ONE of the region’s heavyweights in marketing has been elected chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

Andrew Harvey, a chartered marketer and the business development and communications director at Newcastle based Dickinson Dees, will hold the role for a two-year-term.

He said: “We have just completed our centenary year celebrations and now the CIM, which has a global role, must focus on how we can best support the marketing community during this very challenging period in business.

“We have over 40,000 members in 130 countries around the world, all of whom look to the institute to set marketing standards. I naturally have a special interest in the North East. Marketing has a vital role to play, both in building the businesses based in the region and in promoting the region itself.

“The region has undergone massive change in the past 20 to 30 years and the new reality means many businesses in the region, and the people who work in those businesses, have got to get used to new ways of doing things, new media, new technology, new competitors.”

Harvey is not the first local marketer to hold this prestigious position. Jim Beale, who started his career with Procter & Gamble and ended it as regional head of PA Consulting was chairman in the 1970s and only stood down earlier this year from the chairmanship of several CIM related bodies. Both Beale and Harvey have homes in Corbridge, Northumberland.

Harvey has worked in leadership roles in legal sector marketing since 1998. Prior to that, he held a range of marketing posts in the rail industry, including taking three marketing teams through the transition from the public sector to private ownership culminating in his appointment as commercial director for Virgin’s rail division.

He has been a member of the board of CIM since 2007 and is also the UK representative on the board of the European Marketing Confederation.