With a background that covers both the music industry, FMCG brand strategy and setting up her own business, Clare is a strategic and entrepreneurial marketer with over 10 years experience working with large global FMCG’s, entrepreneurs and start-up’s. Passionate about applying entrepreneurial thinking and ways of working to help brand’s drive business transformation in their category and beyond, she relishes helping them adapt and innovate at speed.
Formerly co-owner of innovation agency Independents United, her role brought together commercial, strategic and creative thinking to support leading global FMCGs in testing new ways of brand building. During her time at the agency she founded The J&B Hive which she now runs via her own independent business.
The J&B Hive is an accelerator programme and co-working space for young creative entrepreneurs based in South Africa, running since 2016. Recently nominated for Best Social Impact Start-up and Best Co-working Space at the Southern African Start-up Awards the programme is funded by Diageo and was set up to test a brand new marketing model, taking the brand out of the business and placing it in the hands of 40 young entrepreneurs.The original test surpassed all KPIs producing over 30 pieces of branded content, doubling existing organic post reach, tripling existing paid engagement rates and achieving a media reach of over 5million all for an outlay of under 10% of the existing promotional spend.
While on maternity leave Clare then set up the Panda Bear Baby Company, a company on a mission to help new parents support their newborn’s sensory development in style. The store is the first UK & European retailer to stock a dedicated range of luxury black and white toys & accessories and inject some brain boosting monochrome magic into a market saturated in cute pastels and brightly coloured plastic toys.
