This Much I Learned: Sage’s Cath Keers on how being a ‘nosy northerner’ helped her career

Cath Keers had extensive non-executive director experience with the likes of Bupa, TalkTalk and Royal Mail before she took the reins at B2B firm Sage as its chief marketing officer in 2020. A seasoned NED, she first began working with the firm in that remit in 2017 before stepping into her current role.

That’s not to ignore the big marketing jobs she’s had along the way. Keers spent nine years with 02 as its strategy and marketing director. She also had a two-year stint as Tesco Mobile’s chairman.

A self-confessed “nosy northerner”, Keers is someone who can “talk to anybody about anything” – this, she says, and her natural curiosity has helped her grow her career.

In this edition of the podcast, Keers discusses making the case for brand building in B2B, why good marketers need to ask the “five whys” to achieve true customer centricity and her belief in the opportunity AI offers.

From breaking taboos to how a brand’s past can inform its present, you can listen to previous episodes of Marketing Week’s This Much I Learned podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify.