Winners 2023

Marketing (manufacturer) 2023

RAISTRICK HAS JUMPED from being UK advertising manager for Peugeot UK to global head of social media for the brand in two years and, understandably, has been identified by parent company Stellantis as one of its “high potentials”, supported by management and HR for further career development. Since joining the global marketing team in 2021, she has helped define and deploy the Allure global brand positioning before moving to shape the brand’s global social media strategy with a multimillion-euro budget. Her strategy for Peugeot is defined around five key pillars (big moments, always-on, content creators, motorsport and visual arts) and she has established new partnerships with TikTok, Meta and the YellowKorner art photography website.

Marketing (manufacturer) 2023 nominees

Harrie Adams, Head of retailer marketing, Stellantis (Citroën)

Astrid Barsk-Knott, Section manager, lead management and customer experience, Nissan

Guste Cesnuleviciute, Brand partnerships manager, Lotus Cars

Charlotte Dalglish, Partnerships marketing manager, BMW UK

Kirsty Dunn, Head, digital and retail marketing, Lotus Cars

DUNN ARRIVED AT Lotus in 2021 from Mercedes-Benz as a digital marketing manager and after just over a year was promoted to her current role, where she is responsible for the definition, creation and execution of marketing strategies for Lotus Cars within the UK and Ireland. Her digital expertise, honed at both Mercedes and Porsche, brought about an innovative car configurator for the Lotus Emira, which helped to drive 175% year-on-year growth in Lotus website traffic.

Karin Fink, Director of global motorsport marketing and events, Aston Martin

FINK HAS WON two promotions at Aston Martin since joining from a sports marketing agency in 2017, starting out as a senior manager in a motorsport marketing role. Now the department head, she must leverage the Aston Martin brand in motorsport, with Formula 1 at the top of her agenda. She says her greatest achievement is negotiating for Aston Martin to become the official safety and medical car of Formula 1. On races when the car runs, website traffic increases 26%. She also helped to secure a licensing agreement with Formula 1 that led to the Vantage F1 Edition being launched.

Janvi Gokani, CRM manager, Stellantis (Vauxhall)

GOKANI HAS BEEN promoted four times since she joined Vauxhall in 2017 as a digital marketing specialist. The most recent was in January, when she took on responsibility for social media along with customer relationship management (CRM). She impressed in her previous role as a commercial policy executive, when she contributed to increasing the low-emission vehicle ratio within the OneFleet Programme to 42%. In CRM, she has helped to boost the Vauxhall customer database by 18%.

Carlee Hardaker, Head of global customer insight and CX strategy, Aston Martin

SINCE 2012, HARDAKER’S role has been to “bring the voice of the customer into core business decisions”, according to her nomination. An Aston Martin employee since 2012, Hardaker has seen three changes of management but has continued her rise to become a key female leader at the company. She has installed a new automated customer relationship management system and her work on repositioning the brand and engaging with customers has resulted in increased levels of owner loyalty.

Felicity Hirschfield, UK and MENA marketing manager, Ineos Automotive

HIRSCHFIELD JOINED INEOS Automotive in January 2022 as the company started on the long journey of launching the Grenadier off-roader. She came from McLaren, where she was UK regional marketing manager, covering digital, events, retailer marketing and regional campaigns. Her challenge was to make Ineos’s dealer coverage appear as widespread as it planned to be, rather than as it currently was, prompting the ‘Grenadier near me’ search function that listed all local dealers, events and test-drive activities in one place.

Helen Macpherson, Head of brand experience, Stellantis (Peugeot)

MACPHERSON CAME INTO the core Peugeot UK organisation via the dealership route, starting as a fleet specialist in a Peugeot dealer before moving in 2017 to Stellantis’s in-house leasing company, Free2Move. She has since risen within Peugeot, first combining a role as regional business manager in Scotland and the north-east with a second job developing customer experience for the brand. That led to a promotion at the start of the year rolling out a new purchasing experience for Peugeot.

Helen Marshall, Aftersales marketing and planning manager, Nissan

MARSHALL ARRIVED AT Nissan via a graduate scheme in 2008 and has channelled the experience gained since then into becoming a key member of the aftersales marketing team, where she devises campaigns across digital, customer relationships, social and dealer channels to help increase workshop bookings and accessory sales. Marshall won praise from her manager, aftersales director Chris Marsh, for growing customer engagement and successfully balancing work with raising two children. Marshall also chairs the DEI team for the whole of Nissan GB.

Anna Mullan, New model launch manager, Renault UK

MULLAN’S RENAULT JOURNEY began in 2018 as a sales and marketing graduate before she gained her first management role two years later. She was then promoted to spearhead the launch of the all-new Mégane E-Tech EV, coordinating press, advertising and training activity and paying special attention to preparing the dealer networks. She worked “tirelessly”, according to her nomination, earning the nickname ‘Meganna’. “Despite significant headwinds, Anna delivered an outstanding and memorable launch on time and on budget,” said Renault UK marketing director David Isherwood.

Alice Nicholls, Product marketing section manager, Nissan

NICHOLLS JOINED NISSAN on its well-regarded graduate programme in 2018, advancing to sales operations controller and then sales performance manager. In that role, overseeing a group of dealers across East Anglia, she impressed by helping her dealers through the challenging 2021 Covid- struck period and boosting their results. “She excelled in this environment,” said Bryan Curtis, national performance manager of Nissan GB. That led to her promotion in March to product marketing section manager in charge of small cars, including the Juke.

Sarah Speed, Head of brand experience, Jeep

SPEED WON HER latest promotion in May after impressing as manager of pre-owned vehicles and marketing standards, helping to launch Stellantis’s used car brand, Spoticar. She joined that team in 2020 ahead of a July 2021 launch and stood out by acing her responsibilities, including appointing a creative agency and launching the website, the media campaign and the rebranding of retailer sites. She was praised by Nicola Dobson, Stellantis UK head of used vehicles, for also recognising when something wasn’t working – for example, ditching a new website search bar.