Joe Edwards

Award-winning marketing and brand leader with 20+ years’ experience delivering commercial growth, cultural relevance, and community engagement across sport, lifestyle and entertainment. I bring a rare blend of strategic thinking and creative execution, grounded in social-first, culture-led approaches that create fandom drive growth. I’ve built and led global teams, delivered standout activations, and shaped brands from the inside out, driven by the belief that creativity led by data and insight, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

• Global Brand Leadership: Built and scaled multi-market brand platforms, led global campaigns, and repositioned sports & lifestyle brands for new audiences.
• Culture-Led, Social-First Strategy: Delivered double- and triple-digit growth in engagement, reach, and sentiment by meeting fans where they are, through players, stories and social content that resonates.
• Community, Influencer & Athlete Marketing: Orchestrated ambassador and athlete programmes, managed influencer campaigns with global talent like Kobe Bryant, and developed grassroots activations.
• Activations & Experiential: Created award-winning stunts and events, from dunk contests on top of The O2 to remote ESports experiences, driving PR, impressions and commercial ROI.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Directed high-performance teams across content, social, digital, partnerships and paid media. Built functions from scratch and led collaborative delivery with commercial, tech and production teams.
• Commercial Impact through Creativity: Proven track record in growing revenue, delivering new business, and driving measurable uplift in brand equity, engagement, and sales.

Qualifications

Chartered Institute of Marketing - Professional Diploma in Marketing

Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing - Fellow

Anglia Ruskin University - BSc - Multimedia Systems