Team Leader - Martin Glenn

This is an excerpt from an article on Martin Glenn, CEO of The Football Association, originally published in Impact Magazine. Read the full article on theImpact Magazine website.

Glenn’s attitude to market research is one of using it to help in decision-making where appropriate.

“All market research and psychology can do is reduce some of the risk of decisions. So when you’re dealing with selling packaged goods to millions of people, there’s a huge diversity and spread of motivations – there are some fundamental things that define us as humans, but variations within it. The people who use market research for certainty, they don’t ever do much; it can only ever reduce the risk and it can smartly reduce the risk. I do respect the patterns,” he adds.

“I’m a big believer in looking at what works; when I first went into the UB business I bought Professor Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow, it was forgotten basics that I was taught about the primacy of penetration over frequency.”

Although on first sight Glenn’s move to leading light in the world of football administration might seem incongruous with his previous brand jobs, his earlier roles have gone some way to preparing him for the scrutiny and politics that he will now have to weather.