Gail Macleod, the founder and president of Macleodglba in Brisbane, Australia, is a seasoned business leader with a storied career in brand management. She’s a former president and founder of Stratcom Branding GLBA, which was established in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1994. In 2019, Gail took on the role of Strategic Director at bstrat GLBA, a 100% BBBEE company in Johannesburg. Additionally, she is a co-founder and board member of the Global Local Branding Alliance (GLBA), established in 2013.
GLBA is a coalition of eight multi-award-winning strategic brand and packaging agencies located in New York, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Istanbul, Shanghai, Johannesburg, and Brisbane.
Gail’s success is rooted in her holistic approach to business. She expertly bridges the gap between management, marketing, R&D, shopper, legislation, distribution, and procurement, all in pursuit of delighting the Strategic Value Customer (SVC). Through research, collaboration, innovation sprints, current scenario discovery, intellectual property management, networking, career mentorship, and training, she embodies the principle of “Know Your Customer Deeply” (KYCD), in both B2B and B2C contexts.
As an esteemed adjudicator, collaborator, and consultant, Gail offers her expertise in innovation, particularly in packaging and its commercialization.
UJ_University of Johannesburg [National Diploma in Graphic Design]
WITS University of the Witwatersrand [Graduate School of Business Administration SMME]
UCT_University of Cape Town [Get Smarter certificate – Digital Marketing]
UCT_University of Cape Town [Get Smarter certificate – Business Analytics]
UCT_University of Cape Town [Get Smarter certificate – Accounting Technology & Bookkeeping]
Gail Macleod’s Sisonke Initiative, representing ‘coming together,’ partnered with South African SMMEs, also known as ‘mom and pop’ businesses. This socially responsible effort offered pro bono expert consulting and innovative packaging design to support local entrepreneurs and enhance creative projects..
We built a regional group strategy nested under the Nestle global brand identity that is a regionally relevant big idea for the Master brand.
The solution included a big brand regional identity and full CI application: “From our nest to yours”.
Gail generated brand strategy in packaging, design and IP, and the global iconic cost optimised and sustainable bottle which resulted in unprecedented growth in most categories of a least 28% ROI.
A great example of working with brand and collaborative manufacture.