#Newsmaker: Sharon Keith settles in as marketing director at Heineken SA

Sharon Keith, marketing director for Heineken SA

Congratulations on your new appointment! How are you settling into the Heineken South Africa team?

Thank you! This is my third week on the job, and it’s been a whirlwind of meeting people, visiting the trade, and getting to grips with the business. Everyone has been very welcoming, and the energy is very positive. Very exciting and interesting so far. And of course, it’s great to be back in the office and to see people in person, even if we’re still adopting a hybrid office/remote working approach.

What does your new role entail?

My role has a little of everything in it – leadership, collaboration, teamwork, capability, consumer and customer insights, brand and category understanding, market mapping and segmentation, strategy, positioning, idea generation, executional excellence, brilliant basics!

Sharon Keith: new Heineken South Africa marketing director

26 Jan 2022

What excites you most about taking on this role?

The opportunity to work on amazing brands in a really great business with lots of challenges and opportunities everywhere we look.

Did you miss working in the alcohol sector?

I love consumer marketing – and I think I missed that over the last three years – but I did learn a lot about B2B marketing during my time in financial services. A lot of my experience base is in beverages – from tea and coffee to soft drinks and of course alcoholic beverages, so this is familiar territory.

Have you previously worked with Heineken in any capacity?

Yes, as marketing director during my Brandhouse days, we formed a joint venture between Diageo, Heineken and Namibia Breweries.

What do you love most about your career, the industry and what you do?

Every day is different. There’s always something new happening somewhere – new problems to solve, new insights to uncover, new ideas to bring to life. I’m incurably curious, so that suits me well. I’m intrigued by the fields of behavioural economics and neuroscience – I love to look at how people behave and figure out what drives them to behave in the way they do.

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What approach will you take in your role as marketing director going forward?

Large dollops of connection, curiosity and courage, and a lot of listening.

Will you be jumping right in to work on any current campaigns or will you be creating new campaigns from scratch?

I’m not going to try to fix anything that isn’t broken. But probably that means we will keep some of the projects and campaigns that are working well for us and look to evolve the ones that need a little bit of renovation or innovation.

What can we expect to see from Heineken SA in 2022?

I can’t possibly jump the gun on what’s planned – all will be revealed in the fullness of time…