Keith Weed

Keith Weed
Born	United Kingdom
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Liverpool University
Occupation	CMCO of Unilever
Title	Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Term	2010-present

Keith Weed, born in 1961, is Unilever's CMCO, responsible for the marketing and communications functions, a role which also includes leadership of Unilever's sustainability agenda and the Unilever corporate brand. He has held this role since 2010.^[1] Before this he was Unilever's Head of Global Home Care & Hygiene.^[2]

Education

Weed obtained a Bachelor of Engineering with First Class Honours from Liverpool University in 1983.^[3] In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Southampton Solent University recognising his contributions to business.^[4]

Career

Weed worked as an engineer after graduating university before joining Unilever in 1983 as a marketer. Throughout his career at Unilever, he has been chairman of Lever Fabergé and chairman of Unilever Export.^[5] He has worked for Unilever in the UK, France, the United States, both in global and regional roles across general management and marketing.^[6] More recently he was global head of Home Care & Hygiene, covering Fabric Cleaning, Fabric Conditioning, Household Cleaning Products, Oral Care and Portable Water.^[7] As Unilever's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Weed is on Unilever's executive board with the Marketing, Communications and Sustainable Business teams reporting to him.

Since becoming CMCO, Weed has pioneered new ways of integrating sustainability in business and led the creation of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan ^[8]. Weed dissolved Unilever's Corporate Social Responsibility department ^[9] and has integrated sustainable growth throughout Unilever’s business. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan ^[10] seeks to grow the business while reducing its environmental footprint and increasing its social impact. In 2014, Weed gave a TED Talk about the global issue of climate change and argues that sustainability and economic growth can go hand-in-hand.^[11].

Weed has also directed significant advances in digital ^[12] and influencer ^[13] marketing and technologies within Unilever, championing the 3Vs of Viewability, Verification and Value across the industry. He is committed to tackling stereotypes - gender and beyond - in advertising through Unilever's #Unstereotype ^[14] initiative and is the architect behind the #Unstereotype Alliance ^[15], co-created with UN Women, bringing together 24 companies to remove the portrayal of unhelpful stereotypes from their advertising by 2020.

In 2016 Weed was LinkedIn's second most influential writer on the platform in the UK.^[16]

In 2017, he was voted as the Marketers Marketer of the Year by Campaign readers. ^[17] He was also voted Global Marketer of the Year 2017 by the World Federation of Advertisers ^[18].

Weed was named the World's Most Influential CMO in 2018 and 2017 by Forbes. ^{[19] [20]}.

In 2018 Weed also received The Drum's Lifetime Achievement Award ^[21] and featured in the Top 50 Financial Times HERoes list as a Champion of Women in Business ^[22].

Outside Unilever, Weed is the President of the Advertising Association ^[23], a fellow of The Marketing Society, of which he was president from 2003 to 2006, and is a fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.  He was a non-executive director of Sun Products Corporation from 2008 to 2016.^[24] He is currently Chairman of Business in the Community International, a board of trustees director for Business in the Community ^[25], a Board Director of the Effies.^[26] and a trustee of Grange Park Opera ^[27].

References