Our Profile
Vanessa Harris, Founder
Vanessa has been actively involved in all areas of brand development, marketing strategy and research with blue-chip companies for over 20 years.
For 14 years she worked for leading brand and marketing consultancies in London developing, launching and promoting brand and marketing strategies for companies including BT, Comet, Saab (Europe, USA, Asia), Mary Kay Cosmetics, The Economist (Europe), General Accident, Sainsbury’s and Central Milton Keynes.
Her impressive track record includes work with The Economist Group on marketing development worldwide including the development and launch of Business Central Europe; working extensively with Saab Automobile on new product development contracts including the Saab 900; developing an entirely new concept and brand with Comet and BT (IT Works), expressing it as a groundbreaking retail environment and finally launching it to the public; and new product development innovation for General Accident.
She also spent three years studying Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to Master Practitioner level and Systems Thinking to European Certification. This led to subsequent work with Orange, Ernst and Young, HSBC and BT.
Vanessa returned to the West Country and, prior to setting up Open, worked as a senior marketer for Cornwall Cultural Marketing, an Objective 1 funded project. She was instrumental in achieving the project's steep economic targets through strategic input into and the management of well co-ordinated brand and marketing programmes.
Open brings this expertise to the West Country.
