Martin Glenn
Brand and marketing functions sit one layer below the executive table in most large organisations, briefed on strategy rather than setting it. The cost shows up later, in tired propositions, slow growth, and turnarounds that arrive too late. Boards need leaders who can hold a P&L and rebuild a brand at the same time, and treat the two as one job.
Martin Glenn is a former CEO of The Football Association, PepsiCo UK and Ireland, Birds Eye Iglo and United Biscuits, who helps boards use brand and marketing as the engine of commercial growth and cultural change.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Martin Glenn
- He has run the P&L at four large consumer businesses and a national governing body, so brand arguments arrive with operator credibility, not agency theory.
- The Walkers story is a working case study, not an anecdote: he took share from roughly 30 percent to over 60 percent and built the Lineker campaign that still defines the category.
- He has done the hard version of culture change at the FA, including a 40 percent revenue lift and a record commitment to women’s football, while the senior England teams reached the 2018 World Cup semi-final.
- He led the United Biscuits turnaround through to a clean exit to Yildiz Holdings in 2014, which gives boards the rare combination of brand instinct and a private-equity-grade financial outcome.
- He is one of the few UK CEOs to have reached the top through marketing, which makes him useful when a board needs to rewire how the marketing function is positioned and resourced.
- He chairs PGMOL through one of the most publicly scrutinised reform programmes in English sport, and chaired Chapel Down through its admission to AIM and 2025 strategic review.
Biography highlights
- Former Chief Executive of The Football Association, 2015 to 2019.
- Former CEO of United Biscuits, Birds Eye Iglo, and President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland.
- Architect of the Walkers crisps growth story, including the Gary Lineker advertising campaign.
- Chair of Professional Game Match Officials Limited since January 2024, the body that runs every referee in English professional football; Chair of the Football Foundation since 2020.
- Former Chair of Chapel Down Group, England’s largest winemaker, 2020 to 2025; oversaw the company’s admission to AIM in December 2023.
- Author of “The Best Job in the World”; President of The Marketing Society, 2014 to 2017; PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford.
Biography
Walkers was a regional crisps brand in 1992. By the time Martin Glenn finished with it, it held more than 60 percent of the UK market and the Gary Lineker campaign had become the longest running advertising property in the country. That growth story is the spine of his career and the reason boards still bring him in.
He spent fifteen years at PepsiCo, ending as President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, before moving into private equity as CEO of Birds Eye Iglo and then United Biscuits, which he sold to Yildiz Holdings in December 2014. Each role asked the same question in a different setting: how do you grow a mature consumer business when distribution is solved and the next point of share has to come from the brand.
In 2015 he answered a different version of the question at The Football Association. Over four seasons he restructured the organisation, oversaw a 40 percent rise in revenue, put a record investment behind the women’s game, and worked on the culture at St George’s Park that fed England’s run to the 2018 World Cup semi-final. He left at the end of the 2018-19 season into a portfolio of board roles. As Chair of Chapel Down from 2020 to 2025 he refocused the business onto premium sparkling wine and took it through its admission to AIM in December 2023. Since January 2024 he has chaired Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the body responsible for every referee in English professional football, helping the executive modernise an organisation that operates under permanent public scrutiny. He also chairs the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sports charity.
He is a PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford, a former President of The Marketing Society, and the author of “The Best Job in the World”, which sets out the Walkers playbook in detail. The through-line is unusual: a CEO who came up through marketing and treats brand as the operating system of the business rather than a downstream function.
Key speaking topics
- Brand-led growth in mature consumer markets
- Marketing as a route to general management
- Turnarounds and private equity exits
- Culture change inside national institutions
- The CEO operating model for FMCG businesses
- Leading governance reform under public scrutiny
Ideal for
- CMOs, CEOs and boards in FMCG, retail and consumer health weighing brand investment against margin pressure.
- Chairs and CEOs of sports bodies, federations and member organisations facing structural reform.
- Private equity portfolio companies preparing for a brand-led value creation plan or exit.
- Senior marketing leaders being positioned for general management or P&L roles.
Audience outcomes
- A clear view of how brand investment shows up in market share and enterprise value, drawn from the Walkers and United Biscuits numbers.
- A working model for the marketer-to-CEO transition, including what marketing leaders typically have to unlearn.
- A candid account of leading culture change inside a national institution under public scrutiny.
- Specific lessons on turnaround sequencing, from cost discipline through to brand reinvestment and exit.