Guest · B2B demand and pipeline
Renaye Edwards
Global COO and Managing Director, Ammunition
Two decades in marketing, from post room to agency founder and exit, now building a US agency's European business and arguing marketing's commercial moment has arrived.
About
Renaye Edwards is Global COO and Managing Director of Ammunition, a US-based B2B full-service agency where she is launching the UK and Europe arm. She is known for building and exiting her own agency and for a two-decade career spent championing the customer inside the business.
Edwards began in a post room after university, making herself known as the post girl before landing a marketing assistant job at a publishing company. She worked her way up the marketing ranks, moved into a tech company, and then co-founded an agency despite never having worked agency side, fusing marketing consultancy with creative because, as an in-house marketing director, she felt she was not getting the joined-up support she needed. That agency built a name in account-based marketing, and she and her partners sold it to Selby Anderson a couple of years ago.
At Ammunition, Edwards is launching the UK and Europe business, repositioning a US full-service model for markets she describes as more fragmented and more sceptical, where buyers tend to choose niche specialists. She argues marketing is entering what she calls a golden age, driven by marketers becoming more commercially savvy and finally earning a place in the boardroom, provided they learn to talk business outcomes rather than clicks.
Career22 years
- 2025 to now Ammunition Global Chief Operating Officer + MD
- 2013 to 2025 Digital Radish CoFounder / Managing Director
- 2013 to 2014 Velti European Marketing Director
- 2008 to 2013 Planet Retail & WGSN Head of Marketing
Show earlier roles: Reed Business Publishing - Estates Gazette
- 2004 to 2008 Reed Business Publishing - Estates Gazette Marketing Assistant - Marketing Exec - Senior Marketing Exec
How Renaye thinks3 convictions
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Marketing's commercial moment
Edwards argues the best marketing leaders reframe the boardroom conversation around business outcomes rather than granular metrics. Instead of defending spend, they ask what it costs the business not to act, and put a length of time against the answer. She sees this commercial fluency as the thing finally earning marketers a seat on the board.
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Educating the C-suite on brand
Edwards is frustrated that when the market gets tough, businesses revert to lead generation and abandon brand. She believes the answer is educating leadership upwards on the balance of brand long-term and short-term, and on lifetime value over an obsession with net new. Without that education, she says, brand keeps getting cut too soon and costs the business money.
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Resilience as core skill
Asked for the one capability every marketing leader needs, Edwards names resilience without hesitation. Marketing still gets a hard rap and is on a journey to earn credibility across the business. She frames resilience as the trait that keeps marketers pushing that education forward while the headway is being made.
