Hugh Pile, CEO, Blue Skies Holdings

Hugh is the CEO of Blue Skies, a global food business. Primarily, the business operates in the world of fresh fruit, sourcing from local farmers in Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Senegal and Brazil, before cutting and preparing in the source-market. The business has recently expanded into juices, fruit lollies and ice creams and has a broad range of markets, including the UK, Dubai, South Africa and across Europe.

Previoulsy he was CMO for L’Oreal UK & Ireland. This position strives to step-change the performance of L’Oréal across a number of core strategic as well as functional arenas: strategy development, merger and acquisition, improved efficiencies and effectiveness of marketing spend, improved marketing purchasing, improved innovation, new channel exploration / new business, improved media & digital capability, improved organizational capability and more. He joined the business in August 2014 and has overseen significant growth realized even in his short tenure thus far.

Previous to joining L’Oréal, Hugh enjoyed a long tenure at Diageo, taking a whole host of positions in a number of countries. Most recently, Hugh was the Marketing and Innovation Director of Vietnam, managing a large team across this challenging and dynamic market. The Diageo portfolio saw significant growth during his placement as well as incorporating a number of bold new creative platforms tailored to local market requirements.

Before Vietnam, Hugh was the Marketing Manager responsible for the performance of Diageo’s whisky brands within the African continent. In this fast-growing and significant market, Hugh helped to define the strategy behind the whisky portfolio, and supported the markets in its execution: from supply setup, to pricing, commercial elements and of course the marketing growth drivers.