Influence 100: The Rising Stars

NEW YORK — The Influence 100, the Holmes Report’s annual report on the world’s leading chief marketing and communications officers, has revealed the in-house communicators nominated as likely to be influential CCOs and CMOs of the future.

This year’s 12 Rising Stars have been identified as well-positioned to be among tomorrow’s most influential chief communications officers. The 2019 list include six nominees from the US, two from Asia-Pacific, and four from Europe, including two from the UK.

The list features seven women and five men, and covers sectors from FMCG, energy and automotive, to emerging industries such as fintech and foodtech.

The Rising Stars for 2019 are:

Aaron Zamost, head of communications & policy and head of people at Square, one of the world’s leading fintech start-ups, currently valued at more than $16.5bn (US)
Abhishek Mahapatra, VP head of communications, corporate affairs and CSR for Nissan India
Belle Baldoza, director of global communications at TikTok owner Bytedance (Singapore)
Christopher Oughton, director of marketing and communications at energy and infrastructure company Wood (UK)
Claire Tolley, global product marketing manager at Mastercard, including external comms and employee engagement (UK)
David Affentranger, communications manager at IKEA (Sweden)
Deirdre Findlay, former Google and eBay marketing director and now chief marketing officer at online personal styling service StitchFix (US)
Kimberly West, former FleishmanHillard SVP and now director of external communications at Mars (US)
Rachel Konrad, former Tesla comms director and now chief communications officer at plant-based meat innovator Impossible Foods (US)
Sanna Hellstedt, team lead for global publicity and media at Finnish energy company Neste
Steve Wymer, SVP and chief communications officer at eBay (US)
Taryn Brucia, director of public relations and integrated marketing for LG’s home appliances and home entertainment divisions (US).