Advertising Association picks Tesco’s Bellini for president

The Advertising Association has chosen Tesco chief customer officer Alessandra Bellini as its new president for the next three years.

Bellini, also an executive sponsor for D&I at Tesco, will take over the role today from her former colleague, the erstwhile Unilever CMO Keith Weed.

She will work directly with Advertising Association chair, Philippa Brown of PHD, and chief executive, Stephen Woodford.

As president she will spearhead initiatives like rebuilding public trust in advertising, building a more inclusive workplace and acting on climate change as well as work on regulation and promotion of UK advertising.

These projects are already in full swing as the Trust campaign was discussed earlier this month at the Trust Summit, All In carried out a census of the industry earlier this year in for inclusion and diversity and Ad Net Zero has a global summit coming up next month ahead of COP26.

Bellini will also focus on recovery from the pandemic and adapting to changing customer behaviour, particularly engaging with the Government on “proposals and regulations affecting the sector’s digital markets”.

She has led customer strategy for Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, since March 2017 and prior to that worked at Unilever for over 20 years in different positions across marketing and general management internationally.