Thank you for joining the WFA and ACA for the Global Marketer Conference during the Global Marketer Week 2024. This event for both local and international marketers returned to Toronto last May 2024.
The Global Marketer Week was taking place in Toronto from 14 to 17 May, with the conference held Thursday 16 May.
It was a day of discovery, inspiration and learning with the best minds of the industry.
Jane Wakely
Jane Wakely, Chief Consumer & Marketing Officer, has been at PepsiCo since January 2022, where she oversees the Global Consumer organization across different PepsiCo brands, which includes R&D, Marketing, Insights, Design and Category Strategy. Prior to PepsiCo, Jane was the lead CMO at Mars Incorporated for 21 years, where she was a driving force in the transformation of Mars’ consumer functions, leading and launching Mars’ innovative mandate for sustainable growth with people, data, creativity, and purpose at its heart. Jane began her career at Procter & Gamble and was one of the founding members of GARM.
Jonathan Adashek
Jonathan Adashek is IBM’s Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications and Chief Communications Officer. He is responsible for overseeing the company’s global Marketing, Communications and Corporate Citizenship organization, which also includes ESG, Analyst Relations, demand generation, branding, business development for government, social media, sponsorships and strategic events across the company. He brings more than 25 years of experience across domestic and global teams serving different sectors, including technology, automotive and manufacturing, government, retail, finance, energy, B2B and B2C. He also brings governmental and political experience with him, having worked in the Clinton Administration White House and Treasury Department as well as on multiple U.S. presidential campaigns.
Raja Rajamannar
Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, is responsible for building the Mastercard brand, driving business for its products & services and advancing sustainable competitive differentiation for the company. Raja comes to Mastercard with a history of innovation and business transformation. Before joining the company, he served as the Chief Transformation Officer of Anthem (formerly, WellPoint), a Fortune 500 health insurance company. Earlier, he was at Citigroup for 15 years holding a number of leadership roles, including Global Chief Marketing Officer, Cards and Payments, and before that he spent 7 years with Unilever in sales and product management roles. He started his career with Asian Paints in India.
Marcel Marcondes
Marcel Marcondes has been at AB InBev since 2005, as Chief Marketing Officer since April 2022 and before that as Global President, Beyond Beer Co. Born in 1975, he is a Brazilian citizen and holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Business School São Paulo. From 2017 to 2021, Marcondes was the Chief Marketing Officer at Anheuser-Busch, where he led the marketing strategy for a broad portfolio of some of the world’s largest beer brands. Marcondes sits on the Board of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and is a member of the Cannes Lions CMO Growth Council. He also sits on Adweek’s Diversity & Inclusion Council and leads Anheuser-Busch’s partnerships with AIMM’s #SeeHer and #SeeAll to promote multicultural marketing. Before joining AB InBev, Marcondes spent seven years in brand management at Unilever.
Allyson Witherspoon
Allyson Witherspoon is Corporate Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer of Nissan Motor Corporation. She has over 20 years of automotive marketing experience working in a number of senior roles. Prior to joining Nissan in 2013, she served as the Global Business Director for Volvo, adding to her marketing agency experience that included leading accounts for two other automakers. In 2014, Automotive News named Allyson as one of the “40 Under 40” for automakers and suppliers. In 2020 she was recognised as a Female Frontier for breaking brand barriers by Campaign US and was also named one of the 100 Leading Women in North American Auto Industry by Automotive News. Witherspoon was added to the 2022 MotorTrend Power List and was acknowledged by MediaPost as Automotive Marketer of the Year.
Dr. Marcus Collins
Dr. Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator. He is the former chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, New York, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the author of the best-selling book, For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want To Be. Marcus is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and a recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Distinguished Achievement Award for the idea most likely to shape the future of business management. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of Google’s “Real Tone” technology, the “Made In America” music festival, and the Brooklyn Nets, among others. Before his advertising tenure, Marcus worked on iTunes + Nike sport music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé. He writes a column for Forbes CMO Network and contributes to business scholarship.
Solitaire Townsend
Solitaire is a renowned sustainability expert who works with the world’s most influential organizations to activate positive and optimistic change. Her ‘solutionist’ vision of solving climate change is desperately needed in our gloomy world. She is Co-founder & Chief Solutionist at Futerra (Edie’s 2023 Consultancy of the Year) and Trustee of the Solutions Union. In 2023, she was named both a ‘Leader of the Year’ at Adweek’s Sustainability Awards and UNGC’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals Pioneer’ for the UK. She was also named by Vogue Business as one of their 100 Innovators for 2023.
Her previous accolades include ‘Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2008, chair of the UK Green Energy Scheme, trustee of Ashden, a founder member of the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and a London Leader for Sustainability. Additionally, she sits on the Board of the Hollywood Climate Summit.
Solitaire holds master’s degrees in both Sustainability and Shakespeare, she lectures at Imperial College and the Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
She has a popular TED talk, Forbes column, and an award winning book – The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future.
Stephan Pretorius – Chief Technology Officer, WPP
Stephan Pretorius has more than 20 years’ experience in marketing and advertising technology and is passionate about helping brands develop the ever-evolving capabilities necessary to deliver groundbreaking customer engagement strategies.
Stephan joined WPP as its first Chief Technology Officer in October 2018 and is responsible for the company’s technology vision and strategy, and for managing its relationship with key technology partners such as Google, Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM and Facebook.
From 2016-2018, Stephan acted first as Chief Technology Officer and then UK Group CEO at Wunderman where he integrated the group’s agency and technology offerings to create one of the UK’s largest digital agencies with more than 2,000 specialist staff across commerce, marketing technology, consulting and CRM.
Other speakers announced: David Wheldon (WFA Better Marketing podcast host), Asmita Dubey (Chief Digital & Marketing Officer, L’Oréal)
This year, over 750 attendees from more than 40 countries joined the ACA and WFA during the Global Marketer Conference 2024 in Toronto. Watch some highlights below.
Access the Speakers presentations:
Stephan Loerke, CEO, WFA – 29min
‘A Shared Global Agenda’ presentation
Solitaire Townsend, Co-Founder and Chief Solutionist, Futerra – 21min
‘Selling Sustainability’ presentation
Jonathan Adashek, Chief Communications Officer and SVP, Marketing and Communications, IBM – 30min
‘Putting Your Trust in AI?’ presentation
Allyson Witherspoon, Corporate VP, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Nissan – 27min
‘Innovation Driving Sustainable Growth’ presentation
Dr. Marcus Collins, marketing professor and best-selling author, on how culture defines what we buy – 31min
‘Cultural Catalyst’ presentation
The Better Marketing Debate with David Wheldon, Jane Wakely, Asmita Dubey, Jenny Rooney and the RitBot, Mark Ritson’s AI alter ego – 45min
‘CMO, The Impossible Job?’ presentation
Raja Rajamannar, WFA President & CMO Mastercard, and Stephan Pretorius, Chief Technology Officer, WPP – 34min
‘The Impact of GenAI on Brand Growth’ presentation