NatWest Group

Research Consultant

Noggin The Brain People

🧠 Noggin The Brain People 🧠

Sainsbury's Bank

Head of Research, Planning & Brand

Head of Propositions & Innovation

Head of Customer Insight & Innovation

The Marketing Society Scotland

Chair Of Marketing Society Scotland

Heineken UK

Head Of CMI (Consumer & Market Intelligence)

Category Insights Controller

PepsiCo Intl

Consumer Insights For All PepsiCo Portfolio Of Beverage Brands across Western & Eastern Europe

European Consumer & Market Insights Director

PepsiCo

Worked on creating new International Trademarks for PepsiCo to play in exciting growing Asian beverage categories e.g. Healthy Whites (RTD Soymilk/Drinking Yoghurts) in China, India, Vietnam & Thailand.

Asia Regional Innovation Insights Manager

Quorn Foods

Consumer & market insights for the Quorn brand.

Consumer Insight Manager

Procter & Gamble

Consumer & Product Researcher Working In Skin Beauty Care (Oil Of Olay).

Products Research

🧠 Noggin - helping improve the cognitive health of the nation 🧠 | P&G | PepsiCo | Heineken | Sainsbury's |

I have over 25 years of insight, marketing, and innovation leadership experience in FMCG and FS sectors, I know, I don't look THAT old.

I've enjoyed working for some of the world's leading brands in various categories (health & beauty, food & beverages & financial services) and regions, delivering impactful consumer and market intelligence, brand strategy, and product innovation. My time spent working on Oil Of Olay made me my mum's favourite son.

Currently, I'm a research consultant at NatWest Group, where I'm supporting the bank's customer, technology and data-driven approach to enhancing its products and services. 

I'm a co-founder at Noggin The Brain People, on a mission to improve the cognitive health of the nation & founding investor in Gutzy Organic which makes having a healthy, happy gut, fun and easy. Active investor in the technology & health & wellness arena.

I'm a former chair and current fellow of the Marketing Society in Scotland.

Mick Doran

'What we fail to notice quietly shapes what we fail to do.'


My latest What I Underlined book review The Marketing Society Scotland

https://lnkd.in/e8UKwjqZ

#discovery #useyournoggin #marketing

We need to anticipate better.



It was Drucker who said "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday's logic"

And if we're honest, lots of us are doing just this. 

I have an ask / request .... 

What's shaped your thinking on this?

Books, courses, people to follow, tools you actually use for strategic foresight?

Drop them below. I'll compile everything and share it back.

Thank you in advance, please share as I'd like to get a diverse viewpoint. 🙏🏽


#StrategicForesight #FuturesThinking #UsingYourNoggin

Credibility is overrated. Seriously. 

#nofluff #training #2026goals

If work feels exhausting, it’s probably not because you’re working too hard.


But it might be because your brain never gets to switch off.

Most corporate work doesn’t tire people out with effort.

It tires them out with constant cognition. Think about it ....

Notifications.

Messages.

Decisions that feel almost too small to matter, but never stop coming.

We’ve seem to have built jobs that demand continuous attention without recovery, and then act surprised when people feel drained by mid-afternoon.

Our noggins didn’t evolve for that.

They work best in bursts .... focus, effort, rest, and ready to go again.

Work used to have more boundaries, but now it just leaks into everything.

Somewhere along the way, most also confused being busy with doing good thinking.

Fast replies.

Full calendars.

Visible responsiveness.

But clarity comes from giving the appropriate space to THINKING.

Many organisational systems are optimised for efficiency and scale. Not a bad thing mind.

However, let's not forget that human brains need context, meaning and recovery.

When those don’t line up, the system might keep running but the people absorb the cost.

Which is why so many well intentioned fixes fall flat.

We tell people to be more resilient.

We add wellbeing initiatives on top of overloaded days.

We introduce new tools that promise efficiency and quietly add another layer of 'mental noise'.

The organisations doing better are taking a different approach.

They’re reducing unnecessary decisions.

Protecting thinking time.

Simplifying priorities.

Rewarding clarity, not constant availability.

Because recovery shouldn't be an afterthought.

It’s a performance input really.

so this year, remember this ....

Burnout isn’t normally a failure of people, it’s a failure of systems....

and Tony Schwartz puts it's brilliantly

The no.1 enemy of performance is not stress. It’s the absence of recovery.

Look after your noggin, so it can look after you.

#productivity #useyournoggin #brainhealth #cognition

Scottish Marketer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Client Services Director at Yatter 🤝 Content Creator at Haim & Awa🍴 Co-Host of SpokeSpeak 🎧 HubSpot Practitioner 🟠 Sustainability 🌱 Runner 🏃‍♂️

I trade in low-fluff marketing and consulting that actually helps you get things done.

In a world where all businesses are being forced to do more with less, I work with ambitious agencies and directly with companies to get their people, processes and platforms working better together.

My background spans start-ups, scale-ups and multinationals, including time spent working at Microsoft and with high-growth agency teams, as well as leading partnerships with global software firms like Google and HubSpot.

I specialise in:

📈 Marketing strategy: cutting waste and linking spend back to revenue

⚙️ Operational efficiency: building connected systems and workflows that scale

🟠 CRM and related applications: focused on HubSpot and integrating performance platforms

I care deeply about sustainability, fairness and using business as a force for good. I believe that when systems run well, people can focus on doing work that really matters.

Outside of work, I’m a lifelong learner with a strong interest in regeneration, psychology and technology. I also love to travel and explore new countries, cultures and cuisines and always appreciate thoughtful conversations about how we live and work today (a bonus if it's accompanied by nice wine!)

If you’re navigating complexity and want your marketing or operations to work harder (and smarter), I’d love to connect.

Adam J. B.

Scottish Marketers 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 can I hear you?

Those who know me, will know my passion for the marketing industry.

I love what I do and I believe unashamedly in the power of marketing to shape hearts and change minds.

And yes, that means being accountable for what we don't do so well, too.

Since coming back to Scotland 8 years ago, I've made it my mission to sing the praises of good marketing and sustainable business growth from as many rooftops as people would allow me to stand on.

That culminated in 2024 with the creation of Scottish Marketers 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 as a community for people in the profession who felt the same way, as well as business leaders who wanted learn more about marketing in a non-salesy environment.

We majored in the regions, having run events in 2019 in Aberdeen, through to our Inverness Hub in the Highlands and Ailsa Stinson's Moray Hub meetups at the wonderful Greenbrae Steading.

The idea was always to reach more marketers and marketing-minded company owners, wherever they may be, to raise the floor and encourage the sharing of best practices, safe in the knowledge that a rising tide lifts all boats ⛵️

Well, you can imagine my delight when last year, I found a kindred spirit. Their name is Susan Carruthers and, in some ways a world away from me in Glasgow, they'd started brewing their own kind of magic.

Same problem, same audience and much bigger, bolder solution!

I was delighted to be invited to speak at The Scottish Marketing Summit's inaugural event in November and since then, to appear at the first "An evening with..." session back in Glasgow this month.

And I'm even more delighted to announce today the next step in uniting the Scottish marketing community for real life practitioners, at all levels: by officially joining forces with SMS moving forward 🥳

For me, this is a "rising tide" in action and the true meaning of "collaboration is greater than competition".

Rather than trying to build two separate communities around the country and at discrete events, we truly are better when we come together: a shared mission, shared values and a shared vision.

And for Scottish marketers and business leaders, a chance to tap into the "greater whole" and deliver on our dream of being better connected to the latest and greatest thinking in marketing, to be inspired and to invest in continuously improving our own work and what we do for our businesses.

So that's that: Scottish Marketers 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 are now formally invited to join The Scottish Marketing Summit community.

The best next step is to follow our social channels and stay tuned for more meetups coming to a town near you: there are 3 planned in the next 2 months! As always, they'll be free at the point of access.

I look forward to connecting with marketing-minded connections old and new and continuing to deliver on my mission as the Regional Ambassador for SMS, long into the future 🙏 

Sound off in the comments and see you soon!

#marketing #community

Scottish Marketer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Speaker & Content Creator 🎙️ Good Business Growth, Inspired By Nature 🌱 Operations and CRM Specialist ⚙️

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Adam J. B.

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The Battle

Mick Doran

Adam J. B.

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mick Doran's LinkedIn Performance

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