Lessons Learned: Alessandra Bellini, Chief Customer Officer, Tesco
In our ‘Lessons Learned’ series, we profile professionals to aspire to, collating and sharing their stories, experience and words of wisdom. Here at Suzie Walker Executive Search, we encourage leaders and future leaders to learn from others in order to inspire and guide their own journeys.
We hope that Alessandra’s story inspires you as much as it has inspired us.
About Alessandra
Alessandra joined Tesco in 2017 after 20 years at Unilever. She joined Tesco as Chief Customer Officer during its reinvention under CEO, Dave Lewis, and became President of the Advertising Association in October 2021, leading its mission to ‘promote the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy’.
She began her career at JWT Milan and worked in advertising for 12 years in Italy and the UK. At Unilever, Alessandra held board-level positions in marketing and general management. She is also the Chair of Teens Unite, a charity supporting those in their teens and early 20s who are fighting cancer.
Career highlights
In 2019, Alessandra won the Marketing Week Masters Marketer of the Year award. In the lead up to this, Alessandra overhauled Tesco’s own-brand ranges, focussing on quality and customer needs at different price points. It was all about value. The Clubcard loyalty scheme also went through a refresh with member pricing and subscriptions introduced.
This was the groundwork needed for Tesco to reinvigorate its brand campaigns, after a particularly difficult period. It launched a campaign that focussed on value, and its ‘Food Love Stories’ campaign focussed on its passion for food. According to the YouGov Brand Index data, reported in Marketing Week, Tesco’s quality, value and overall brand perceptions returned to 2011 levels, following these campaigns.
This is just one example in a successful career that has spanned decades and it certainly highlights Alessandra’s passion for championing the customer and growing brands.
Words of wisdom
“Customer is a bit bigger than marketing. It is about really having the courage of listening to customers and looking brutally at the reality of what they say, taking it in and working on it and being relevant.”
“Humility is really important because if you don’t listen, being very big can make you very arrogant. Humility has to be a built-in quality.”
“I just like to observe what people do, how they shop, what choices they make and what brands they have. I look at that and think about it all the time.”
What others say
“Alessandra Bellini is obsessed with marketing. When she’s not doing what she’s paid to do as Tesco’s Chief Customer Officer, she’s thinking about it: she’s looking at what people put in their trollies and cupboards, what they eat and checking out restaurant kitchens.”
Ellen Hammett, Marketing Week
“Her strategic guidance on issues of key importance facing the industry will be invaluable as we look to build our ‘All In’ work on inclusion, as well as push forward with support for Ad Net Zero, to ensure our workforce is best-equipped to respond to the climate crisis. It is a crucial time for the industry, as we face many challenges in the form of upcoming Government legislation on gambling, along with a review into online advertising – all of this tempered with rising digital adspend.”
Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive, Advertising Association
If you feel inspired by Alessandra’s story and ready to move towards the next stage in your career, please get in touch or connect with us/send a message on LinkedIn.
With warmest regards,
the Suzie Walker Executive Search team
Sources:
https://www.tescoplc.com/about/board-board-committees-and-executive-committee/executive-committee
https://www.forbes.com/sites/martyswant/2021/09/29/worlds-most-influential-cmos-2021/?sh=60a2ff4c4b55
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandra-bellini-b004691
https://adassoc.org.uk/our-work/tescos-chief-customer-officer-alessandra-bellini-becomes-advertising-association-president/
https://www.marketingweek.com/tescos-customer-bigger-marketing/
https://www.marketingweek.com/alessandra-bellini-marketer-of-the-year-2019
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