Sharon joined Samsung Electronics in February 2020 as Mobile Marketing Director, having previously held the position of Marketing and Brand Director at Virgin Media. Prior to this, she boasts over a decade of business and marketing experience through similar roles at organisations such as Sky, TalkTalk, 3 UK and Vodafone. Sharon is a senior marketer and proven leader who has delivered significant business growth within the telecoms, media and entertainment sectors. She embodies a unique blend of commercial and creative acumen, and prides herself on her energy and ability to lead teams and organisations through fast-paced change and evolutionary business transformation.

Sharon plays a pivotal role in driving forward Samsung’s strategic approach to campaigns, 5G, and loyalty programmes, ensuring Samsung UK & Ireland remains firmly on its growth trajectory.

Karen Dowse

Karen leads the professional services division, customer success and consulting for Mintel’s prestigious portfolio, ranging from the world’s leading consumer brands through to emerging innovative new market entrants.

With almost 30 years marketing, commercial and operational experience within the B2B environment, Karen is passionate about driving customer engagement that creates mutual value and longer-term partnerships.

She’s a (very) amateur triathlete who is desperately trying to swim, cycle and run as fast as her two daughters.

Kevin Tewis-Allen

Kevin started his marketing life providing the winning idea (Winston the Churchill Bulldog). Shortly after Kevin became a very successful DJ/Music producer and produced 170+ productions to date and sold over 20 million records (artists such as Usher, Britney Spears, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins and Beyoncé) and awarded Producer of the Decade by Radio 1.

In 2008 Kevin moved into professional services for 5 years before becoming CIM chartered and then awarded a Fellowship for his work in industry. Kevin then ran a multi-million pound start-up, a top 5 creative agency (winning 9 drum awards), headed up UNILAD’s strategy and entertainment division, then became the Vice President of UNiDAYS (London and New York), then a voluntary role as CMO of Street Soccer Foundation and is now the Managing Director of PREEN, a leading creative and production company. Kevin is also a marketing advisor to 10 Downing street and created their telecommunications brand, ANTENNA in 2017, now worth £70M.

Gemma is the marketing director for CIM where she works closely alongside those in the marketing profession and manages a department which spans a broad range of marketing disciplines.

Experienced in both corporate and not for profit organisations, Gemma specialised in proposition development and buying at Sony and Xerox prior to joining CIM. She believes the marketing function is central to driving business successes and that every marketer should continuously develop themselves and focus on having strong stakeholder management, communication and relationship building skills.

Alex Conaway

Alex joined Samsung UK in November 2019 and leads the brand marketing function which involves the development and execution of all local brand marketing. Most recently he has developed an entirely new camera leadership platform which uses consumer photographs taken on Samsung devices to inspire extraordinary creativity – the launch of this new platform won the accolade of the 7th best ad of 2020 in Campaign Magazine.

Prior to this, Alex started his career in creative agencies. His experience spans working with some of the world’s best loved brands such as Honda, Nokia, Audi, Ford, Virgin Atlantic, Heineken, Mars & Gordon’s Gin. These leadership roles in agencies such as Wieden + Kennedy, BBH and Ogilvy resulted in multiple creative awards including a Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival of Creativity for his work on Honda.

Alex then moved to roles within client organisations and has since held roles with Vodafone, Tesco, Vitol Energy and now Samsung.

His role at Samsung is focussed on creative excellence across all consumer touchpoints. He leads 5G strategy and communications & is a champion of the vital importance of commercials and creativity co-existing.

James Farmer, The Pitch 2021 Host

James is Head of Brand & Marketing Communications at CIM, leading the Content, Marcomms and Creative departments. He joined CIM from Sky where he was Brand Controller across a range of their leading TV Products, driving brand strategies and delivering ATL campaigns.

Prior to that he spent over 15 years agency-side working on a range of Entertainment and Telco clients. He’s passionate about customer-centric marketing that draws on juicy audience insights to create compelling comms.

He has a Graphic Design degree, a strategic mind and a strong commercial focus, so enjoys working with pictures, words and numbers.

Thomas Cooper and Adam Dickson (Winners of The Pitch 2020)

“While we might not be able to celebrate in person, we are so pleased to have been awarded this year’s title. Both of us jumped at the chance to put into practice many of the theories and marketing techniques that we’ve been studying since starting University. And now to be recognised for our thinking by a panel of respected marketing professionals is the confidence boost we needed, as we start to apply for graduate jobs.”

Evie Johnson (Winner of the Pitch 2017)

“Graduates can’t afford to take a back seat in marketing and as placements become more and more common, they need to find other ways to have an edge. I think The Pitch is a great start and it’s good fun. The money has come in really handy for my relocation too”.

Sam Willian (Marketing Manager, StudentUniverse)

"Partnering with the CIM for The Pitch, as sponsors in 2017 and as a judge in 2018 has been a hugely valuable experience for StudentUniverse. Hearing fresh, innovative ideas from talented young marketers, who are also right in our target demographic allowed us to gain unique brand insights, that continue to inform our marketing strategy and campaigns. Be prepared for an honest critique of your brand's shortcomings but with twice as many ideas on how to overcome them. 

It also allowed us to develop some great collaborative working relationships with students who had been part of the campaign. Siobhan Glover, who was runner up in 2017, and her partner went on to set up and run an Instagram account @backpacksandbeyond. We recently worked with as part of a partnership campaign with Visit Victoria, who approached to help position the state as a student backpacker destination. We knew Siobhan and Andy were perfect candidates for the job, to get off the beaten track and show us everything the state had to offer through Instagram stories and their own authentic approach to influencer marketing. We had the added bonus of them already knowing the StudentUniverse brand through The Pitch - it certainly won't be the last time we work with them. 

Being a part of this initiative has also led to us reviewing our hiring policy, and as a business will be looking to bring in marketing staff at a graduate level for the first time. The future of marketing is in safe hands!" 

Sarah Wood (Marketing Director, Wilkinson Sword)

“It’s been a revelatory day for me. According to the returning judges, the standard of the pitches was higher than ever before. For me, the level of professionalism was there – some of the ideas were better than we might expect from an agency. The pitches that really worked well were insightful and used targeted market research, with considerations of our audience, to go the extra mile. Those were the concepts I can see us using in the future”.