Gareth Turner is the former Head of Marketing at Weetabix, where he oversaw the long-term brand strategy for the nation’s favourite cereal.  He has over 23 years’ experience working within food and drink and has also had the pleasure of leading the marketing for household name brands like John Smith’s, Bulmers, Lurpak, and Arla in local and global roles.  He’s passionate about working with organisations with a long term, strategic approach to brand building, mixed with a good dash of bravery.

Now Gareth runs Big Black Door, a marketing consultancy which offers senior marketing leadership experience to businesses who want to supercharge their growth.

Career highlights (so far) include buying a racehorse for John Smith’s to bring their Grand National sponsorship to life, new product launches like Bulmers fruit ciders and the partnership between the FA senior men’s and women’s teams and Weetabix.   In 2021 Gareth’s team unleashed the multi award winning “Beanz on Bix” on the world and broke the internet in the process.

Since leaving Weetabix, Gareth has worked with household name brand teams like Coop, Birdseye (Nomad Foods) and Kingsmill (Allied Bakeries) to mentor their marketing leaders.  He has also worked with scale-up, challenger brands like Mighty Drinks and Spoon Cereals to bring structure to  and improve their marketing, and is now a Non-Executive Director for Route, a media agency based in Newcastle.

Gareth frequently shares his marketing perspectives on LinkedIn and in his email newsletter.  Subjects he is especially passionate about include the benefits of a productive, more respectful relationship between agencies and clients, and how to enable bolder marketing in your business.