A shot of teamwork chased with inspiration

Sharon Keith is a busy woman. Our first conversation is set for 1pm Jo'burg time — 6am in New York. A morning meeting intervenes and the chat is postponed for a week, to the only gap in her diary for a while.

Keith was part of the team that set up brandhouse, a sales and marketing company that boasts brands such as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, J&B, Bells, Windhoek, Heineken, Captain Morgan and Jose Cuervo. Now she is global brand director for Bailey & Co, home of Baileys Original Irish Cream Liquor.

Brandhouse, which is almost four years old, is a joint venture between Diageo, Heineken and Namibia Breweries.

The three international alcohol firms have just announced a new joint venture that will market beer and alcoholic flavoured beverages — an initiative that is set to build on brandhouse's initial successes.

Brandhouse owes its existence to a spark of an idea: what if the three companies joined forces to market their brands through a single company and broaden their reach in the South African market?

“I didn't do it by myself,” Keith says; brandhouse, like many important projects in which she has been involved, was a group effort.

Launching brandhouse was “no small undertaking”. It required building a new corporate identity, finding a name and giving that name meaning, putting an organisational structure together and getting the company up and running.

A ‘series of moments'

Choosing a name proved challenging. The group entertained and discarded thousands of ideas before deciding on “brandhouse”, she says.

It was an “incredible learning experience” she will always treasure, and one she says taught her much about herself.

Keith says her career has been a “series of moments”, both highs and lows. She says she has been fortunate to work with many inspiring people during her career.

Keith loves “working within iconic global brands”. After graduating from the University of Natal with a Bachelor of Commerce, she started her working life as a graduate trainee with Unilever, and then spent seven years with the company in a series of marketing and human resource roles in the food and beverage division.

Keith went on to complete an MBA at the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town before working for Deloitte & Touche and then Coca-Cola.

In 2002, she joined Guinness as marketing director for SA, and it was while in this position that she was involved in starting up brandhouse.

After the launch of the joint venture, Keith stayed on as marketing director until the end of 2006, when she was promoted to her current position, which meant relocating to Dublin.

Teamwork starts in school

She looks after the world's seventh-largest premium spirit brand and one of Diageo's global priority brands. She has been tasked with developing strategy for Baileys, and heads up a team of marketing and commercial directors to in order to achieve this.

Keith's fondness for teamwork — without which she believes little can be achieved — could stem from school sport, which she says teaches young people the value of working with others. And teamwork, Keith says, is an important part of her success. “Nobody works as an island, in isolation.”

In addition to globetrotting for work, Keith “really likes travelling and exploring new countries”. Fortunately, she can sometimes tack a few days on to a business trip and do some sightseeing. “It gets very boring if all you do is work,” she says.

Keith also makes time for sport. Being in Dublin meant she could squeeze in a few Rugby World Cup games last year.

“I think I've watched a lot more rugby games than is actually good for somebody.” Keith also plays golf — badly, she says — and runs with more enthusiasm than speed, but enjoys both.

She says her heart remains in SA, along with her mom, and she travels home to visit family and friends when she can.

Big plans

Keith says she did not set out in life with clear-cut goals, but rather has worked hard in each position to get noticed, which has allowed her to work at well-known multinationals.

She has big plans for Baileys, and wants to make sure the cream liqueur becomes accessible to a broader market, firm in the belief that if people taste the product, they will love it.

To implement her “big” plans, Keith will have a little help from something she learnt in SA: listen to what the people on the ground are saying.

“People closest to the action have a much better perspective than someone sitting in a head office somewhere,” she says.

Being in charge of a global brand is not about everything being tidy, but about letting each region tailor a strategy to meet it at its level.

A year into her three-year contract, it's time to get down to brass tacks and make a difference to Baileys before looking at the next challenge.

“I don't want to write down where I'll be in three or five years' time,” she says. But, at some point, she is sure her path will lead back to SA, where Keith still maintains a home in Cape Town. “SA is a growing place,” she says. “And with growth, come growing pains.”

Source: Business Day

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