What makes a great marketer?

Bring out your team's intuition, push yourself to work for a troubled brand "where you feel like crying", surround yourself with good people, make yourself the story to help promote your brand, and give yourself and staff time to switch off.

These were just some of the suggestions offered by Dominic Grounsell, marketing director at Capital One; Sarah Speake, strategic marketing director at Google; Thomas Delabriere, marketing director at Innocent; Andrew Warner, senior director of marketing at Expedia, and Phil Rumbol, founder of creative agency 101 and former marketing director at Cadbury.

Each was given 15 minutes to talk about their career in front of a 65-strong audience in a new format of Marketing Society event, held in partnership with business social network LinkedIn, called '5 x 15'.

With Marketing’s editor Noelle McElhatton introducing the speakers, the format produced a compelling variety of career journeys, among them a compelling examination by Dominic Grounsell of how he developed via influences such as a Unilever course that showed him he had to change the way he interacted with people.

Sarah Speake talked eloquently about getting to grips with having been the only woman on an all-male management board and developing an authentic personality at work.

Thomas Delabriere related what he'd learned from handling the "hot potatoes" that have landed in his hands over his time at Innocent, while Expedia's Andrew Warner offered an irreverent take on marketing education and his experience of the early days of internet marketing at Royal Mail and the BBC.

Finally, 101's Phil Rumbol provided an insight into how he changed from being 'Mr Analytical' in his early career at Hovis and Kraft by discovering at Cadbury that "it's emotion that sells brands".

Follow Daniel Farey-Jones on Twitter @danfareyjones

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk