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Better B2B North

Date: 16/04/2026

Time: 10:00 - 16:00

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About this event

As part of our growing Better B2B community, we’re bringing our flagship B2B event to the North.

Join us on April 16th at The Alan, Manchester for a day of insight, inspiration, and practical conversation designed to bring B2B marketers together to stay ahead, connect and drive meaningful growth.

The day is stacked! From building distinctive B2B brands through creativity and bold copy, to putting real human insight back at the heart of customer-centric marketing.

Better B2B North brings together expert perspectives and actionable ideas, including scaling SEO, unlocking smarter personalisation, leadership-led brand growth, winning trust in an AI-driven world, and practical strategies for personal branding and performance influence.

Enjoy a welcome breakfast, provided lunch and coffee breaks throughout.

Agenda

10:00 – 10:30

Arrival, welcome breakfast and networking

Enjoy a welcome breakfast upon arrival, giving you the opportunity to get to know fellow attendees and speakers and get settled in for the day.

10:30 – 11:00

Skin in the Game: How creativity lives and dies with people, not platforms

Mark Newton, Chris Bliss

Every brand and creative platform worth its salt starts with a conversation – the stress behind a CEO’s eyes, the thing a customer says when they think the meeting’s over, saying no to something because it doesn’t feel right. Yet today, business culture has convinced itself that AI output is the work. It isn’t. The real work is the process – and those raw collisions between minds are where the best creative ideas are actually born. The real work cannot be prompted. The real work cannot be outsourced.

11:00 – 11:30

B2B Creativity Is Easier Than You Think

David McGuire

As B2B content gets more average and risk-averse, there’s a growing opportunity to stand out. Here are some simple ways to find your big idea (and get it signed off, too).

11:30 – 12:00

TBC

Freya Ward

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 13:30

Creator-Led Growth: How B2B Companies Are Turning Influence Into Pipeline

Max Nimmo

A no-fluff breakdown of what creator-led growth actually is, how forward-thinking B2B companies are already using it to drive real pipeline, and why it’s the most underutilised B2B marketing strategy right now

13:30 – 14:00

Data-Driven Decision Making in Product Marketing

Adetomiwa Adekoya

How to transition from guessing what B2B customers want to using actual data to drive product launches and marketing strategies.

14:00 – 14:15

Coffee Break ☕

14:15 – 14:45

Irreplaceable: Why AI Makes Marketing and Marketers More Essential Than Ever

Jake Third

AI is making a lot of marketing easier. That’s the problem. In this session, Jake, CEO of marketing agency Hallam, draws on original survey data from B2B marketers to explore why AI doesn’t diminish the value of marketing, it intensifies it. As content becomes commoditised and attention harder to earn, brand becomes the only truly defensible advantage a B2B business has. And the marketers who understand that will become indispensable. This talk is about the strategic shift happening inside B2B marketing right now, and the traits that separate marketers who thrive from those who get left behind

14:45 – 15:15

When Leaders Speak, Brands Grow: The Business Value of Personal Branding

Ash Jones

In a world where trust is the new currency and attention spans are short, people follow people, not logos. Ash Jones, Founder of Great Influence, has spent the past decade behind the personal brands of global entrepreneurs, broadcasters, authors, and CEOs, helping them connect with millions across social media. Ash will explore the link between leadership visibility and employer branding success, showing how founder and executive storytelling can shape organisational perception, build trust at scale, and turn employees into advocates. Using real stories from working with leaders like Steven Bartlett, Gary Neville, and John Amaechi, Ash will share the strategies to building a compelling personal brand, and how it becomes a catalyst for business growth and employer brand impact.

15:15 – 16:00

Closing comments and networking

Wrapping up the day with an invite to join us for a complimentary closing drink and networking

View the full details of the event, the agenda & FAQs on eventbrite

About the speakers

We have the best B2B marketers in the business.

Ash Jones

Ash is the Founder of Great Influence, Europe’s biggest Personal Branding agency for entrepreneurs and business leaders.

With over a decade of experience in helping entrepreneurs build their personal brands, Ash has led strategy, social, and content for some of the best in business, including Steven Bartlett of Dragon’s Den and Diary Of A CEO fame, ex-Manchester United player Gary Neville, best selling authors Matthew Syed and John Amaechi and leaders at the likes of Booking.Com, Huel and Grenade.

Freya Ward

Freya Ward is Associate Managing Director at Headley Media, with a background in B2B marketing and sales across both agency and publisher roles. As an accomplished business leader, Freya is dedicated to helping technology companies achieve their lead generation and demand marketing objectives through strategic, results-driven campaigns. She is a trusted advisor to her clients, known for her ability to align campaign tactics with business goals to maximise performance and ROI.

In addition to her client work, Freya is a respected industry voice, regularly speaking at industry events and serving on expert panels. She also holds a First in Artificial Intelligence from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, adding further depth to her insights in AI, Sales and Marketing, and Revenue Operations (RevOps). Freya brings both practical experience and forward-thinking innovation to the evolving world of B2B demand generation.

David McGuire

B2B Copywriting and Creativity Coach, Windhover B2B.

For more than 20 years, David McGuire has built a career out of making dull things interesting. He’s written about everything from air conditioning controllers to cybersecurity insurance – both as Creative Director of the UK’s largest specialist
B2B tech writing agency and, more recently, as a freelance B2B content consultant and B2B trainer.

You might have seen him talk about “The World Cup of B2B Bullshit” at B2B Ignite or “How the **** Did They Do That?” at MarketingProfs’ B2B Forum… or in his alter-ego as the host of the UK’s national copywriting conference, CopyCon.

Adetomiwa Adekoya

Product Marketing professional with years of experience helping global companies and startups thrive. I have worked with companies such as Bosch, Vezeeta, and Flex Finance.

With my Master’s degree in Business Analytics, I focus on bringing marketing and sales teams together to reach the same goals.

My approach is simple: I take complex data and turn it into clear, everyday stories that help sales teams win more deals. I love creating useful content that truly connects with customers, solves their problems, and brings real success to the business.

Jake Third

Jake is CEO of Hallam, a marketing partner to some of the world’s leading brands. Hallam brings together strategy, creative, and media to help organisations grow in a way that lasts.

Since becoming CEO in 2020, Jake has led Hallam’s transformation from a regional SEO business into an internationally recognised agency. During this period, Hallam has been named in The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies, recognised as a Google Top Partner across EMEA, and awarded Best Large Integrated Agency for three consecutive years.
Jake speaks about how marketing actually drives growth. His work sits at the intersection of marketing, culture, and commercial decision making, with a particular focus on B2B brands. His talks are grounded in original thinking, primary research, and real experience leading a top UK agency through change.

He has spoken at events and organisations including Google, LinkedIn, and the NDS, and is consistently rated highly for clarity, relevance, and practical insight.

Max Nimmo

Max Nimmo is the founder of CreatorWorks, a B2B creator marketing agency helping B2B SaaS and AI companies turn creators into their most effective growth channel.

Before founding CreatorWorks, Max spent three years running influencer campaigns for global tech and gaming brands like Samsung, JBL, and Activision Blizzard, and scaling creator programs for some of the UK’s fastest-growing DTC brands. He founded CreatorWorks on the belief that in an AI-driven world, the trust and distribution of creators is the biggest untapped opportunity in B2B marketing right now.

Chris Bliss

Chris is a Creative Lead at Hallam with over 12 years of creative industry experience. Chris has a multi-disciplinary design background, focusing on User experience, User interface and brand design.

Chris’ strengths as a designer come from a blend of creative thinking and problem solving. Fuelled by the pursuit of authenticity, he is passionate about human-focused design that makes the big things seem less and the small things spectacular (and, we have to add, making stuff look really cool).

Outside of work, Chris can usually be found painting, running or taking photos, mostly of his wife and cat, much to their mutual annoyance.

Mark Newton

Mark leads the strategy and brand positioning work at Hallam, focusing on bringing simplicity out of complexity at the start of major projects. He brings over 15 years of brand and marketing experience from both agency and client-side roles. During his career, he’s guided major companies across varied industries, built a start-up luxury brand from scratch (wearing the scars as a badge of honour), and completed Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA in Marketing.

Beyond work, Mark enjoys running, hiking in the Peak District, and is a keen – if occasionally sidelined – indoor climber. He also runs around after two small children and prioritises spending time in nature with his family whenever possible. You’ll rarely find him without a good book nearby.

Details

Venue

  • The Alan, Manchester
  • 18 Princess St, Manchester, M1 4LG

Let’s thrive together.

Contact us and we’ll set up a video call to discuss your requirements in detail.

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