Suggestions
Neil Barrie
Global CEO at TwentyFirstCenturyBrand
Neil Barrie is a prominent figure in the marketing and branding industry, currently serving as the Global Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, a global marketing consultancy. In September 2023, TwentyFirstCenturyBrand was acquired by Common Interest, a newly formed holding company focused on building brands in popular culture, where Barrie continues to play a significant leadership role.124
Background and Career
Before co-founding TwentyFirstCenturyBrand in 2018, Barrie held the position of Chief Strategy Officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day, a well-known advertising agency. His extensive experience in strategic marketing has positioned him as a key player in the industry, particularly in understanding how brands can effectively engage with cultural trends and consumer behavior.23
Vision and Leadership at Common Interest
At Common Interest, Barrie emphasizes a people-first approach, aiming to foster a collaborative environment that prioritizes creativity and cultural relevance over traditional advertising methods. He has expressed enthusiasm about the potential of Common Interest to supercharge the offerings of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand while maintaining its core values.34 Under his leadership, the consultancy has gained recognition for its innovative strategies that cater to both emerging startups and established giants like Google and PepsiCo.45
Notable Achievements
- Co-Founded TwentyFirstCenturyBrand: The consultancy has quickly established itself as a leader in brand strategy, particularly known for its work with culturally relevant companies.
- Acquisition by Common Interest: This acquisition allows for greater resources and capabilities to help brands grow in an increasingly complex market landscape.13
- Focus on Cultural Relevance: Barrie's work is characterized by a commitment to helping brands connect authentically with consumers through cultural insights and innovative marketing strategies.24
Neil Barrie's leadership is marked by a dedication to fostering creativity and cultural engagement, making him a significant figure in the evolving landscape of brand marketing.
Highlights
Some thoughts on London’s IPO revival and the implications for the UK’s most ambitious tech brands.
The signs of a mini IPO boom for the London Stock Exchange were a highlight of the commercial conversation this summer. Our investor community have been making cautiously optimistic noises as have the likes of Fortune and Financial Times in the wake of the successful IPO of the beloved Raspberry Pi and confirmation of a London listing for SHEIN.
On the regulatory side we’ve seen a relaxation of rules around dual class share structure which have put off home-grown hotshots like Arm in recent years while the Labour government is making moves to channel more pension funds into local stocks.
On the ecosystem side, the London VC is stronger than ever with significant new funds from top tier VCs Balderton Capital and LocalGlobe and the recent entry of US giants Sequoia Capital & Andreessen Horowitz.
So what of the companies themselves? In TwentyFirstCenturyBrand’s European client community - the likes of Monzo Bank and Flo Health Inc., Europe’s first femtech unicorn, have been the subject of IPO speculation along with the likes of Klarna, Flix and Bolt
One thing I know for sure from our team's pre-IPO work with the likes of Pinterest & Airbnb is that a strong brand with a unified employee, customer and investor narrative is a powerful asset in building investor confidence.
Here are three critical ingredients to make that a reality:
-
Community Congruence. Many tech brands hype up the power of their community powered platform, its network effect and viral power. But while authentic stories of host empowerment were powerful for Airbnb’s narrative, IPOs often shake out ‘community-washing’ - look at how Deliveroo’s London debut was marred by rider protests. Scale-ups need to ensure congruence between idealistic rhetoric and business reality - putting meaningful community incentives at the heart of their brand & product.
-
Performance x Purpose flywheels
A compelling purpose with a strong connection to the business model has bolstered countless IPOs. I was so proud to see 21CB client founders/CEOs at the likes of @Pinterest (Home of inspiration) and @Next Door (Kinder Neighborhoods) put their purpose front and centre of their S1s and even stock ticker in the case of NextDoor. But again if there’s a reality gap (WeWork - selling office space while elevating the world’s consciousness) it's likely to be called out.
- A brand-enhanced growth model
A brand designed to travel across audiences & markets is a valuable tool to inspire investor confidence in future growth. The scale-ups that grasp this constantly assess how their brand can work harder to overcome growth obstacles, from crossing the performance marketing plateau to crossing the chasm into lucrative new audiences.
As we get ready for a hopefully pivotal period for the London tech ecosystem, what are your thoughts on how to leverage brand to drive a successful IPO?
One of the best things about my job is getting to be a “CMO whisperer” for some of the world’s most creative and commercial marketing leaders for the best part of two decades.
To that end, this Cannes saw us release the #CMOThriveGuide, "The definitive ‘year 1’ playbook for the world’s most influential, brand-ambitious CMOs”, a roadmap for A-List Brand leaders of all tenures to thrive in their first 12 months at a new company. Here’s the inside story 👇🏼
At TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, we’ve had a front-row seat in seeing what works and what doesn’t and, critically, the difference between CMOs that fail, those that survive, and the elite group that really thrive. The impetus for this guide is rooted in 21CB’s mission of creating the most influential brands of our time, so leaders can leave a positive cultural and commercial legacy.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past six years of working with brands like Pinterest, Netflix, Airbnb, PepsiCo, LinkedIn, Mars, Chime, Monzo Bank, Depop, and Flo Health Inc. it’s that that can only happen if CMOs and Brand Leaders are empowered to lead the growth agenda and carve out the time and space to thrive.
To develop the Thrive Guide, we convened our Thrive Guide expert panel, bringing together a roundtable of the world’s most respected CMOs, CFOs and CEOs. This group of 21 leaders provided essential input to cut through generic advice and create truly actionable lessons with insider insights, hacks, and tools to make the most of your precious, pivotal first 12 months.
Each chapter is focused on a key imperative and designed to guide and inspire. You’ll find chapters focused on how you can build your key alliances, rally your teams, build high performance cultures and show up at your best, as well as the critical areas of growth, data/martech and integrating performance and purpose. Read them all at once, or dip in and out of specific chapters, it's up to you.
The guide is specifically designed to help leaders navigate the most pivotal challenges and set yourself up for success while also looking after yourself. What are your priorities in your first 12 months? What resources do you rely on to guide your critical marketing decisions? How will you design your most critical alliances? For those seeking to leave a lasting commercial and cultural legacy, the CMO Thrive Guide is your essential companion.
Special thanks to our Thrive Guide expert panel: Andréa Mallard, Lara Hood Balazs, Laura Jones, Bob Sherwin, Jane Wakely, Remi Kent, Patrick Stal, Michelle Taite, Christine Kalvenes, Fernando Machado, Julia Goldin, Michelle Lamberti-Ceaux, Margaret Jobling Pete Markey Sigal Bareket, Jonathan Mildenhall, Ash Schofield, Scott Wagner, Laurence A. Tosi, Glenn H. S. Stephan Gans, Sam Tomlinson and Ian Whittaker
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.