Can You Build a Billion-Dollar Brand by Building for the Culture?

Bonita is Director, Partnerships at EssenceMediacom (WPP Media), where she continues to lead the agency's inclusive planning and community media proposition. She's also the founder of Beyond Reach, a strategic consultancy at the intersection of culture, community media and commercial strategy, and Brand Partnership Director for Recessland, an independent cultural festival. Bonita co-leads Mosaic, WPP Media's ethnicity, culture and religion ERG, and writes Take Notes, an essay-format newsletter on media and culture.

Her work reframes community media as commercial planning architecture rather than a CSR afterthought — grounded in behavioural science and a decade in media, starting at MediaCom. She's been recognised on Media Week's 30 Under 30 and Future 100, shortlisted for the IPA iList, featured in The Drum's Changemakers, and named a finalist for the Black British Business Awards' Rising Star in Arts and Media.

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With over a decade of shaping global strategy and partnerships at the intersection of retail and technology, Hannah is the Head of Fashion and Beauty Partnerships at Pinterest. She champions the power of community, driving content engagement among merchants, creators, and publishers to create organic marketing strategies that drive measurable impact.
Guiding partners through Pinterest’s ever-evolving ecosystem, which now boasts over 600 million global users, Hannah empowers partners to unlock the platform’s full creative potential. As more than half of Gen Z Pinners turn to Pinterest first for shopping and browsing, she specialises in transforming insights and trends into bold, effective strategies that fuel authentic storytelling, product discovery, and shoppable moments.
Passionate about translating data into action, Hannah builds scalable, sustainable engagement strategies and frameworks. Her work empowers partners to adopt new products, connect with audiences, and deliver ROI through engaging content and meaningful community connections.

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Karen Grillo is a brand and marketing strategist working at the intersection of technology, culture and commerce. In her current role at Meta she advises billion-dollar beauty and disruptor e-commerce businesses on how they build brand and grow revenue through social media. With a decade in corporate media and advertising behind her, she also runs her own brand and marketing consultancy, with recent work including the social media campaign for Netflix’s Blue Therapy. An economist by training, Karen is keenly focused on how AI is reshaping the way brands are built, discovered and experienced.

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Alexander is a London-born creative strategist, cultural thinker and storyteller with expertise in cultural insight and emerging trends.

His experience spans social media, publishing and creative strategy, including work with Afropunk in New York, Dazed, The Face and Farfetch in London, as well as Vogue and NTS Radio.

With a master’s degree from Central Saint Martins, Alexander draws on his experience to spot cultural shifts and turn them into bold ideas that meet brands’ business needs and help them connect authentically with audiences.

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