In this special episode of Uncensored CMO, Jon finds himself on the other side of the mic being interviewed by producer James McKinven, who grills him on some unusual career moves. After a promising start in the City Jon makes a large u-turn and decides to become a marketer instead where he goes on to learn his early craft at Britvic. His next big break came at drinks business First Drinks where he notoriously closed down the London underground after causing a terror threat. After recovering from that he returned to Britvic to launch brands in International markets and from there set up a new team of challenger brands. With the entrepreneurs bug he poured his life savings into a management buy in which didn’t end well. From there he went ‘major league’ as Marketing Director of LRS before being fired. Then landing his dream job Brewdog he only managed 3 months before being fired again. But the story ends well as you find Jon as host of Uncensored CMO and CMO for System1 talking about what makes advertising work. In this episode he shares everything he has learnt in his career and why being fired twice in one year wasn’t the setback you might imagine.

What we covered in this episode:

What inspired Jon to go into Marketing
Making the giant leap from Business Finance to Marketing
Getting a big break launching Fruit Shoot at Britvic
How small conversations can make a big difference
Why leaving Britvic was the best way to get promoted at Britvic
Learning the marketing ropes at First Drinks
Causing a terror threat in the London Underground
Appearing on Have I Got News For You
How sometimes it pays to go back
What you discover in International marketing
Creating a challenger brand from within the company
Betting his life savings on a Management Buy In
What you learn when you have nothing
Landing a grown up CMO role at Lucozade Ribena Suntory
Working with a Boxing legend Anthony Joshua
Imposter syndrome when going from nothing to £50m budgets
Managing perception vs reality in a large corporation organisation
Creating the best performing OOH ad ever
How to screw up the Lucozade reformulation
Getting fired despite delivering every single KPI
Jon’s 100 day plan to meet 100 people
Landing his dream job at BrewDog
Getting fired (again) after only 3 months
The power of being unreasonable
Was James Watt a good CEO to work for?
The unexpected source of work after being fired
How Uncensored CMO was born
The episode that made him cry
What happens next for Uncensored CMO and how he wants to help you