When former ad man Ben Rhodes joined Royal Mail, he was tasked with turning it from a loss making public service into a growing, commercially focused publicly listed company. As director of customer marketing, he is delving deep into data to deliver value. Driving this profitable growth, while reducing costs, continues to be one of his greatest challenges six years since starting at Royal Mail. He has been at the head of several iconic ad campaigns in his 20-year career. He started in brand communications developing ad campaigns for More Than, JPMorgan, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson while at a number of leading advertising agencies before moving client side to MasterCard, where he was behind the ‘Priceless’ campaign and launched contactless payments for the brand in 2008. He cites the Mailmen campaign for the Royal Mail’s MarketReach brand as a recent high point but notes “there is still plenty more to come in my hall of fame”.