Markus Kramer Bio

Markus Kramer
Global Marketing Director
Aston Martin

Aligning Marketing and Business Strategy

Did you know that less than 8% of CEOs have marketing backgrounds, and less than 10% of boardroom discussions are centred around marketing?

In today’s economy, where customers and consumers have more control than ever before, marketing must be driving the direction of business strategy and growth - yet all too often marketers are simply seen as implementers, not decision makers. So whether marketing is already at the heart of board decisions within your organisation, or you are on your journey toward this point, this session allows you to benchmark with your international peers, share best practice, exchange war stories, and test your next moves for better aligning marketing with the wider business. Led by a panel of Board Members, CEOs and CFOs, key issues to be discussed include:

• What can you do to optimise marketing’s influence?
• Do you have to be on the board to ensure your opinion counts?
• What does it take to create and ensure individual accountability?
• Are CFOs really from Mars and CMOs from Venus? How to speak the CFOs language

Markus Kramer Global Marketing Director Aston Martin	Dean van Leeuwen Founder TomorrowToday International
Paul Galligan Managing Director Comparethemarket.com	Russ Shaw Chairman The Marketing Group of Great Britain
Luca Paderni Vice President, Principal Analyst, Marketing Leadership Forrester Research

Markus Kramer (38) is heading up worldwide Marketing for Aston Martin. Based out of the UK, he builds teams and marketing frameworks to enable powerful, consistent and efficient brand delivery in multi market environments.

Previous work spans seven years of brand, marketing and retail network development for the Harley-Davidson Motor Company as well as a number of automotive Marketing, Sales and Retail Network Development positions at other makes.

Markus started his career in architecture. However, Markus realized quickly that houses and buildings become static shells once complete. Markets and Businesses on the other hand are completely dynamic – as are cars! And so Markus decided early on to marry his architectural planning and implementation skills with his passion for the automotive industry.

Besides his architectural background, Markus also holds a federal degree in Marketing Planning & Communications (Switzerland), a degree in International Project Management from the University of California in Berkeley (USA) and an MBA from the SAID Business School at the University of Oxford (UK).

Markus has lived and worked in several countries, is culturally versatile and fluent in five languages. He is Swiss at heart, but lives since 2006 in Oxford with his wife and three young children.