Top of the game
With over 20 years’ experience across a range of commercial, category, marketing and business development roles, Charlotte Cox is ready to tackle the challenges of Teamsports as the newly appointed Brand Director of both Canterbury and Mitre.
Charlotte’s first taste of Pentland was in a marketing role for Kickers, following completion of her marketing degree at the University of Central Lancashire. After broadening her experience elsewhere, she returned to the business as Vice President for Strategic Customers and led the strategy and team delivering double-digit sales growth across both footwear and active divisions globally. Now, four months in as Teamsports Brand Director, she’s keen to get more people on and off the pitch wearing and using Canterbury and Mitre. With the opportunity to look through both the consumer and commercial lenses, she’s motivated to deliver results with the support of her spirited team.
‘Win together, lose together, no passengers, no heroes’
Playing for a 5-a-side football team growing up, competitive sports have always had a presence in Charlotte’s life. Thriving in an environment where every member of a team performs as one on a mission to win, Charlotte felt a natural affinity to Pentland’s Teamsports division.
“What motivates me is to make an impact, turn something from nothing and make it better than it was. There’s no more personal satisfaction of that than when you’re on a winning team. I like winning and I like the feeling of winning, the respect and pride in people’s eyes when they look at each other and think, ‘we did this together, we achieved this’. So I would definitely say I had natural gravitation towards the remit of Teamsports. It brings the biggest challenge, the biggest opportunity and is the one where I have the biggest pull to the brands.”
Charlotte recently shared her vision for Canterbury and how it plans to be an unmissable brand at the Rugby World Cup next year. Her message echoes that of her personal mantra: ‘win together, lose together, no passengers, no heroes’.
Right to play
Driven by her personal mantra pinned on the wall above her desk, Charlotte is clear in her goals, and delivering the 3-5 year plan for Canterbury is at the top of her agenda. A transformation for Mitre is on the horizon too, taking learnings from the rugby brand. This year Mitre won a three-year partnership with the FA which Charlotte hopes will inspire a new generation to connect with the brand and recognise Mitre as the category leader in footballs.
“The role that the FA cup plays for us is in broadening the appeal of the Mitre brand to a younger target market. It’ll be interesting to think about what we can do differently for this audience.”
A positive opportunity
There’s a lot to look forward to for Canterbury and Mitre, and Charlotte and her new team are working and learning together to make the best decisions for their brands. Alongside successfully delivering the brand plans, a more personal goal for Charlotte is to support the Pentland Diversity and Inclusion plan. Championing the female agenda and sponsoring female talent is also a high priority for her over the next 12 months.
“I’m really passionate about diversity of thought as I’ve seen the impact of having better output from people having a more diverse thought process. It requires more effort, but the benefit outweighs the effort you put in and it becomes a natural way of working. The challenge is, how do we get the diversity and inclusion at the same time?
“I currently mentor females in the consumer function who have been identified as high potentials. This is something really important to me and I want to take the opportunity, when sat in this seat, to do something really positive.”
