Claire Rea, Global Marketing Manager – Raisio Group

Claire is the Global Healthcare Professional (HCP) Marketing Manager for Benecol, the market leading cholesterol lowering brand. She leads the global strategy and manages an international marketing and sales team across six European markets to increase healthcare professional endorsement and recommendation rate of Benecol. She is also responsible for the marketing support of Benecol’s licensing partners, who are present in 30 countries across the world.

Claire hasn’t always worked in marketing, she started her career in banking and finance and completed the Bank of Ireland graduate programme in 2009. She decided to return to university, however, to complete her second degree in Human Nutrition & Dietetics, as she is passionate about improving health through nutrition.

During her dietetics degree, she was awarded a scholarship from the Health Research Board for her work evaluating ‘Postoperative feeding practices following gastrointestinal surgery’ and attended Purdue University in the United States to undertake a research project which looked at improving the nutritional status of individuals in lower socioeconomic groups. She quickly understood the potential of the food industry to impact global health, and decided that she would amalgamate her commercial and nutritional knowledge to work in this area to drive improved public health outcomes.

Following completion of her dietetics degree, she moved to London and started working in medical marketing on the Danone Graduate Programme, spending time in the Early Life Nutrition and the Advanced Medical Nutrition divisions of the business. She managed a broad spectrum of products during her time in Danone, ranging from paediatric to geriatric, and was able to draw on her clinical and nutritional knowledge to leverage key messages for communicating and educating HCPs.

In her spare time, Claire enjoys playing dodgeball with her team ‘Who let the dodge out?’ and planning her next adventure abroad.