Gerety Talks with the Director EMEA at Gucci, Maria von Scheel-Plessen

Just like the award show, the Gerety Talks series puts some of the marketing and creative industry’s true changemakers in the spotlight - and at the centre of the conversation - with the aim to drive progress within the industry on a global scale. The series will bring together agency and brand leaders from around the globe for a refreshing take on what leadership looks like.

As director EMEA Maria oversees media, advertising, and performance e-commerce at Gucci in 37 markets building the strategic framework and direction for the region.

Previously Maria held the position of global head of media & advertising at Montblanc for four years where she oversaw the global media and advertisement strategy for 22 markets across all online and offline channels, dedicated to digitally transforming the luxury Maison while enabling a seamless user journey, omnichannel setup, attribution modelling to track offline purchases related to Marketing investments to bring transparency into the full Marketing funnel.

As team lead online marketing at Amazon, Maria oversaw the Marketing and Communications strategy for premium brands on Amazon across Germany, Italy and Spain. She led strategic market initiatives, global promotions e.g. Cyber Week or Prime Day to improve the business while managing external partners, the Amazon Media Group relations and internal stakeholders.

Maria is an alumni of start-up incubator Rocket Internet where she worked as Head of Communications for Southeast Asia at Zalora (Asian Zalando), driving the business and all brand relations across 7 markets. Maria is very passionate about the digitalization across various industries - from start-ups to luxury Maison's with a unique growth mindset. She has strong expertise in digital and offline Marketing, digital transformation as well as B2B and B2C Consumer Marketing and management.

Maria is a frequent international keynote speaker with regular appearances at events such as Mobile World Congress Barcelona, D3Con or Web Summit Lisboa and will next be a keynote speaker at Digital Transformation Summit in Dubai and eTail Asia in Singapore.

Topics include female leadership, diversity and digital transformation with focus on the luxury industry.

Maria has been named on the "Luxury Women to Watch in 2021" list and has been featured by Forbes honouring her change and transformational journey at Montblanc. Further Maria has been named as a Future Shaper by Business Punk Magazine on their 2022 watchlist.

Follow Maria on Instagram under @mariaplessen to join her journey.