Steve Paler

Experience

• 

  Infocheck (bought by Equifax)

  Sept 1993 - Jan 1995

  Sales Rep

  Lots of driving around southern England in a blue Vauxhall Cavalier demoing one of the very first 'dial-up' company credit checking systems (it's now called Equifax). Modems at this time were external and battery powered, the world wide web was relatively unknown, I was Compuserve UK's 12,000th subscriber and none of my friends had email addresses. Life was simple back then.

• 

  Digital Network Publishing

  Jan 1995 - Jan 1997

  Founder

  I co-founded and ran (albeit rather naively) my own tiny digital creative agency. Proudest moment was winning a £50k website design & build contract which was massive for us. Charlie where are you now?

• 

  Wheel (LBi)

  Jan 1997 - Jan 2000

  Senior Account Manager

  Developed and executed digital marketing strategies for clients such as Abbey National (now Santander) and Dr Martens.

• 

  BlueWave Computing - now a Onepath company

  Jan 2000 - Jan 2002

  Account Director

  Developed and executed digital marketing strategies for clients such as Lloydstsb, Unilever Flora and Gist.

• 

  Twentysix London

  Jan 2003 - Jan 2006

  Group Account Director

  Developed and executed digital marketing strategies for clients such as RBS, Gillette, Swatch and Exel / DHL (best account ever!).

• 

  Tangozebra

  Jan 2006 - Jul 2008

  Client Services Director (Creative Team)

  Re-positioned from twentysix to Director role at Tangozebra, both companies were part of the Media Square Group at the time.

• 

  Google

  Jul 2008 - Jul 2019

  I managed an unruly bunch of senior digital evangelists who help our biggest advertising clients exploit the full creative potential of Google | YouTube platforms. Working with brands and their creative / media agencies our core responsibilities revolve around creative innovation that extends the effectiveness of global ad campaigns, brand building strategies, technical implementation and preaching platform best practice. Managing a team of Advertising Program Managers within Google's creative team (The Zoo), main responsibilities were to identify significant branding opportunities, lead creative response teams and report upsell / uplift effects. Numerous clients include P&G and Unilever (multiple brands), activities covered keynote speaking at client digital events, strategic campaign planning for branding clients, implementation consultation and agency liaison.

  • Head of Creative Services EMEA (aka the ZOO)

    Jun 2010 - Jul 2019

  • APM Team Lead, Creative Services EMEA

    Jul 2008 - Jun 2010
• 

  Bacardi

  Sept 2019 - now

  It's easy to say 'consumer at the heart' but it's bloody hard to do it....and do it properly. I'm honoured and excited to be unleashing new consumer experience frameworks and Design Thinking practices that are having profound and far reaching effects across Bacardi's culture, planning process, creative briefing, technology choices and learning programs. It's not really digital transformation, more like business transformation and I'm one hell of a lucky sod to be part of this phenomenal team. That's only half the story of course, it takes amazing people who are open minded and thirsty for change. Bravo Bacardi! Show less

  • Director - Bacardi X

    Jan 2023 - now

  • Director of Digital Transformation

    Sept 2019 - Jan 2023