3 questions I wish I’d asked: Coca-Cola’s Walter Susini

It’s not often you meet someone who can look back on their career with very few regrets. Someone who believes “it all turned out good” with hardly a fumble, let alone a failure. But Walter Susini, Coca-Cola’s Western Europe marketing director, is one of those people.

Susini has worked on “nearly every side” of marketing, at big brands such as Coca-Cola and Unilever, as well as agency side at JWT and running his own consultancy business. “I like to go from different experiences and crave success in more than one space,” he notes.

It is this “holistic” overview which has helped him become one of the top marketers at arguably the biggest brand in the world. That and his impenetrably positive attitude.

“[Being] happy is the most important thing,” he says. “There is nothing more important.”

Two things keep Susini happy – marketing and learning – specifically marketing with purpose. “I see marketing as a cherry on the cake of the business as a whole and it is important to me that it has a social purpose,” he adds.

Log in or subscribe to read the full article.