"In a world where consumers are getting busier and have less time to engage, they don’t want to be talked at, they want to be talked with."
Beverley D’Cruz is, for want of a better turn of phrase, incredibly well-travelled. Having only moved to the UK 18 months ago, her 17-year career has taken her from Pakistan to Dubai and Canada for work, and to 37 other countries for play. After studying finance and economics at MIT, it was a chance moment during a Unilever internship in Pakistan which led her to marketing. Having decided that marketing was a lot more dynamic than finance, she pitched herself to the senior team and they agreed to let her try her hand at marketing. Pakistan-born, D’Cruz believes that experiences are essential when it comes to enriching your mind and thus to innovating. For her, travel has provided her with those experiences as, “the more you feed your brain, the richer you are.”
One of my mantras is, if you can lead and you can think, you’ll be able to do it.
Beverley D'Cruz
From Unilever, D’Cruz moved to Yum in Dubai 12 years ago, setting up shop there for five years. After that, Canada came calling and the Marketing Director position occupied her time for a couple of years. When asked if moving countries mattered from a brand perspective, she revealed that “Being part of a global brand means that when you move the brand remains familiar, but you are faced with a new consumer and new challenges.” She was made Ecommerce Director at Pizza Hut which, she admits, was a new challenge for her. Happily, D’Cruz relishes solving complex problem and so set about teaching herself the tricks of the trade. As she reveals, “one of my mantras is, if you can lead and you can think, you’ll be able to do it.” The proudest moment of her career she maintains, is watching the E-commerce business in Canada go from strength to strength, specifically from 9% of the business being online to it now being around 50%.
Being part of a global brand means that when you move the brand remains familiar, but you are faced with a new consumer and new challenges.
Beverley D'Cruz
Eighteen months ago, she arrived in the UK, her two young sons in tow, to take over as Sales and Marketing Director of Pizza Hut and to lead the brand transformation. It’s the brand’s unique culture, she says, that has kept her there for the last 12 years. “It’s an environment where you play hard and work hard,” celebrating everyone’s achievements by recognising their individualities. 2018 was the brand’s most successful year out of the last five in the UK and D’Cruz only hopes to better that starting with the launch of their latest campaign launch from Iris, ‘Now That’s Delivering’. As she says, “the new communication platform is bold, courageous and a bit tongue in cheek.”
It’s clear that D’Cruz’s movement around the world has only served to enhance her working life. She and her husband are avid travelling foodies and make a concerted effort to try every new cuisine when they visit a country. It’s part of the job of course but you get the feeling, she’d probably do it anyway as her belief is, “the more you know, the more you can innovate.”
In a world where consumers are getting busier and have less time to engage, they don’t want to be talked at, they want to be talked with.
Beverley D'Cruz
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