How Sophie Devonshire left their lane.
Sophie Devonshire moved from global brands and agencies into entrepreneurship – then turned what she learned into a career exploring pace, purpose and leadership.
Sophie Devonshire started her career inside some of marketing’s best-known institutions.
After classic management training at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, she moved agency-side with Leo Burnett in the Middle East and Interbrand in London. It was a conventional route through increasingly sophisticated brands and businesses.
Then she stepped outside it.
In the middle of the recession, Devonshire founded an e-commerce business of her own. It became award-winning and was eventually sold, before she went on to run a luxury gifts company. For the first time, the questions she had spent years helping other businesses answer – what to prioritise, how quickly to move, where to invest and what customers really valued – were hers to make with the consequences attached.
That experience changed the questions she became interested in.
Devonshire went on to become CEO of The Caffeine Partnership, a consultancy built around helping leaders combine pace with purpose. Her first book, Superfast: Lead at Speed, turned that interest into a framework for leadership in organisations that cannot afford to wait for perfect information. It reached number one on Amazon and was shortlisted for Business Book of the Year.
Her second book, LoveWork, written with leadership expert Ben Renshaw, looked at another side of performance: how people build a better relationship with the work that takes up so much of their lives.
In 2020, Devonshire became CEO of The Marketing Society. Today she leads its international community of senior marketers, bringing together people across markets and industries to challenge how marketing contributes to growth, leadership and the wider business agenda.
She started out learning how established businesses build brands.
Stepping outside them taught her something different – how leaders decide what deserves to move faster, and what should not.
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