith Moor, CMO of Santander.

The Marketing Academy’s Founder Sherilyn Shackell says: “It’s common sense that the voice of the customer should be heard in the boardroom. Unfortunately it’s not common practice and this needs to change.

We believe that the boardrooms of the future will be led by individuals who put customer at the heart of the business. In our view CMOs are exceptional candidates to lead businesses however there is a distance between the leader of the marketing function and the CEO role. We provide our fellows with unprecedented opportunity to bridge the knowledge and skills gap and reach the highest levels of business serving on company boards.”

The 2017 fellows are:

• Alejandro Pinillos, category growth officer, Danone
• Alexander Haitoglou, VP of global healthcare and Boots brands, Walgreens Boots Alliance
• Arthur Hoeld, general manager, Adidas
• Chris Duncan, managing director – Times Newspapers Ltd, News UK
• Christoph Wegener, head of global sales and business development, SIG Combibloc
• Claire Cronin, customer and marketing director, Virgin Holidays
• Dan Ramsay, British Telecom, Consumer Marketing Director
• Helen Warren-Piper, marketing director, Premier Foods
• Kerry Taylor, UK CMO and SVP of youth and music, Viacom International Media Networks
• Kristian Hunt, VP corporate communications – marketing and brand, Emirates Group
• Lizzy Johnson, global brand and marketing director, Quintessential Brands Group
• Maria Sebastian, SVP marketing and category EMEA, Starbucks Coffee Company
• Nigel Hunt, managing director brand and marketing, Barclays
• Ottokar Rosenberger, CMO, Hostelworld Group
• Rashmy Chatterjee, CMO North America, IBM
• Silvia De Dominicis, VP Ethicon EMEA, Johnson & Johnson Medical

The programme starts this month and runs for nine months. Marketing Week is a founding partner of The Marketing Academy.