Rita Clifton CBE has been described as the ‘Doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine, ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and as a ‘fabulous ambassador for business’ by Retail Week.  She graduated from Cambridge and started her career in advertising, where she became Vice-Chairman and strategy director at Saatchi & Saatchi in its most successful period. She then joined Interbrand, the leading global brand consultancy, as London CEO and later became Chairman for a ten year term.

She has worked with many of the leading businesses and organisations around the world, as well as start-up and growth stage businesses across sectors, and speaks on all aspects of brand strategy, boards and business leadership. She is a regular commentator in all the major TV, news and social channels and her writing has included the best-selling book ‘The Future of Brands’, and The Economist book ‘Brands & Branding’. Her latest book on new types of business leadership ‘Love your imposter’ was published by Kogan Page in the summer of 2020.

She now has a portfolio of chairing and non-executive director roles, including the Deputy Chair role at John Lewis Partnership and as Senior Independent Director at Ascential plc, the owner of Cannes Lions, World Retail Congress and the digital commerce specialists Edge. Previous non-executive board roles have included Nationwide Building Society, ASOS, Bupa, Dixons Retail plc and Populus, the opinion pollster and research company. In 2013, she became co-founder and chair of the global business consultancy BrandCap, which established offices in London, New York and Hong Kong, and which she later sold on to the management group. She was recently made a Visiting Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University.

Pro bono board roles include Chair at the global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, as Trustee and now Fellow at WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), and as Trustee at Green Alliance, the leading environmental think tank. She was previously a member of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission.

Rita was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List of 2014.