Philip Griffin is a strategic business leader with extensive sales, marketing and operational experience in various sectors. With nearly 30 years of commercial experience Phil has built up specialist skills in growing sales, building powerful marketing campaigns and improving profit that will add value to your business.

“As my career has developed, I realise how my Design degree was the perfect business education. Essentially design is problem solving utilising creative thinking, which has underpinned how I approach business challenges of all types. ”

Early in his career Phil had an opportunity to lead an innovative service programme for a start‐up toy company (Power Wheels), where he learned the importance of competitive differentiation and building long term strategic partnerships with retailers and key suppliers. Having joined Mattel toys via acquisition, Phil moved into several Consumer and Trade marketing roles working on some of the biggest brands (Barbie, Fisher‐Price and Hot Wheels) building award winning campaigns and learning how to drive sales and profits for retail partners and the corporation.

Phil then joined Daler‐Rowney (UK’s s leading artist’s materials manufacturer) where he increased distribution, sales and profits by developing and implementing a retail channel strategy. The strategic challenge he overcame was building distribution and sales with national accounts, without damaging the core independent retail sector. Later Phil became Sales and Marketing Director for a paper craft company (DoCrafts), where he took the business from start‐up to market leader with double digit growth year on year. This was achieved through the inspiration of consumers in a multi‐faceted marketing programme linked to the trade promotional strategy, which gained significant market share and customer buy‐in.

As Managing Director for Guardsman UK & Europe, Phil built and led a success driven leadership team to turnaround the business by overcoming operational challenges and rebuilding the trade and consumer reputations. Despite operating within a highly regulated financial sector, Phil was able to utilise his strategic and leadership skills to build an attractive business, agree new supplier and underwriter partnerships, and manage the business through acquisition and transition. Additionally, Phil increased turnover by over 36% through the signing of significant trading contracts, including a 5 year strategic partnership with DFS which cemented the company’s leading market share position.

Phil believes that great businesses are built by setting challenging goals, differentiating their offer from competitors, removing operational complexity, and creating a success driven culture through strong leadership and hard work.