2024 year in review: Changemakers

Ash Schofield and Martin George, founders, WeAreHere

Addressing the marketing industry’s persistent lack of diversity and inclusion is a collective effort in the opinion of Ash Schofield and Martin George.

The Giffgaff CEO and former Waitrose customer director are the brains behind WeAreHere, a new collective inviting young people to “co-create” the future of marketing.

Partnering with creative agency AnalogFolk, WeAreHere wants to aggregate and amplify opportunities within marketing, making them more discoverable for young people by joining forces with industry bodies, brands, media and agencies.

While the original concept came out of The Marketing Academy, Schofield, George and their collaborators have found peers who share their desire to tackle the industry’s lack of representation.

Within months, WeAreHere has gone from concept stage to the launch of a website and hosting its first brand experience day in collaboration with Giffgaff.

In October, the mobile network invited a cohort of Year 12 Professional Pathways students studying for a BTEC Extended Diploma in Business Studies at the Ark Elvin Academy, Wembley, for a whole day session.

After an address from Schofield, Giffgaff marketing strategy and planning director Georgina Bramall talked the young people through the breadth of potential marketing careers, spanning 14 different disciplines from PR to media, insight and strategy.

Next marketers from across the team shared their career stories, including former The Marketing Academy Foundation apprentice Najma Mahmoud, who was hired permanently by the mobile network as a social media executive in April.

Learning from this inaugural event, the hope is more young people will see a place for themselves within marketing and other brands will open their doors to fresh talent.

Forged in the spirit of collaboration, WeAreHere represents a concerted effort to make the industry more equitable and open to talent from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. CR

Grace Kite, for adding rigour to marketing spend

It’s easy for marketers to think of finance as little more than the bearers of bad news. The people who rock up a couple of times a year to explain why that pitch was rejected and why that budget needs to be cut. But the relationship doesn’t have to be this way.

Grace Kite, founder of econometrics firm Magic Numbers, has been beating the drum for marketers and finance to find common ground for years – and has offered real, practical advice as to how to go about it.

Take her most recent column for Marketing Week, where she urges marketers to reframe finance from villain to a co-star who wants the same thing you do – success for the brand.

But it’s easy to speak in platitudes, what Kite does that makes her stand out is to examine what marketers can do to help the relationship blossom. Her business Magic Numbers sat down with CFOs and finance chiefs from seven different businesses to understand what they are looking for from the marketing department.

The suggestions offered are practical and achievable – and with the help of a handy calculator that Magic Numbers developed with help from the IPA – it has never been easier for marketers to figure out (and back up with numbers) the return the business can expect to see from marketing investment.

Shifting that notion that marketing is a growth function rather than a cost driver is one of the biggest challenges all marketers face – and one it is vital the industry successfully achieves if it is to continue to grow in importance within businesses.

The work of Kite and her team at Magic Numbers will be a big part of making that change. JS

Claire Ferriera, founder, Mums in Marketing

A marketer and coach with two decades of experience, Claire Ferreira founded the award-winning Mums in Marketing community in 2020.

Ferreira, a mum of two, decided to create the support network she always craved, a place where women can be mothers and marketers at the same time. Her mission is informed by personal experience of overcoming imposter syndrome, panic attacks and redundancy, fuelling a fire in her to create a pressure-free space of supportive peers.

Now a free global community of more than 7,000 people and membership exceeding 700 spanning social media, year-round learning and live events – Mums in Marketing offers a place where female marketers can discuss everything from brand strategy and upskilling to the realities of being a working mother.

In the words of one MiM: “It’s a community of women who get things done and help others get things done too.” In anonymous feedback from the community, Ferreira is credited with offering “exceptional” leadership as an “incredible champion of women”.

Mums in Marketing is building its own financial impact. Some 95.6% of MiMs consider the community as ‘very important/important’ to marketing and the creative industries, while 96% would ask each other for a recommendation on work, a freelancer or a service.

A recent survey of 100 women in the community found they had generated a combined £750,000 in work gained, salary increases, new jobs, promotions and work given to other MiMs. Extrapolating out, that figure rises to £35m generated by being part of the community.

To mark its fifth anniversary in April 2025, Mums in Marketing is preparing for its inaugural MiMs Festival, a celebration of the community’s collective journey. In the run-up, the community is hosting in-person and online events, tailored training, partnerships with industry leaders and accessible meetups to help women thrive. CR

Lauren Spearman, for her work demistifying marketing careers

Lauren Spearman is a freelance creative director and social strategist, but is perhaps best known for her content creation work highlighting the lack of transparency in the marketing industry’s recruitment practices.  

Spearman began posting videos charting her job hunt on TikTok in 2023, having left a role without another lined up and thinking, given her extensive experience, it wouldn’t be too long before landing a new job.  

As the many marketers on the job market, or trying to break into the industry, can attest to, it’s harder now to navigate the job market than perhaps ever before.  

Spearman has been sharing her experience, offering thousands of marketers – of all different levels – her insights, learning experiences and highlighting the negative underbelly of recruitment, while simultaneously offering encouragement and guidance.

From posting online about her recruitment experiences, Spearman has grown an audience of more than 50,000 followers on the platform who come to her for career advice, from navigating interview processes to pay transparency, to occasionally giving brands constructive criticism for poor marketing job ads.   

This is particularly key for junior and entry-level marketers, as well as those from underrepresented backgrounds in marketing, who turn to her to find out what brands shouldn’t be doing in the hiring process, how much they should be paid, and how to self-advocate.  

Spearman effectively turned a negative experience into something positive and now focuses on her career content as well as her freelance projects, which include creative directing for Habitat.  

She now cohosts a podcast, Working On it, with Molly Johnson-Jones diving into the modern workplace. And on LinkedIn, her no-nonsense content about the careers landscape has built her a following of almost 20,000. MI

The Co-op, for introducing socio-economic pay gap reporting

In July, the Co-op became the first UK retailer to publish its socio-economic pay gap. The desire to eliminate inequality was a major motivation for head of diversity, inclusion and social mobility, Zahoor Ahmad, under whose watch socio-economic response rates have risen from 5% to 72% within two years.

The Co-op found asking employees about their parents’ occupations at age 14 was the most important indicator of socio-economic status, over and above the measure of free school meals. The questionnaire also asked colleagues about the level of education in their household at 14 in a bid to gauge their level of social capital.

Calculating the pay gap between colleagues from professional and lower socio-economic backgrounds, the analysis found the Co-op has a mean socio-economic pay gap of 5.2% and a median pay gap of 0.2%.

The retailer has more employees from professional backgrounds working in senior leadership roles, while the biggest pay gap identified is for women from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Indeed, the Co-op has more female colleagues from professional socio-economic backgrounds in senior roles, meaning a mean socio-economic pay gap specifically for female staff of 9.8% and a median of 1.5%.

In response to the pay gap stat, the Co-op updated its social mobility commitments, including evolving its social mobility taskforce and working towards an 80% completion rate for socio-economic backgrounds by the end of 2025.

The retailer is also embarking on its first career development programme specifically for staff who identify as coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds, targeting areas of the business where data reveals additional barriers to progression.

Off the back of its socio-economic pay gap push, the Co-op scooped 34th spot on the Social Mobility Foundation’s annual Employer Index, which ranks UK employers on the actions they’re taking to open up to talent from all social backgrounds. CR

People championing marketing as an asset

Marketing as a collective is very keen to prove its worth to businesses, and, in particular, finance.

During tough economic times in particular, marketers are keen to ensure the rest of the business sees their function as a driver of profit and revenue, rather than simply an expense. In other words, seeing marketing as an asset, rather than a cost. In particular, the value of brand and brand building is something that marketers are at pains to emphasise.

Embedding a view of marketing and brands as assets can involve relationship-building with other departments, proactive moves to learn about the desires and needs of those functions, and a slow process of education on both sides.

This year saw a more formal move to embed that view, by attempting to change the way ‘brand’ is recorded on financial statements, and essentially making it classified as investment rather than expense. The proposed change, which has to do with the way intangible assets, brand being one, are recorded on the balance sheet, is currently being looked into by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

While the review is only at the early stage, and the process is lengthy, the mere discussion of brand as an asset among accountants can surely only be positive for marketing’s reputation among the financial community.

These things don’t appear on the agenda magically and the ongoing review follows campaigning work from members of the marketing community, notably, former City investor and founder and managing director of Liberty Sky Advisors, Ian Whittaker, the IPA and Brand Finance.

There should also be credit given to those campaigning more widely to have marketing treated as an asset, whether that’s in their own organisations, in the B2B sector, or more broadly across the business community. NC

Emma Harris, for her rallying call to slow the f*ck down

Marketers might feel like they’re constantly hearing about ways they could do more. More in their role, more in terms of personal development, more in their own lives.

It’s a common phenomenon for lots of different professionals, especially leaders, who may feel pressure to “lead by example” by working the hardest or doing the most.

It’s a pressure Emma Harris, CEO of brand consultancy Glow London knows too well. But following a near-death experience, she has become a proponent of people taking a step back and ensuring they “slow the fuck down”.

Two years ago, Harris was out at brunch during a work trip to New York, having had a particularly busy week in a generally very busy life. She was someone used to being the last to leave work events and the first into the office in the mornings. She suffered a heart attack in New York that morning that almost killed her.

From her hospital bed, Harris took the time to create a LinkedIn post, updating her connections on what had happened.

“My message as much to myself as anyone else reading this….is SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!”

That message to slow the fuck down has become Harris’s rallying call. The importance of balance and building in rest is something Harris has not only embedded in her own life but has worked tirelessly at telling others about. She has now told the story to thousands, with the aim that other leaders will not need to go through a near-death experience to realise what she has.

That realisation also relates to leadership itself, and realising that slowing down doesn’t dilute performance. Indeed, she is a strong believer that teams who have healthy, balanced lives are much more likely to perform better than those expected to work hard at any cost. NC

Ally Owen, founder, Brixton Finishing School

For Ally Owen, making a difference for diverse young talent extends beyond creating opportunities and broadening access to removing the barriers that prevent them from finding a route into the industry in the first place.

This is the vision behind the Brixton Finishing School, founded by Owen in 2017 to offer free – award-winning – programmes to underrepresented talent preparing them for entry-level roles in the marketing, advertising and communications industries.

Since its inception, Brixton Finishing School has helped almost 4,000 people through its various programmes. Offering e-learning and virtual live bootcamps for 18- to 30-year-olds, the ADcademy scheme alone aims to teach 2,500 people a year.

The in-person Brixton Finishing School Summer School for talent aged 18 to 25 has upskilled 300 people to date, while schools outreach programme ADventure has introduced 35,000 14- to 19-year-olds to career opportunities within the industry.

So far, more than 500 mentors and mentees have been matched thanks to the Brixton Finishing School, helping 500 people find roles, including one individual who went through the organisation’s free ecosystem to land a role at agency Born Social.

Last month, Owen launched The Finishing School Foundation, a sister charity set up to fund places on Brixton Finishing School programmes for individuals locked out of the industry. The foundation will help talent not in education, employment and training – a potential talent pool across the UK of 807,000 people aged 18 to 24.

The Finishing School Foundation is a response to the cost of living crisis and persistent lack of access to mental wellness that makes gaining a foothold in the industry almost impossible for many people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.

Owen is hopeful the foundation, coupled with the existing work of the Brixton Finishing School, can help counteract the “creeping disenfranchisement of huge swathes of talent” and unleash a generation of untapped potential. CR

TimeTo, for fighting sexual harassment in marketing and advertising

Sexual harassment has no place in any industry. However, the marketing and advertising world still has a problem. 

This year, TimeTo, the organisation trying to put an end to sexual harassment in the creative industries in partnership with NABS, WACL and the Advertising Association, ran a campaign during Cannes Lions offering guidance and education about sexual harassment at industry events. It was the first time the initiative joined forces with the festival.  

The campaign included OOH ads at Heathrow – with ad space donated by JCDecaux – and on digital screens outside the Palais, as well as water bottles handed to attendees with timeTo messaging printed on them.  

It also offered a guide to delegates, ‘Celebrating Safely’, for before, during and after the creativity festival, covering topics such as respecting boundaries, consent, how to challenge harmful behaviour in a safe way, and self-awareness.  

Pippa Glucklich, CEO of Electric Glue and TimeTo chair, said at the time: “Through this inaugural partnership and via our bespoke guide, our collective aim is to increase awareness of this important initiative and end sexual harassment in our industry once and for all.”  

She added: “Sadly, sexual harassment in the industry still remains a live issue and it is essential that everyone, from industry leaders to employees, is vigilant, well informed and feels safe wherever they are.”  

Post-Cannes, TimeTo introduced a bystander training programme to empower people to tackle harassment and offer the tools to effectively and safely intervene when they see inappropriate behaviour at work. MI