Giles is the Global Consumer Planning Director at Diageo, the no.1 premium spirits company and one of the world’s most effective brand builders. Giles sits on Diageo’s Marketing Leadership Team and heads up a 150-strong consumer planning function. He reports to Global CMO Cristina Diezhandino, recently named Global Marketer of the Year by the World Federation of Advertisers.

Prior to joining Diageo in July 2021, Giles spent 25 years as an advertising agency practitioner and held leadership roles at 5 of the world’s top agencies in 3 of the major holding companies. He joined the London Board of JWT in 1999; was Global CSO of Leo Burnett Worldwide, and CEO of M&C Saatchi.

Giles has an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University and a diploma in International Business from INSEAD. He served for five years on the board of the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising, and for two years on the European Advisory Board of The Ehrenberg Bass Institute. He sat on Google’s UK Creative Council and was a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics. For the last 5 ½ years Giles has also been a trustee of Scottish Ballet, one of the UK’s leading performing arts companies.

Giles lives in South West London with his wife (whom he met in the college library in 1990) and two teenage children. His Spotify handle is Mstrbrightside; his top life hack is the Thames towpath; and his spare hours are spent researching a non-fiction project entitled What London Remembers.