My story

From cave tours and startups to leading brand in media.

Freddie Martyn

I'm Freddie. I've spent over a decade in and around the world of politics and policy, promoting intelligence products to decision makers across the globe. I'm currently leading global brand and marketing in Europe at POLITICO. At work, I love partnering with sales, product and editorial teams to take great products to market: shaping the brand and assembling creative campaigns that get us into the rooms where decisions are made. Recently, I've also been building the tools to help my teams and me do it even better.

The path

2018 - PresentVP Marketing, Europe - Head of Brand, Global

POLITICO

I lead brand globally, and performance, growth and product marketing, working across product and commercial as part of their leadership team. Over eight years I've grown from marketing POLITICO's events to running brand and product marketing across the company.

  • Lead global brand strategy for POLITICO and performance/product marketing across Europe. Senior leadership role shaping organisational positioning and growth agenda.
  • Overseeing 15+ directors, managers, and executives spanning marketing, design and brand. Full ownership of acquisition, retention and revenue marketing functions across London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Washington and Canberra.
  • Lead multi-market brand expansion across all POLITICO markets through creative, data-led campaigns consistently exceeding awareness and engagement targets; positioned POLITICO as authority on power and politics.
  • Drive brand transformation and governance architecture establishing consistency and differentiation across product portfolio; built global brand standards, toolkits and processes supporting commercial alignment.
  • Lifted sales-qualified lead conversion from 24% to 81% in a year through a deliberate quality-over-quantity lead strategy; active pipeline +110%, closed-won +64%, closed-lost −50% (2026 vs 2025).
  • Built design-led culture reducing events-design output from 60% to 40%; consolidated tooling and established design-engineering bridges improving consistency and scalability.
  • Managing 7-figure performance marketing and brand budget; resulting in double-digit YoY B2B subscription revenue growth with marketing leads contributing 45–55% of closed-won opportunities.
  • Ideated, built and scaled multiple internal apps including market-sizing software, live video clipping tool, account based marketing audience optimiser, campaign builder, gala dinner seat management system and much more...
2017 - 2018Communications & Events Coordinator

Assembly of European Regions

Led communications and branding modernisation for Europe's largest regional government network. Owned AER rebranding repositioning organisation as modern, growth-oriented policy platform.

  • Led AER rebranding initiative repositioning organisation as modern, growth-oriented policy platform; increased external stakeholder and media engagement.
  • Delivered 10+ large-scale stakeholder events across Europe (Romania, Serbia, Norway, Belgium, France, Croatia, Netherlands); increased average event attendance by 10%.
2015 - 2017Marketing & Communications Executive

Euractiv

Where my media career began. On the communications team at a pan-European media network spanning a dozen capitals - content, social, video and events.

  • Data analysis conducted to grow our overall newsletter reach by 35% over 9 months
  • Launched several daily newsletters, including "The Brief" (now known as the Rapporteur) to over 45,000 EU stakeholders
  • Co-led the rethinking and rebranding of the company's image, including website, visual identity, and communication language overhaul
  • Led the strategy and refresh of all of the company's B2B marketing language and material
  • Worked closely with company leadership setting out the company's five year strategy
2015 - 2019Communications and Data Manager

Ten Fold Engineering

Marketing and data for Ten Fold Engineering, the startup behind patent-protected buildings that fold and unfold: taking something genuinely novel to the world.

  • Told the story of the 'unfolding house' and its global licensing
2015 - 2015Trainee - DG COMM, Information Campaigns

European Parliament

An early stint inside the institution itself, in the Directorate-General for Communication's information campaigns unit.

  • Rolled out the accessibility strand of the Lux Film Prize campaign, which meant learning to use a braille machine (the things we do...)
2014 - 2015Search Executive

Wills Harvey

Headhunting. Learning to read people and organisations quickly, and to find the right person for a hard brief.

2011 - 2013Tour guide, Dordogne

Lascaux II

Seven tours a day, up to fifty people at a time, in English and French, inside the famous replica of the Lascaux cave and its 17,000-year-old paintings. My first job in storytelling: where I learned to hold a room.

Education & credentials

Oxford University / Saïd Business School

Executive Programme for Marketing & Communications Directors

Axel Springer Youth Council

Council member

University of Bristol

MSc in International Development & Security

2013–2014

Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès

BSc in Geography & Territorial Development

2010–2013

Lycée Bertran de Born

French Baccalauréat (Section ES)

2007–2010