About
Kerry co-founded The Illuminari to kill the boring panel for good: the best brains and…
Articles by Kerry
-
Pivot and Grow: Rebuilding yourself and your brand when seemingly cut down
Pivot and Grow: Rebuilding yourself and your brand when seemingly cut down
In one week, everything can change. Change is the one constant.
17 Comments -
Rainbows, Hugs and Hand Sanitisers
Rainbows, Hugs and Hand Sanitisers
Even in February, we watched the people of italy singing across balconies and reaching out to each other with bunting…
2 Comments -
Allow the marketeers to get back to marketing!
Allow the marketeers to get back to marketing!
This happened. I recently took on a marketing role and 75% of my projects were about digital transformation and tech…
3 Comments
Activity
7K followers
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisProud friend moment. Huge congrats to the bloody wonderful Lauren Spearman Careering launched today, by means of a morning rave (of course!!) My friendship with Lauren goes back to when 3 years ago this gifted and gorgeous human couldn’t find a job. Not only did she take the brave move of sharing that journey publically, but she also brilliantly started posting excellent crafted content she loved from Uncensored CMO with Jon Evans. So I became her client and she became part of our team. I spent an entire Saturday stalking her on TikTok and became obsessed with her obsession to empower people to craft a career around a life they love. She has been there on my career journey through thick and thin (and teary 10 minute voicenotes), helping me to believe I CAN get the career of my dreams and I am just busting with excitement about how she is now talking that talent to help everyone - link in the comments to find out more. She is also now our client as part of The Illuminari - so much goodness comes from simple acts of giving.
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisSome partnerships don’t end. They just find a new shape. I’m incredibly excited about what Anna Cairns and i have been building with The Illuminari. And perhaps even more excited about the people who have been there from the start, cheering us on, helping us to build it…..and some of the people who might just be part of what comes next ;) New chapter. Familiar faces. Different possibilities. Watch this space. Jon Evans Rory Sutherland Orlando Wood
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisThis is a podcast launch I have been waiting for/needing. Leadership focus. Listen in.
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisTHERE’S SOMETHING WONDERFULLY HUMAN ABOUT A PODCAST. I’ve been working on/with podcasts for nearly four years now, and in that time I’ve become slightly obsessed with what makes them such a powerful medium. Gary Vaynerchuk on Uncensored CMO calls them the most under-rated (and therefore cost effective) medium. Perhaps it’s the space they create. In a world increasingly engineered around shorter, faster and more measurable, a podcast gives people permission to take their time. To follow a thought somewhere unexpected. To disagree, change their mind, go off on a tangent and occasionally stumble across something far more interesting than the thing they thought they were going to talk about. Which is why, when Anna and I were thinking about how we wanted to introduce Illuminari to the world as a new talent business obsessed with Human Marketing and disruptive intelligence, a podcast felt like a very natural place to start. The WHAM (We have a Meeting) podcast with the totally brilliant Zac Thompson and Jack Frimston, felt like a perfect place to start. Not least as they are experts in generating new business and thats now the job to be done! At the heart of the conversation is a question that sits very close to why we created Illuminari in the first place: in our determination to measure, optimise and turn everything into data, are we slowly removing some of the humanity that made it interesting in the first place? Data has given us extraordinary things. But it can’t replace instinct. It can’t manufacture curiosity. And it certainly can’t replicate what happens when you put genuinely interesting people together and give them the freedom to think out loud. That, in many ways, is what we want Illuminari to bring back. More humanity. More original thinking. More brilliant people in rooms, on stages and in conversations that actually make you think differently. So it feels fitting that one of the first ways we tell the Illuminari story is through the medium I’ve spent the last four years falling increasingly in love with. Have a listen to our conversation with Zach and Jack - link in comments. And if you’d like to know more about what Anna and I are building at Illuminari, please get in touch with either of us. Jon Evans
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisThe Illuminari ran the whole main stage at Ideas Fest and nobody typed a single word. Wispr Flow was Official Voice Partner for the event. Their Notetaker transcribed every line spoken: 46,200 words, 18 speakers, nothing typed. Swipe through for your summary of what was said and some ideas to steal. Sophie Devonshire's entire personal brand is "Superfast." Fitting, because talking is roughly four times faster than typing, and that's the whole Wispr Flow pitch: say it, don't type it. Get more sh*t done. Some of the Ideas worth stealing below. Much more brilliance in the full pdf attached. "AI is an efficiency model, but its greatest power is in its ability to give you cognitive extension." Nishma Patel Robb 🪩⚡️ "Make sure you're a croissant, not a donut. Keep the side of your circle open." Sophie Devonshire⚡️ "Men have done a cracking job of normalising anger. Women have not done a cracking job of normalising our anger." Amy Kean "When we have the courage to look in the mirror, we then have the courage to hold the mirror up to other people and say, you also need to change and come with me." Joanna Howes That's what you get when the room (or in this case field!) is built for a proper argument, not a polished panel, and someone's actually capturing it properly. Wispr Flow are giving 90 days of Pro, free, to anyone who wants to try talking instead of typing. Link below in the comments. And if this is the kind of thinking your stage or your brand needs: The Illuminari want to work on this together. The best brains in the business, cracking your biggest problems live on stage or in your boardroom, not presenting at you. Drop a comment or find our details below, we'd love to talk. Frankie James Anna Cairns Jacob Shwirtz #IdeasFest2026 #WisprFlow #RealConversations
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisBrilliant!!Kerry Collinge shared thisHeineken Poster by yours truly, sometime last century… fyi, part of the GOLD award winning campaign at the Campaign Poster awards (when there was only one GOLD campaign award) back in '88 AND the reason me an' my ol' mate Chris Palmer got the call to start up a new agency (true)… Ps. I’ve started planting all of my advertising posters on Instagram @dentonadverts if anyone is interested…pop along and I’ll put the kettle on. @Nick Shaw @Eira Ellis @Orlando Wood @History of Advertising Trust @Matt Cooper @LBB (Little Black Book) @D&AD @Campaign UK
-
Kerry Collinge shared thisI’ve been obsessed with creativity for as long as I can remember. As a kid watching the great ads of the 80s, I wanted to make memorable jingles, work with brilliant creative people and help make work that people remember. I’ve been lucky enough to spend my career exploring what makes that possible. Working on brands like Carlsberg, Stella Artois and Cadbury, studying effectiveness with System1 and for the past three years researching and working with CMOs behind some of the world’s most effective communications on Uncensored CMO Because creativity isn’t just the output. It’s a way of being and a culture. It starts with an acute understanding of your customer, then shows up consistently across all the ways your brand touches their world. That’s what I’ll be talking about at the Creative Summit in Stockholm on 8th October. I’m particularly humbled to be following previous speakers including Sir John Hegarty , Orlando Wood and Tom Goodwin . There’s a nice symmetry to it. At The Illuminari, my new talent adventure with Anna Cairns we spend our time helping brilliant thinkers like Orlando and Tom get their ideas onto stages around the world. So it feels rather special to be invited onto this one myself. Thank you Jesper A. for the invitation. I can’t wait. Ocean Outdoor Creative Summit + Illuminari links in the comments.
-
Kerry Collinge reposted thisKerry Collinge reposted thisThe Illuminari turned up in a big way at Ideas Fest this year. Twenty speakers, two days, 46,200 words spoken (someone actually counted, more on that below) and the two questions running through every single session were the same ones we all quietly ask ourselves: is the system broken, or is it me? And is any of this AI stuff a friend or a foe? There were no boring panels in sight which is exactly how it should be. Joanna Howes made the case for walking into a room to give rather than to get “courage comes before confidence, so act before you feel ready" something that really stuck with me. Nishma Patel Robb 🪩⚡️ took on AI, personal branding and templated leadership across two separate sessions and somehow said something new in all of them ("as soon as anything becomes templated, it stops being unique"). Amy Kean and Charlotte Pearce stood up and talked about everything we are not supposed to including money and Charlotte even said her numbers out loud and credited that alone with taking her business from one million to three million. My own business partner, Kerry Collinge, reminded a room full of marketers that the biggest driver of mental health isn't screen time, it's the lack of community sitting underneath it. If things could get any better we finished with Mark Denton leading the audience in a sing song Enormous thanks to Wispr Flow, our Official Voice Partner for the week, who quietly recorded every session and turned it into a document, nothing typed, every line attributed to the person who said it. If you want to read the whole thing yourself (all eight sessions, in full), Wispr are giving Illuminari's network 90 days of Wispr Pro on top of it. Sign up here: wisprflow.ai/ideasfest Huge thanks to everyone who spoke, everyone who came, and everyone at IdeasFest who made it all possible. See you all again next year, although I suspect I'll be booking a hotel rather than a tent this time. #Illuminari #IdeasFest2026 #MarketingEffectiveness #Leadership Abigail Dixon FCIM/ICF Joanna Howes Chloe Davies Sophie Devonshire⚡️Rebecca Hirst Nishma Patel Robb 🪩⚡️Lauren Spearman Charlotte Pearce Amy Kean Kyrsten Halley Helen O'Donnell Jessica Butcher MBE Linn Frost Mark Denton Jen Jones
Kerry Collinge commented on a post
17h
There is an interesting flip here with "you are not your customer" from sarah carter - you need to be obsessed with your customer and close to them whilst maintaining some sort of healthy distance to judge the work. In my career i've often have to remind my teams that they are not marketing to themselves.
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisMost marketing leaders are running on empty. A tired marketer cannot change a business. Energy is now a leadership skill, and marketers need more of it than anyone. Mark Evans and Ritchie Mehta invited me back onto their podcast. We talked about a lot including → Why the next golden age of marketing is coming → How to thrive, not just survive, in a Superfast ⚡️world - energy management as a tool. → Why membership of The Marketing Society is for those who are serious about the growth of their business. I’d love you to have a listen or watch, - let me know if you agree or disagree. Links to it all in comments. Look forward to hearing what you think, and thanks Mark and Ritchie for a good conversation.
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisClosing out the week with a lovely award for being a Marketing Influencer, by Technology for Marketing. It's a pleasure to have made it in the winning list of 30 and even better to be ranked high in the top 5, amongst other brilliant people. I write and share content because I know we are missing diverse perspectives in this space - particularly from women. And I only post on any channel I use if I think it's genuinely valuable or useful to someone. And let's be honest, it always feels cringey at the beginning. Until you reconcile that in your own mind that - over time, you've built real, in-depth experience and its an opportunity to pay it forward. Thanks to the judges inc Nishma Patel Robb 🪩⚡️, Pete Markey and Richard Robinson🔥. And people who pushed me at the very beginning like Amy Kean and Nicola Kemp to now - Dani Markovits. Technology for Marketing (Here's a slightly blurry shot of me holding the award as I can't hold a phone camera still - it'll do)
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisWho wants doughnuts? This is a bit of a weird one, but I’m running a two-day speaking workshop in Borough/London Bridge for 12 people and we ordered way way way way way too many doughnuts. They’re Bombolone (the best doughnuts in London) so if you work in an office near O’Meara Street and you want some free doughnutty treats this morning then just comment and you can come and get them! We’ve got raspberry, pistachio, hazelnut and custard flavour, and I’d hate them to go to waste.
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisI'm super happy to be taking on the role of Global Rum Brand Director at Diageo, an exciting new challenge with endless possibilities. We have an incredible rum portfolio, including the iconic Captain Morgan, Zacapa and Don Papa. A massive shout out to the world's greatest GB Core Spirits team for making my first adventure at Diageo so enjoyable. It's been a blast to work alongside such talented people, thank you Jessica Lace Hannah Thomas Stephanie Gaunt Craig Watt Nin Taank Hazan AYDIN YESILOVA Lucy Barrett Lucy Baxendell and the unstoppable Ursula Mejía Melgar and Scott Naylor 🏳️🌈.
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisThere was a sadness behind my eyes during my season working in Ibiza. Aged 21, it should’ve been the happiest of times… But not that summer. That was the summer heartbreak broke me like nothing I’d ever known. Polluting even the brightest sky like a dark fog. I wish I could hold young Alice tightly. Reassure her we don’t need Top Boy’s validation to be cool. Except, I’d be fibbing. Because even 18 years, one business, a loving husband and two kids later… We’re still trying to quench that ‘I’m good enough’ thirst. Often, still parched. Even when old enough to know better. Some things you grow out of. Others, you learn to live with. When it comes to self-worth, I’m neither lost nor found. Just navigating the murky middle. Thankfully, there’s nothing that dancing on a uni girls trip back to the island won’t solve… for a few hedonistic hours, at least. The two-decade difference? 👟 Slip-on mum trainers ❤️🩹 48 hours dedicated recovery 🌅 Sunrise *after a full night’s sleep* 👯♀️ Aching to get back to my girls
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisSharing here for the t(w)een parents as I'm so frequently asked how we manage phones in our home (with many a raised eyebrow when people see that my eldest two have 'smart'phones). Parenting in the age of addictive-tech is an absolute minefield. God knows, for all my deep knowledge of this field, my husband and I still frequently get it wrong - with tech one of the biggest sources of conflict under our roof, as in so many homes. We are all learning as we go and its simply not possible for parents to keep on top of all the new innovations, risks and threats. Sometimes I read about yet another awful online risk and have to say to myself 'Ok Jess - chill a little. You're overexposed by algorithm to the worst'... and then that exact threat erupts within our personal network. (Most recently, Nigerian blackmail gangs targetting teen boys for nudes 😱... with p*rn having already infilitrated our 13 yr old's inner circle 😔). So in full transparency, here's what we do - with kudos to Wingio (who also appear in the Smartphone Free Childhood recommended list). Context: 13yr old, 11 yr old and 9 yrs old (no phone). Keep sharing, parents... without judgement. cc. Xavier Dijo. Rajiv Azhapilli, Friederike Von Waldenfels Joe Ryrie #NotanAd (I wish 🤣) 🔔**I'm Jess Butcher, Founder of ScrollAware. I write, blog and commentate frequently about the (many!) negative ramifications of attention-economics and the positive ways we can all reclaim our brains in the Age of Overwhelm. Follow for more **🔔
-
Kerry Collinge reacted on thisKerry Collinge reacted on thisI hate this guy and everything he does so much. Meta really are a truly awful company
Experience
Education
Licenses & Certifications
Publications
Languages
-
French
-
Recommendations received
2 people have recommended Kerry
Join now to viewOther similar profiles
Explore more posts
-
Kate Rowlinson
Innovation happens when we collaborate. I’m excited about the role WPP Media is playing alongside our academic and industry partners to create insight and deliver impact. We launched some major studies this year with our partners, from 'Shaping the Nation' to 'How Humans Decide’. My recent article for Raconteur explores how we can double down on the UK’s status as an innovation hub by working in partnership with the UK’s leading academic institutions, with the public sector and within our own industry. Sarah Baker (Buckles) Oli Halliwell
-
Susan Younis
I had a powerful conversation with my friend (first and foremost), ex-colleague (Viacom & Multichoice) and now my SAY Visionaries client, Colette Otusheso, CEO of Accelerate Media Group, where she shared honest, practical reflections on: - Navigating leadership as a woman in media - Building a career with courage, not perfection - Leading teams with empathy, clarity and vision If you work in content, media or advertising, I hope this conversation is a reminder that your perspective is a superpower. 💫
2 Comments -
Nick Freer
Commenting on the publication of the ScaleUp Institute’s inaugural Female Founders Scottish ScaleUp Index, Marie Owen OBE, Founder and CEO of LS Productions, one of the UK’s largest independent production services companies, headquartered in Edinburgh with production hubs in London and Manchester supporting global brands, agencies and studios to produce high-end film, TV, and commercial content, with partners including HBO, Netflix, and Dior, said: “In today’s economic climate, scaleups are critical to national resilience. Businesses like ours are already exporting, employing at scale, and generating significant revenue, yet the policy and funding focus still leans heavily towards startups. My experience scaling LS Productions has shown me that growth at this level requires more than ambition, it demands access to senior talent, digital capability, and international market infrastructure.” “The creative industries in particular are often underestimated, despite being powerful drivers of IP, inward investment, and global competitiveness. If we want the economy to thrive, we need to back the companies that are already delivering measurable impact.” ScaleUp Institute Female Founder Scottish Index 2026 ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ew95eiKM Pathways Forward
1 Comment
Explore collaborative articles
We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
Explore More