Enterprise marketing strategy & revenue growth
Marketing value proposition focuses on three things:
Direct revenue generation: demand generation, effective sales funnel flow and velocity, sales support tools
Indirect revenue generation: brand strength to drive customer consideration, digital experiences, increase customer intimacy for cross selling
Marketing function efficiency: fully digital workflows, AI productivity efficiencies and enhancements, Kaizen process reviews
Implemented marketing planning process at ICON.
Produced by business unit aligned marketing managers to a global common template these plans entail 100+ senior interviews across the organisation and review of market and competitive intelligence. They typically detail SWOT, SOAP, annual calendar plan, competitive landscape mapping, customer challenges etc. Plans span global business units, sectors and key accounts.
Adherence to brand, integration of media communications, data-led digital centric demand campaigns, and performance tracking drive measurable commercial outcomes. Transparency and clear accountability with executive reporting on sales pipeline growth, ROI and competitive positioning. Significant $BBs contribution to sales pipeline and revenue. Figure was $0 prior to joining ICON.
Above annual plans is a broader strategy for the marketing function. External benchmarking conducted by Gartner has shown ICON’s marketing function has matured to achieve a score of 4- out of 5 in 2024. This is a full point ahead of the global B2B marketing benchmark score for all professional services firms.
Global brand positioning & portfolio integration
Contributed to the rebrand of ‘Arthur Andersen’ to ‘Andersen’.
Part of brand team that created the Deloitte ‘Green dot’ brand identity in 2003 and developing guidelines for digital channels.
KPMG had just rebranded when I arrived in late 2010 - I collaborated closely with global brand leader on brand activation on digital channels esp. social media across multiple markets and languages. Also refreshed creative on new global website platform.
Both Deloitte and KPMG became top 10 brands for global website consistency under my leadership (see Web Globalisation Report).
Created brand proposition shortly after arrival at ICON in late 2015 - conducted extensive research (competitors and market, internal executive and external customer interviews, workshops) whilst developed comprehensive visual identity and tone of voice guidelines in parallel.
Implementation and organisational roll out of new master-brand (to support cross-selling and deeper penetration of accounts) at emotional end of the spectrum (speak to buyers as people). Rigorous consistency in market.
Drove portfolio integration through thoughtful integration of 12 acquisitions to the ICON master-brand, including $12B competitor acquisition.
Focus on quality of thought leadership as part of brand strategy - including external professional services benchmarking. 2023: rated in top 10 alongside EY & PWC.
Commission rigorous bi-annual competitor brand strength benchmarking - significant brand strength gains since master-brand launch across all market segments, geographies, and all stages of the customer buying journey. Also commission bi-annual emotional perceptions research which shows a significant positive delta between ICON and CRO industry generally. Most improved large CRO brand by significant margin - have clearly strengthened differentiation, positive perceptions and competitive advantage.
Public ISR CRO benchmarking reports - ICON consistently rated as leading CRO due to evaluation on both brand (e.g. familiarity, leadership, preference) and operational metrics (e.g. see this PR)
Demand generation & sales enablement
No brand = no demand.
Digital-centric demand generation campaigns determined by marketing plans, under pinned by strong brand and integrated media and communications strategies.
End-to-end enablement strategy - all marketing materials are mapped to the different stages of the customer buying journey, including external sales enablement collateral (capes deck, proof points, case studies etc.) and internal sales support tools (e.g. Services catalogue, sales battlecards, campaign FAQs, value propositions and messaging matrixes). Self-serve via powerful DAM-driven internal portal.
Mapped end-to-end Demand cycle process from Marketing to Inside Sales (dotted line reporting into me) to field Sales.
Overseeing CRM and lead management processes, including training and related materials to sales and chairing weekly CRM leads management roadmap call (see CRM & Marketing automation details on Technology experience page) and oversight of leads triage process - all to support acceleration of sales velocity.
Member of the ICON Commercial Leadership Team for many years.
Digital transformation & martech leadership
Worked for the UK’s first ever internet consultancy in the mid to late 90s. Whirlwind of exciting projects including for United Nations, EBRD and participation at debate on illegal content on the Internet at the European Parliament in Brussels.
First EMEA, and then Global head of digital marketing for two of the world’s largest professional services firms: Deloitte & KPMG. Lead development of both organisation capability (martech stack, processes, policies and standards) and organisational competency (training, communication, engagement).
Development and global deployment of such complex integrated marketing technology stacks requires effective organisational change management, budget, project and risk management, vendor selection and negotiation acumen, operational and people leadership, strong governance and stakeholder management, cultural awareness and sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and effective communication capability.
Have been invited to speak at numerous events by ICANN and leading technology brands including Google, Oracle, Salesforce, Adobe, Acquia etc.
For full details of specific technology platforms please see the Technology page.
See Archive page for portfolio of articles on early Internet technology.
Corporate communications & crisis management
Whilst working as a member of the EMEA marketing and communications leadership team at Andersen I spent several months working on ENRON related crisis comms. A baptism of fire.
At Deloitte I would primarily be responsible for global social media monitoring of issues such as accounting or corporate governance scandals.
At KPMG, I continued to be responsible for social media monitoring but would increasingly work directly with both the Global CMO (my boss) and Global Head of Comms on reputational issues. Post ENRON the remaining BIG 4 firms attracted significant media and regulatory scrutiny.
At ICON I assumed full leadership responsibility for PR and external media relations, including agency management. Spanning ‘Protect and Promote’ my ownership of media policy includes risk scenario planning, corporate incident framework, development of standby statements to support handling of issues (e.g. business continuity planning) and crisis communications scenarios in tandem with Executive Leadership.
Deliver executive media training, coach executives on media profile and interviews. Support Executive leadership in acquisition related communications (pre-announcement to integration planning) for employees, investors, clients and media, as well sensitive legal matters.
Tightly integrated marketing and media planning builds thought-leadership driven profile against key market issues. Implemented media monitoring including competitive benchmarking on Share of Voice and sentiment metrics in target industry and general business media. Regularly secure leading quarterly share of voice in industry trade press media.
In 2020 and 2021 ICON attracted significant in-bound top tier and industry media coverage due to its role in developing the world’s first approved COVID vaccine (see PR) and its $12B acquisition of a comparably sized competitor (see PR).
Member of ICON Security and Privacy Council and ESG Committee.
M&A integration & change leadership
Integration of 12 acquisitions to the ICON master-brand since 2015 (see here).
I am typically involved with possible acquisitions during due diligence before closure. Most have been smaller ‘bolt-on’ acquisitions to expand service portfolio capability but in 2021 ICON spent $12B acquiring a comparably sized competitor (see PR and announcement video).
Pre-acquisition announcement activities for that acquisition included development of detailed comms plan (e.g. top-level messages, day one client and staff comms etc.) including change management (e.g. stakeholder mapping, force-field analysis), with bi-weekly executive discussions.
Post acquisition integration entailed close collaboration with the Integration Management Office on both integration of the marketing function and personnel (identifying synergies and cost savings, revised team org. structure etc.), as well as the integration of the acquired brand to ICON.
For other details of Change Leadership please see ‘Digital Transformation’ and ‘Global Brand’ skills details above.
Thought leadership & market influence
Thought leadership is often a critical first step in go-to-market approach for any professional services firm. It is important to led to, not with, your organisation’s services by first establishing relevance and credibility with your target audiences on issues of concern and importance to them.
An integrated approach to thought leadership content builds and amplifies market influence by shaping a clear, differentiated narrative around complex industry issues and consistently translating it into credible external engagement. This, in turn, reinforces the brand and drives customer consideration.
At ICON I have developed thought-leadership platforms aligned to strategic priorities, driving visibility through targeted media relations, executive positioning, conference speaking, and insight-led content. By combining data-driven market intelligence with strong messaging governance (e.g. messaging matrices, FAQs etc), I have strengthened ICON’s media share of voice, enhanced brand authority, and have positioned ICON - and its leadership - as trusted voices on key sector trends, risks, and opportunities.
ICON’s thought leadership was independently assessed by Source Research and was ranked in the top 10 global professional services firms, alongside PWC & EY.
Market intelligence & competitive strategy
In my very first professional job in the early 90s I was responsible for a desk research service for executive recruitment consultants. This service I digitised (dial-up online databases and networked CD-ROMs!) and developed to an external fee-based service for external clients (company profiles & financials, executive bios etc.).
In my next role I ran a research desk primarily for investment banks and consultancies based in the financial City of London, but also undertaking original market research for clients that included the Financial Times and Cable & Wireless telecommunications company. At this time I was a Committee member of EIRENE, the European Information Researchers Network for three years (see this 1997 article).
The importance of market and competitive intelligence has remained throughout my career.
Today market intelligence is a critical input to ICON annual marketing plans. I commission a bi-annual brand strength benchmarking series and in 2020 led development and deployment of an internal AI powered portal ‘PharmaTrends’ for automated market and customer intelligence that was integrated to both the marketing database and Salesforce CRM.