Driving Growth Through Marketing Transformation

La Fosse Executive were delighted to host an exclusive panel event on March 2nd in London.

During the event we unpacked the history, future, and impact of marketing excellence and its place on the board. Some of the biggest changes in marketing have happened over the last three years, from rapid ecommerce and digitisation advancements in response to the pandemic, to drastic shifts in customer needs, to the introduction of some of the most sophisticated AI we’ve ever seen.  Now is the time to prioritise and rethink marketing strategies and the way we build our teams to enable business growth and boost revenue. 

A huge thank you to our brilliant panel for an insightful discussion, and to all our attendees who joined us.

To learn more about how marketing can drive growth in your business, get in touch with Lise.Ferrier@lafosse.com.

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About the event:

Marketing excellence is fast becoming one of the essential strategies investors and CEOs employ to boost revenue and company value. But why has this increased focus on marketing in recent years, and why is it so important?

In a world where financial engineering is not sufficient to create value and position a company for a strong exit, data-led digital marketing offers huge growth opportunities. Smart Private Equity & VC investors need to take a partnership approach with executive teams in their portfolio to drive marketing and commercial improvements, resulting in a higher ROI.

Led by La Fosse’s Jonathan McKay (Investor and Chair) our panel discussed the critical elements for successful growth through marketing transformation, with topics including;

• Transforming the marketing function and the cultural shift required
• Building successful marketing functions – hiring and evolving skillsets
• Investing in marketing during a recession
• How to overcome PE nervousness around underwriting marketing growth initiatives
• Lessons from marketing success in B2B SaaS scale-ups: can this be replicated to other industries?

Panel:

• Simon Peel – Chief Growth Officer at Marlin Equity Partners. Serial CMO, Chief Strategy Officer and Global Head of Enterprise Sales at Jitterbit, IBM, Aible, Cast Iron Systems. Voted one of the 10 Most Innovative CMOs of 2018.
• Phill Robinson – Phill is an experienced and accomplished Chairman, CEO and Non-Executive Board Member, in the software industry. Phill was CEO of Exact, a large multi-national software business, headquartered in the Netherlands until the end of 2020. Now plural he remains a Non-Executive Director of Exact’s Supervisory Board and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee.Phill is Founder of Boardwave, a networking platform for European software CEOs, Non-Execs, Chairpeople & their Investors. Run as an independent not-for-profit, Boardwave’s goal is to bring brilliant leaders together to help turbo charge the growth and success of the software industry in Europe.Phill is also Chairman of the Livingbridge Software Advisory Board. He is also an advisor to KKR, and a number of other Private Equity firms.
• Neil Morgan – CMO, Investor & Advisor to European SaaS businessesApplying all I’ve learnt in 33 years of B2B marketing across all disciplines, growth stages and geographies to help tech businesses achieve disproportionate market share. Also a husband, father, MAMIL (middle-aged man in lycra) and frustrated golfer.
• Lea Hartkopf – Serial CMO and member of the Inflexion Digital Associates network. Formerly CMO / Head of Marketing at Comparison Technology, Lintbells, Busuu, Trainline and Paypal. Lea has been working as a Marketing Consultant since 2018 helping growth-minded businesses to scale their Marketing. With a data-driven mindset, she uncovers the ROI of marketing investments and shapes the strategy to improve marketing efficiency and drive growth. Lea has over 20 years’ experience in Digital Marketing, with sector experience in finance, travel, retail, marketplaces, fashion, entertainment and education. Prior to setting up as a consultant, she ran the global marketing function at the language learning app Busuu and led performance marketing teams at PayPal and Trainline. She has been consulting with clients including Lintbells, Steady, RealVNC, Comparison Tech, Unbiased and Mercari.