Heather Smith (Aviva) at the Sport and Social Responsibilty Summit 2011

With a business and economics degree I have a commercial marketing career in IT and primarily Financial Services spanning 20+ years.

I started my professional career with NCR Ltd in London on the classic graduate programme ensuring a solid grounding in the Sales and Marketing disciplines. Working across a variety of products (including ATMs) and clients (all in financial services) I developed a strong passion for delivering results and making a difference for customers.

My personal life then took me to the south coast and I joined Norwich Union Healthcare (now Aviva) in 1991 at the point it was setting up in the private healthcare market for the first time. Being part of a business start up and developing the marketing model and plan for a well know brand coming into a new product space against very well and established brands was a marketing dream but a great challenge. The secret to the success was a having the right customer proposition -- built from solid insight and developed into a compelling marketing campaign. I worked across the full marketing mix ending up leading the Marketing function for many years.

I then moved to the direct insurance business where I lead the sales and marketing for the general insurance products (car, home, travel etc) competing in a highly commoditised price driven space. This is where I developed real strength and depth on the power of Digital marketing and ensuring the whole end to end offer was robust. Ensuring our Customer Service staff are fully involved and aligned to the marketing activity is key -- in the end our people are the most powerful element of the brand.

In the last 3 years I have been working in Sponsorship and Corporate Responsibility and as part of this role actively supporting the rebrand from Norwich Union to Aviva. This is one area where our sponsorship assets have helped play a key role in communicating the name change through the continuity of our partnerships with UK Athletics and Norwich City FC.

The biggest challenge in the last twelve months has been launching Aviva's first ever Cause Related Marketing programme in conjunction with our charity partner Railway Children. Driving awareness of Aviva Street to School and getting true customer involvement with the cause of homeless and run away children has been a real challenge -- a small unknown charity and a cause that most don't believe exists -- nothing like a challenge!

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