David Gates

• Company Overview: Direct Wines is the world’s largest Direct-to-Consumer wine business with businesses in the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. It has revenues of £425m, a customer base of 925,000 and a workforce of over 1,100 people.
• Beat budget for every year as CEO, delivering record profits during the Pandemic years and on track to deliver EBITDA growth of 20% this fiscal.
• Created a new growth strategy which focuses on step changing the brand, diversifying the customer base, transforming the overall customer experience, simplifying the structure and growing margins.
• Introduced a new talent & development programme and drove a successful digital transformation programme.
• Successfully dealt with a major cyber attack in November 2023 and implemented enhanced security measures after recovery.
• Already seeing evidence of this new strategy delivering results with the Laithwaites UK brand building campaign winning IPA Effectiveness awards in 2024 and a step change in SEO delivery.
• Direct Wines is the world’s largest Direct-to-Consumer wine business with businesses in the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. It has revenues of £425m, a customer base of 925,000 and a workforce of over 1,100 people.

Working with fellow Governors and the Executive team to successfully navigate the strategic & commercial challenges post VAT increases for private sector

Advising on global business expansion plans and marketing strategy

Lecture on marketing and leadership to MBA students & Exec Education programmes

• Recruited to create a full portfolio spirits business to complement BrewDog’s successful beer business.
• Reported directly to the founder & CEO, James Watt and part of the company’s Mission Control executive.
• Accountability for all functions (supply, finance, sales & marketing) through a small team of 12 people.
• Ethos was very much start-up mentality and delivering change at pace.
• Tripled turnover to over £4m through closer strategic alignment to the BrewDog brand, portfolio development extending from 3 to 11 products within 9 months, reducing COG’s and packaging by >35% to hit key consumer price points.

• Leading Diageo’s division tasked with re-imagining the future of the alcohol industry, investing in and partnering with Start Up’s, external partners and entrepreneurs to create that future.
• Focused on ways that the alcohol industry and the way that people socialise could be disrupted by technology & innovation.
• The Corporate Venturing arm of Diageo.

• Heading up Diageo’s key spirits brand portfolio accounting for c.50% of total net sales of the company (over £6BN), including Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan as well as full whisky portfolio.

• Accountable for performance, strategy and brand development for Diageo’s most important category.
• 34 million cases and over £3Bn NSV.
• Consistent delivery of strong single digit growth in 3 consecutive years and gaining market share in all category segments.
• Drove transformation through a visionary & inspiring category first approach with customers and retailers while successfully creating a codified growth model for Scotch whisky to Diageo Board securing an additional GBP107m investment.
• Created Haig Club innovation and negotiated contract with David Beckham as brand partner having codified key success factors for celebrity partnerships.
• As Senior member of Diageo global MLT (Marketing Leadership Team) helped establish a new training standard for marketing in the digital age; talent management & capability development across the total global marketing community.
• Highest individual Net Promoter Score within Diageo’s Senior Leadership group in Diageo Values Survey.

• Delivered double digit NSV growth and gained market share in 12 out of 16 key battlegrounds, while delivering over GBP 1.6Bn of revenue.
• Responsible for creating award winning creative including a Gold Lion in Cannes, a hugely successful innovation pipeline and strong activation of F1 sponsorship platform with Mercedes McLaren.

Accountable for full marketing and business performance across Diageo's Asia region.

Held a series of global and local marketing roles in Brazil, The Netherlands and Japan.