Judges

Karen Dowse

Karen is SVP, EMEA Commercial Development at Mintel overseeing client services and custom projects for Mintel’s prestigious portfolio ranging from the world’s leading consumer brands through to emerging innovative new market entrants.

Prior to joining Mintel, Karen held marketing posts within the IT industry and more recently Verdict and Corporate Intelligence.  With almost 30 years marketing and commercial 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.

Claire Farrant

After completing her degree, a BSc in Food and Nutrition, Claire moved to London to start her career. For several years she worked for food suppliers whom supplied products to the Big 4. In 2003 she joined Woolworths, where she got a real taste for retail both across food and non-food, working across the Big W concepts.

Claire wanted to continue in retail and after a relocation went to join Tesco to help set up the business venture, Tesco Direct. During her ten-year tenure here, she worked in several departments: Buying, trade planning and then Brand & advertising. She also led the new high profile Tesco brand transformation project alongside the property department, which rolled out to the entire Tesco store estate.

After consideration, Claire then left Tesco in 2015 and sought a new adventure with Lidl as an executive consultant for the marketing department. Soon after, she was promoted to Marketing Director and has been in this position for nearly 3 years.

Mark Newbold 

As CSR Manager at Lidl, Mark is developing and driving the businesses sustainability strategy. In this varied and wide ranging role, he is helping improve environmental and social performance across the business, supply chains and communities.

Sustainability has been a passion throughout his career. Having completed a MSc in Environmental Science and Law, he joined E.ON environmental team before spending over 7 years as a consultant at WSP supporting a range of energy, retail and manufacturing clients on technical and strategic sustainability services.

Mark grew his fascination in food retailing through his work as a consultant. Since 2015, Mark has helped Lidl set ambitious plans and programmes to eliminate unnecessary plastic packaging, reduce food waste by 5th by 2020 and source 100% of key raw materials from sustainable sources by 2021.

Scott Allen

I come to work every day with the mindset of how digital transformation can help organisations and individuals to achieve more and work with many customers across commercial, public sector, education and the third sector. I have spent the last four and a half years as CMO within Microsoft UK where I was responsible for leading marketing for two go to market areas - Consumer and Commercial. The Consumer and Commercial teams are integrated with the CMO "Marketing Services Centre of Excellence" - Digital and Events.

I now am part of the Microsoft HQ team that is leading the global marketing transformation of Microsoft’s large and fast growing commercial businesses, including AI, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows, SQL, Surface, and Visual Studio/Developer Tools. In this global role I am part of the team that ensures our current marketing transformation investments are successfully developed and adopted globally. In addition, I am focused on leading new strategic approaches and programs to further extend our marketing capabilities and their impact.

I can be found on Twitter: @ScottAllenUK

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) and headed up UNILAD’s global music and entertainment division. He became the Vice President of UNiDAYS (London and New York) and then the CMO of Street Soccer Foundation (Rehoming youths under 25) and is now the CMO of Office Freedom. Kevin is also a marketing advisor to 10 Downing street and has recently received an official gold medal for his marketing services for creating their new brand, ANTENNA in 2017, now worth £70M.

James Farmer

James is Head of Brand and Marketing Communications at CIM, leading the Events, 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.

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”.

“Standing out as a graduate is not easy. However through being a part of The Pitch and winning in 2016, I was able to go straight into the industry as a Marketing and Development Officer. Gaining the experience of presenting my marketing plan to a panel of experts, gave me a great understanding of the real world of marketing and confidence in my ability as a young marketer”