Miguel Carrillo is a global brand and DTC marketing leader whose career has taken him through Converse, Nike and a range of culturally driven brand-building roles. He has worked across markets, categories and communities, helping brands grow while staying close to the people they serve.

He brings a strong mix of strategic thinking, commercial understanding and cultural sensitivity, with a clear interest in how brands connect more meaningfully with the world around them.

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This conversation explored the balance between scale and authenticity. We spoke about DTC and wholesale, about how brands build emotional connection, and about the challenge of growing without losing clarity about who you are and who you are for.

A strong thread throughout was community. Miguel talked about the difference between brands chasing culture and brands fuelling it, and why the strongest connections are often built by serving real communities rather than trying to speak to everyone at once. We also touched on the shift from purely digital brand-building towards more physical, local and human forms of engagement.

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What we took from this conversation was the importance of clarity within a brand’s core and its team. Miguel kept returning to the idea that brands need to know themselves properly, and that felt really aligned to. our approach to branding. Not every brand needs to be everywhere, say everything, or follow every shift in culture. In fact doing less, but doing it with more conviction, is often what makes a brand matter to people.

We also liked the way the conversation framed community as something earned rather than declared. It is easy for brands to use the language of belonging, but much harder to build something that people genuinely want to be part of. The discussion around culture, consistency and long-term trust landed well because it moved beyond surface-level marketing language and into something more grounded.

There was also a useful tension between digital and physical space. As online environments become noisier and harder to trust, the value of real-world connection feels more important again - for people and for brands. That doesn’t mean abandoning digital, but it does mean brands may need to work harder to create experiences and relationships that feel tangible, human and lasting.

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