I help ambitious organisations find the opportunity others miss, create a strategy people can act on, and build the alignment needed to make change happen.
Available for senior leadership roles, advisory work and speaking.
What I bring
I connect cultural insight, commercial strategy and creative possibility—then make the complex clear enough for people to move.
About Sandra
For more than 20 years, I have helped organisations find sharper growth opportunities and turn strategic thinking into change.
My experience spans client-side leadership and agency strategy, working globally with brands including Red Bull, Bacardi, Bombay Sapphire, Grey Goose, Mars and M&M’s. Today I am UK Partner at Spikes, founder of Brand Behaviour Business, an executive coach, and an Executive PhD researcher at Bayes Business School.
The thread through all of it is a fascination with the gap between what people intend and what they actually do—and the possibility that appears when those two things become coherent.
Work with me
For organisations that need sharper thinking, stronger alignment and an experienced leader who can turn strategy into action.
I lead planning and strategy functions, strengthen senior client relationships, and build the teams, frameworks and operating models that turn creative ambition into growth.
Explore my careerI help senior teams solve high-value questions across brand transformation, positioning, innovation, customer experience and AI-enabled growth.
Discuss a challengeI bring evidence, commercial experience and a provocative point of view to leadership teams and audiences exploring brand, behaviour, customer emotion and AI.
View speaking themesClient perspective
“I worked with Sandra as a strategic consultant on a significant business project, where she partnered with my team to develop and shape our community strategy. Throughout the engagement, she provided clear strategic and marketing guidance, combining strong brand thinking with commercial acumen to ensure recommendations were both inspiring and practical.
Sandra has an exceptional ability to take a complex brief, quickly understand the underlying business challenge, and translate it into clear, actionable plans. She combines strategic insight with practical execution, making her an invaluable advisor for businesses and leadership teams.”
“An insightful, creative and strategic business partner, Sandra helped us figure out a complex and, at times, seemingly irreconcilable challenge, with a beautifully simple, elegant solution. A thoughtful straight talker whose advice we value.”
“Sandra is the best kind of thought partner you could ask. Her thinking and work are fresh yet intuitive, connecting the dots to reveal a compelling way forward. She is one of the most capable strategists I’ve ever worked with.”
“Sandra was a joy to work with as we built our brand strategy and positioning, helping us get to a really strong and fresh proposition. She brings relevant insights into the work and articulates it all in a very simple manner.”
Speaking & conversations
Provocative, practical sessions for leadership teams, boards and audiences navigating brand growth, customer experience, AI and organisational change.
Current thinking
Why coherent behaviour—not another layer of messaging—is becoming the strategic advantage in an AI-shaped world.
Read moreHow FMCG brands can create more value by thinking beyond the product and designing a wider system of meaningful interactions.
Read moreA growing body of thinking on how leaders shape brand meaning, organisational coherence and commercial resilience.
Read moreMy doctoral work is developing Brand Behaviour as a clearer strategic construct: the actions attributed to a brand that build meaning over time. It brings academic rigour to a question I have explored throughout my career—why some organisations turn an idea into coherent action, while others remain trapped in the gap between what they say and what they do.
Read the thinkingCareer history
Across brand-side leadership, global portfolio roles, creative agencies, consulting and research, the question has stayed remarkably consistent: how does an idea become something people can see, feel and act on?
Spikes GmbH · London
Established and lead the UK business for Excitement Points®, turning a database of 750,000+ emotional moments into brand positioning, innovation and commercial activation. Partner with enterprise organisations including Vodafone and E.ON, advise senior leaders, and build CMO thought-leadership networks around brand, AI and customer experience.
Jones Knowles Ritchie · London
Led the strategic partnership with Mars Inc. across categories, markets and business units. Directed global positioning, portfolio and innovation programmes spanning M&M’s, Pedigree and The National Lottery, while leading multidisciplinary strategy teams across three continents.
We Are Superhuman · London
Founded an insight consultancy focused on underserved cultural and commercial opportunities around women in midlife. Developed the internationally syndicated Invisible Middle platform and advised brands including Hearst and Neal’s Yard Remedies on relevance, repositioning and growth.
The Moment Content Company · London
Helped transform a production company into an award-winning content agency. Managed a 10+ person strategy team across clients including Kenco, HSBC and Continental Tyres, and helped win more than £5m in new business through content-led innovation.
Bacardi Global Brands · London
Directed global experience and communications across the premium spirits portfolio. Built integrated physical, digital and service ecosystems, including Bombay Sapphire’s Imagination Series—an 11.5m organic-view, BAFTA-winning campaign.
Red Bull UK · London
Led culturally driven brand and experience strategy contributing to double-digit growth and UK market leadership. Created Red Bull Bedroom Jam, which achieved 30% awareness among UK music youth in its first year.
Henley Centre HeadlightVision · London
Built and scaled the consultancy’s Youth Culture offer. Led Nokia’s three-year Global Youth Lifestyle programme, shaping its innovation pipeline, and facilitated insight-led innovation for Diageo.
Selected public impact
These examples are drawn only from work already documented in my CV and public sources. They reflect collaborative work; my role is stated carefully rather than implying sole authorship.
Some of my most representative work is commercially confidential. I maintain a private portfolio of anonymised assignments and can discuss relevant examples in confidence.Part of a long-term strategic partnership spanning categories, markets and business units. The public M&M’s identity gave the ampersand renewed meaning as a device for connection—creating a distinctive idea that could stretch from product to culture.
A globally visible identity system designed for consistent use across markets.
Led the global launch activation for the Untameable Since 1862 repositioning. I developed Casa Bacardi as the brand’s global experiential platform, rolled out across more than 20 markets, and created The Spirit of Bacardi campaign with writer Warren Ellis and artist Michael Allred—bringing the family’s Cuban heritage to life through a graphic novel, film content and PR.
A connected global platform spanning positioning, experience, storytelling and influence, recognised by PRWeek, BIMA and the SABRE Awards.
A global film platform inviting emerging filmmakers to interpret one script by Academy Award-winning writer Geoffrey Fletcher. My role sat within the wider collaborative team that connected the brand’s idea of imagination to a real opportunity for creative talent.
Winning short Room 8 received the 2014 BAFTA for British Short Film.
An original insight platform exploring the disconnect between the confidence experienced by women in midlife and their representation in culture and marketing. It gave organisations a more useful lens on an underserved, commercially important audience.
The research became a syndicated platform, public commentary and industry conversation.
A youth-music platform that let emerging bands upload their work, build a following, perform live from their bedrooms and earn opportunities on major festival stages. It translated Red Bull’s role in culture into participation rather than sponsorship.
The platform ran for multiple seasons and expanded beyond the UK.
My businesses
Three connected businesses applying my thinking across brand behaviour, emotional insight and leadership.
Turning brand strategy into explicit behaviour—so what an organisation does builds the meaning, trust and growth its leaders intend.
Helping senior leaders understand the patterns shaping their impact, and turn insight into more intentional leadership behaviour.
Identifying the moments that genuinely excite customers—and translating emotion into sharper experience choices and commercial value.
The right opportunity starts with a conversation
For senior strategy and planning roles, speaking, advisory work or consulting engagements, email me directly or connect on LinkedIn.