As part of an expanding commercial team, my remit at GB News was to build the commercial insight and strategy function from the ground up; develop and deliver the strategy for taking the GBN brand story and audience insights to current and potential advertisers, combining a range of proprietary and industry standard data sources in order to grow advertising revenue.

I was consulting with Global's Outdoor division to help develop a new market positioning for the Outdoor business as a whole, as well as its individual constituent parts (e.g. London Underground, Airport, Digital OOH). In my time at Global, I also supported the insight team on the creation and delivery of significant and commercially critical research projects. Key objectives and responsibilities:Conduct an audit of the Outdoor portfolio, create a narrative around individual priority products and produce and activate marketing plans and sales collateral for each.Provide advice and marketing support on presentations and pitches for the retention and acquisition of larger partnerships.Help Global align its proposition with the needs of Outdoor specialists, strengthening relationships and helping to grow spend in Outdoor as a whole.Lead development of key deliverables from major insight projects related to the strength of Global's outdoor portfolio or consumer attitudes and behaviours relevant to the Outdoor sector.

Employed on a fixed-term contract to develop a new global trade marketing strategy for Future. Key objectives included:- creation and delivery of a new trade marketing strategy to help demonstrate the benefits of Future's diversified portfolio (including print & digital media brands, B2B and email marketing, e-commerce solutions and proprietary tech platforms) to commercial audiences - assess existing team structure, skills and processes; make the necessary recommendations to develop a structure aligned with the new strategy- lead the process for identifying and onboarding roster PR agencies in the US and UK- own the narrative around Future's audience insights for commercial partners - combine first party, proprietary research and industry tools to create the most compelling picture of Future's global reach and influence

Responsible for overseeing the Insight and Marketing functions for the leading global Out of Home specialist, Kinetic Worldwide. Kinetic is the OOH specialist for all Group M agencies, as well as a number of independents and direct appointments to brands such as Coca-Cola and Tesco. Specific functions of the role included:- Working with management team to ensure marketing and insight activities are in line with overall business objectives, helping enhance market reputation and achieve business growth- Maximising profitability of all proprietary research activity through complementary marketing support- Leading the communications strategy across all relevant marketing platforms, including trade marketing, PR, social media, corporate website and industry bodies- Acting as marketing and comms lead globally in the absence of centralised global marketing function- Lead and deliver Kinetic’s award strategy and entry processes- Developing majority of high-profile external communications materials for the agency- Act as a key representative for Kinetic with all relevant industry bodies- Play a leading role in internal culture growth through the use of varying comms programmes relating to mental health, cultural diversity & inclusivity

Leading the research, insight and strategic planning functions for all Northern & Shell businesses in the UK.N&S was transitioning from a traditional platform-led sell to one based around multi-platform audiences, and placed consumer insight at the heart of its strategy in delivering this. In an incredibly competitive news publisher market, N&S outperformed its competitors commercially as a direct result of the innovative commercial strategy implemented. Reporting into the Commercial Director, specific responsibilities of the role included:• Part of commercial management team responsible for setting commercial goals and developing the structure and strategy to achieve them.• Sales Marketing: creation & delivery of all externally facing materials including overall take-to-market strategy, brand and audience presentations. Present regularly to senior agency and direct clients.• Trade Marketing: liaising with rostered PR agency to drive positive exposure for our key initiatives.• Leading proprietary research projects in support of commercial activities – regularly producing consumer insight studies into audience behaviours, advertising effectiveness and market-specific studies.• Work with the creative solutions team on high-value pitches, providing audience insight, developing and delivering pitches when relevant.• Represent N&S on all industry bodies, such as ABC, NRS, PAMCo and the IAB, speaking at relevant industry events when required.

Now responsible for leading the Commercial Planning, Insight and Research function for all AOL UK businesses internationally outside the US and Canada. Brand portfolio made up of owned and operated properties (inc. Huffington Post, AOL.com, Engadget & Techcrunch), as well as platform brands including programmatic platform One by AOL, Marketplace SSP and premium video content platform AOL On.

Working across the full portfolio of owned & operated brands in the UK, including AOL, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Parentdish and MyDaily.Key functions of the role:Help drive commercial performance by leading the external positioning of the AOL brands and their audiences to commercial partners (both clients and agencies).Utilise proprietary and industry research to create compelling and commercially actionable sales collateral and pitch responses.Be a leader for our major consumer insight projects, such as our recent thought leadership piece on native advertising, the Native Age.Act as a central resource to link separate teams across the business; liaise with editorial, commercial, technology, marketing and senior management teams.Be an evangelist for AOL O&O brands in the UK, speaking at industry events and working with trade bodies to ensure representation for our products.

Responsible for the Commercial Planning and Consumer Insight teams across Future's offices in London and Bath.Key functions of the role:Utilise proprietary & industry research to create compelling & commercially actionable sales collateral across the full Future portfolio - websites, magazines and events.Oversee the commercial positioning of our audiences and products within their sectors, notably in technology, gaming and entertainment.Lead high-value pitch process, from brainstorming to creation and delivery of final proposals. Champion creativity across the business.Lead our research offering to create industry-leading insight that can directly drive further commercial revenues.Recently oversaw the creation and publication of 'Future Proof', a book dedicated to our campaign effectiveness studies: see http://issuu.com/futurepublishing/docs/futureproof for a digital copy.Work with senior management across Future to identify and exploit new revenue opportunities. This has included significant work on areas such as digital growth, tablet publishing and social media.

Employed on a rolling temporary contract to provide senior communications planning for a large telecoms client.Lead role in communications planning for branding & direct response campaigns across a range of products.Direct responsibility for a team of five comms planners, whilst leading buying teams in a wide range of disciplines including Digital, press, TV and sponsorship.Presented strategy and campaign effectiveness presentations to clients and partner agenciesWorked with auditors, digital and traditional creative teams and PR agencies to ensure fully integrated and effective campaigns.Further involvement in new business pitches and helping to generate maximum incremental revenues from existing clients through insight and effectiveness studies.

My role at Associated was to draw together the various national and local print titles, online properties and other elements of the business in order to generate incremental commercial revenue. Key responsibilities;Generation of incremental advertising revenue through platform and brand agnostic utilisation of the Associated and Northcliffe portfolios.Work closely with the Strategic Insight team to understand the Associated audiences and demonstrate the value of these audiences to advertisers and agencies.Lead the process for understanding advertising effectiveness for Associated and Northcliffe; capturing the necessary information and delivering it to clients in the most suitable format.Use media planning experience to access previously untapped resources such as Promotions, CRM, and consumer insight and use them to enhance the offering to advertisers.Act as a vocal advocate for the Associated and Northcliffe portfolio amongst senior planning and buying community within agencies.Train and inspire creative solutions teams across the business.

As an expanding multimedia company, Emap Advertising required a leader with communications planning skills to best maximise revenues from their market-leading brands. This new role was established to ensure brand strength was leveraged and that staff in all disciplines understood the role played by their medium. Key tasks included;Development of relationships with senior planning contacts at key media agencies – an upstream approach designed to generate additional revenues and a more collaborative approach.Acting as an internal ‘consultant’ to the various divisions of Emap Advertising, ensuring individual market strategies are aligned with overall business objectivesEncourage the use of consumer insight to demonstrate strategic thought and an understanding of key Emap audiences, as well as for new product developmentWorking alongside Emap², the Emap Advertising cross-media sales team, applying media agency planning principles to briefs in order to ensure most effective and on-brief response.

Career path 1998: Graduate. 1999: Planner/Buyer. 2001: Account Manager (Planning). 2003: Account DirectorAs Account Director my role was to oversee a team of five planners on the Vauxhall, Saab and Daewoo/Chevrolet brands, reporting into the Board Account Director. Oversaw an annual media budget of £80m, with key planning responsibilities for print and TV whilst working with specialist planners in other disciplines.Experience in branding and direct response campaigns across a wide range of vehicle categories.Worked closely with research and econometric specialists to measure the effectiveness of our work, and in doing so became highly proficient in using consumer insight to shape strategy and media implementation.Delivered regular reports and presentations to the client, including competitive reviews and external audits.Throughout my time in the role I developed and maintained an excellent working relationship with the many clients and creative agencies that worked on the General Motors business.