Iain McMullan
The range of a full agency, brought in-house: strategy, brand, content and AI, accountable to the number.
Singapore-based. APAC and the Middle East. Open to senior in-house leadership roles.
Thousands of Emirates Skywards members were less than two flights from the next tier, and most weren't aware of it.
A data-driven CRM programme that told every near-tier member exactly how close they were, with personalised example flights drawn from their own travel pattern.
Over 1,500 members upgraded to the next tier across the 2014–2015 programme run, generating USD 2M+ in incremental revenue. Led end to end as the Skywards CRM and campaign owner.
Align 1,400 Hilton leaders across Asia Pacific around commercial momentum, in a single conference.
One tight narrative. A communications architecture and a delegate experience built around a single story the room would leave repeating.
A record 92% engagement score, and a global CEO who called it the best-organised global event.
Launch the Emirates Flight Training Academy, mid-construction, into an aviation-education category that was visually and tonally homogenous.
'Go Beyond.' A brand essence that differentiated at every level — from founding philosophy to the typeface on the wall — and read as a school built to lead the category, not join it.
100% of the inaugural cadet cohort filled in under two months from launch. Owned client-side end to end — from agency selection through the brand guidelines to the VP rollout.
A faster ship doesn't help if the compass is broken. And a bigger budget doesn't help if the strategy is flawed. 20+ years across aviation, financial services and hospitality have taught me to fix the compass first.
I build brands from inside the business and alongside it. I have led communications strategy and marketing for brands like Emirates, Hilton, Malaysia Airlines, UOB, and AIA, usually on the challenges that look commercial first and creative second. I uncover the ideas that hold up in the boardroom and in market, and do what it takes to see them through. I also read more ancient history than is strictly useful, which shows up in the work more often than you would expect.
Singapore-based. Open to senior brand, marketing and communications leadership across APAC and the Middle East.
Depth in the discipline of delivery, and the breadth across brand, marketing, and AI that grows from it.
20+ years, two regions, seven markets. Brand campaigns, global launches, product activations, and large-scale productions, with the commercial results that justified them.
Head of Strategy and CommunicationsAug 2023 – Present
Group Head of OperationsJan 2022 – May 2023
Group Head of BusinessJun 2019 – Dec 2021
Advertising Manager – Emirates SkywardsAug 2011 – May 2019
Communications ManagerDec 2009 – Aug 2011
Relationship ManagerJun 2008 – Dec 2009
Account ManagerApr 2005 – Jun 2008
Anyone who gets him on a project is getting someone who will fight for the work until it's actually right.
The fastest way to see how I actually think. Short, opinionated essays on brand, loyalty, AI and the craft of marketing leadership, drawn from 20+ years of building them. If you want to know how I would approach your problem, start here.
I've interviewed a lot of people over the years, and somewhere along the way I started asking what they're passionate about. Not because it's on a list of good interview questions, but because the answer tells me much more than you might think. It's not the words used in the answer. Or even the body language.
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"Did you use AI to write this?" is the wrong question, asked by people who think they're protecting standards. It's like asking a designer whether they used Photoshop. Of course they did. The actual question worth asking is where the experienced human entered the loop. Because that's where quality is actually decided.
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The word 'strategy' has increasingly become the label we lazily smear across thinking we want to sound serious about. That's a problem, because conflating strategy with planning produces a very specific kind of expensive mistake: the mistake of executing brilliantly in the wrong direction.
Read Full Article"AI won't replace marketers. It will replace the marketing that was already replaceable."
Two decades across Asia and the Middle East taught me one thing above all others: strategy is only ever as good as the team that executes it.
A plan that doesn't survive contact with execution isn't a strategy. It's a wish. I close the gap between what's decided in the room and what actually reaches the market.
Ambiguity is the enemy of great work. Clear direction, clear feedback, clear expectations: these aren't management ideals, they're the conditions that let creative people do their best work.
The difference between good and exceptional is almost always found in the details others didn't think to check. I've directed hundreds of campaigns and productions across more than a dozen markets. The brief matters. And so does the kerning.
Brand love and business results are not conflicting things. I've spent more than 20 years proving it, building campaigns that move people and move the needle. Creative ambition with commercial discipline. Both of them. Always.
Built on academic rigour. Sharpened in the field.
Chartered Marketer
CIM
Marketing
Ulster University
Digital Marketing
IDM
Leadership Development
Warwick University & The Emirates Group
Ancient History
UWTSD
English with Sports Science
Loughborough University
Generative AI Leader
Google Cloud
UX Design Specialisation
Agentic AI & AI Agents for Leaders
Vanderbilt University
Continuously updated, because the industry doesn't stop moving.
Most of what I know about chasing a standard, I learned in a throwing circle. After a 22-year break, I picked up the shot put again and started training seriously, with making the final 8 in the World Masters' Athletics Championships as the goal. Two national titles and an Asian Masters silver later, those championships in Korea are my next goal.
Away from sport, my attention is taken by rather older disciplines: ancient history, languages, rhetoric and philosophy. They are not a break from the work, they are where the judgement, creativity and even wisdom come from. Learning classical Latin made me a better writer, and knowing the details of Stoic philosophy has made me a happier human.
Why the shot put, and what it taught meIf you're building something that needs serious marketing leadership and cross-functional capability, we should have a chat.
The best conversations start with a brief. Or sometimes just a coffee. Either works.
