with Racheal Vaughan Jones
CMO of Compass Box Whisky
Racheal Vaughan Jones is Chief Marketing Officer at Compass Box, a blended whisky maker.
She took time out of her busy schedule to speak with MacGregor Black’s Principal Drinks Consultant, Kieron Hall, to uncover the secrets of what it takes to make the world of whisky more interesting in a market that’s hundreds of years old.
You could sell tickets at a premium to be a fly on the wall in the professional life of Racheal Vaughan Jones. What it would reveal is a near-perfect professional arc that sweeps from a young, hungry ambition to work with a specific brand, to then seeing your career work for that brand play out in a cool, overseas bar, long after you’ve left your indelible mark on that brand and its people.
This is the life of Racheal Vaughan Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at Compass Box, a blended whisky brand who, for the last 25 years, have insisted on taking a slightly different path in the world of whisky to the one well-trodden by some of the industry’s biggest and longest established brands.
The story of how Racheal came to lead the marketing direction of one of the most maverick and exciting brands anywhere in food and drink in a generation is almost as fascinating as Compass Box itself.
In her own words, there is rarely a silver bullet to creating cut through, but like her own career, Compass Box’s rise to becoming one of the most popular whisky brands has been a story of placing many, successfully foundation blocks in place that creates a winning strategy.
Finding Her Calling in Food & Drink
She looks back to the early stages of her career in marketing, when relatively fresh, but already knowing very clearly that her life, despite studying fine art, was going to be in better understanding why food and drink plays such an integral part of everyone’s life.
She explains:
“If you think about every single occasion humans have together, whether it’s celebrating, commiserating, hosting, going for a walk with a friend, there’s always some kind of liquid. Maybe it’s a coffee, maybe it’s champagne, maybe it’s a glass of wine, but there’s always liquid at the heart of it.”
“There’s something about loving food and drink and then thinking about how you can make your brand the one that’s part of all of those human connections. That really speaks to me and makes me feel passionately about this.”
“There’s nothing quite like going out into a market and spontaneously seeing people who have chosen your brand to be part of that moment they’re sharing with the people they care about. I think that’s probably what called me to the industry. I don’t know if I’ll ever leave.”
From Dream Brand to Leadership Role
That arc moment convincingly started when she recalls a period in the early stage of her career, where she would consistently email a general Compass Box address, eagerly offering help.
“I went back through emails and found messages from many years before, where I’d emailed Compass Box on their hello address saying things like ‘Hey, if you ever need any marketing support, hit me up’. Compass Box was always the dream brand. And here I am now, as its CMO.”
While those early, ham-fisted attempts weren’t successful, Racheal’s career has been one of fascinating stories and instances that led her, ultimately, through the front doors at Compass Box.
Having studied Fine Art, Printmaking and then Textiles in Manchester, her first break came when she applied for an internship role at L’Oreal during her studies. She impressed sufficiently and was invited back for a place on their management trainee graduate scheme, spending almost four years there before taking an opportunity with Pernod Ricard and Chivas Brothers, which would offer her a first taste in the world of whisky, becoming the senior global brand manager for the group’s Ballatine’s blended whisky brand.
Tongue firmly in cheek she says:
“I was sad to leave Pernod Ricard, I think they were too… but it was kind of their fault. My brand director at the time, Peter Moore – an amazing guy to work with – pulled me into his office one day and he explained a new project. He said ‘Racheal, this is kind of a covert operation, and we want you to lead it. The rules are there are no rules. We just want you to do it as quickly as possible: tear up all of the rule books, all of the processes, and figure out the quickest, most creative way to do this.'”
“It was launching the first single malts from Ballantine’s. They’re the number two blended Scotch in the world, so releasing a range of single malts was pretty groundbreaking at the time, and I was basically given free rein to tear up all of the processes and rules. And I absolutely loved it.'”
“It felt very entrepreneurial and fast-paced, and it was a great balance of thinking really creatively on how we were going to solve these challenges in a company where the NPD process is slow and heavy. Thinking about how we should circumvent that, I finished the project, and it was really successful. We managed to sell it into five or six markets within the first six months.'”
“That was the moment where I thought ‘Oh God, I think I’m really, really suited to this kind of entrepreneurial approach.'”
Leaning into Creativity and Entrepreneurial Energy
From there, there could have been no bigger leap from the traditions of Scotch whisky into the new world of alcohol-free beer. A chance meeting with founder Luke Boase prompted the switch to Lucky Saint, one of the front runners of the 0% movement that’s exploded over the last few years. She was to be the brand’s very first marketing hire at the time.
She explains:
“Friends and colleagues said to me, ‘You’re going to leave Pernod Ricard and work on an unknown alcohol-free beer brand? What are you doing?!’”
“All I thought at the time was, ‘Hey, it seems like it’s going to be fun. Let’s take a chance.’ So I did, and I loved it. And I know it’s a dead cheesy phrase, but if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. I have to be really, really passionate about what I do.”
There were, of course, enormous differences to going from working with one of the biggest drinks groups in the world, to a tight, new and eager start up. Access to in-depth data and analysis of the markets, of customer behaviour and of the competition, along with the juicy budgets afforded to her at Pernod Ricard, were gone.
“I think this is where I realised my skillset. One of my superpowers now is thinking creatively to make budgets go further than anyone could really imagine.”
“So it felt like a really good fit. Everything moved so quickly. You could come up with an idea on a Monday and have it in the market on a Friday, which is fantastic. So yes, it was definitely the right thing at that time.”
Racheal then became a fixer of issues for a number of smaller brands, helping the likes of Jubel, Lixir, The Real Drinks Company and Shandy Shack with very specific brand and marketing challenges.
But in May 2023, the opportunity arose to get up close and personal to what had been an at-distance love affair with Compass Box, and took just two years to move from Marketing Director there, to being made Chief Marketing Officer in May this year. The feelings were clearly mutual.
Leading with Purpose & Positivity
We discuss the leadership qualities she believes has earned her a place at the top of the tree at what has become the world’s fifth most admired whisky brand, according to Drinks International. She’s very clear on the learnings she’s taken from others, and how she now wants to lead.
“I love being around people. But I will say that managing people is probably the steepest learning curve that anyone will go on in their career. Understanding you’re responsible for their delivery but also their career going forward was a lightbulb moment for me.”
“Looking back, in the early days of leading teams, I was maybe too focused on outputs and delivery. But now I really try to focus on communicating an overall vision. What is the direction we’re swimming in, so that everyone feels really bought into it.”
“I also think leading by example is key. Kindness, generosity, and integrity are the three things that underpin the best leaders I’ve worked with. They’re the qualities they’ve embodied, and that’s how I try to model myself.”
As someone who’s often chosen the riskier path, it’s perhaps no surprise that she discusses the need for leaders to be the safety net for those showing ambition.
“Back your team, no matter what. Everyone has to feel comfortable making mistakes and know that it’s OK. Obviously not when they repeat the same mistakes over and over again, but everyone should be encouraged to try new things, push the boundaries, make me feel uncomfortable with the ideas they bring to me because they’re so out there, and know that it’s OK if it goes wrong.”
“I will 100% have their back. That’s something I’ve really appreciated in great leaders I’ve worked with, and it’s something I try to make sure my team feels – that safety net of knowing I’ve got them.”
Her positivity is something she leans into. Acutely aware that she’ll often view matters through rose-tinted glasses, she resolutely refuses to take them off. Without being naively blind to negatives, she believes attitudes become self-fulfilling.
“You’ve just got to believe. Control your own reality, and eventually, the more positives you see, the more positive things actually are. The more negative you are, it works in reverse. So putting on those rose-tinted glasses and seeing everything in a positive way will actually make your reality head in that direction.”
So what about the work she’s done to get Compass Box into its position, not just as a challenger, but to top of the mountain when it comes to blended whisky.
“I’m afraid to say, there is no silver bullet when it comes to the answer. The closest you get to that is creativity. Massively over indexing on creativity to make budgets stretch further, to get greater share of voice, to cut through the noise. That’s a given for our team, and for our brand.”
“The compounding effect of doing lots and lots of smaller things that ladder. Plant as many seeds as possible in the right places, and some will grow. Maintain a belief and faith that if you know the overarching vision you’re heading towards, then by consistently building those blocks, you will get there.”
“People often look at overnight successes and say ‘oh my God, this spirits brand just sold for £40 million – it’s an overnight success.’ Actually, no. It was 30 years in the making. You only heard about it in the last few years because that’s when all of the groundwork began paying off.”
“You’ve just got to keep plugging away. Not everything’s going to work out, not everything’s going to be the right thing. But find out what’s working, do more of that, ditch the things that aren’t working, and keep at it. Hard work, consistency, and a bit of luck – but the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Last year, Compass Box took another bold leap, simplifying its range to four distinct collections. We want to know what the motivation was behind that?
She says:
“The project we went through over the last couple of years to relook at that core collection was about simplifying it. Because the only way we can win going forward is if we reach millions of new consumers. How do we catch them with a really easy-to-understand core collection?”
“Compass Box was founded to make the world of Scotch a more interesting place, and I would argue we’ve achieved that. So this is the evolution. I want us to be the number one most admired whisky in the world.”
“Presenting the brand now is a really clear journey through the four core collection whiskies. Then we have the limited editions, which still exist to push the boundaries of flavour to the absolute maximum, but we’re taking a much more considered approach.”
“The core of what Compass Box is about is so amazing, so strong, so different. That is why, when people do know about Compass Box, they will stay with the brand for a lifetime. They become real brand loyalists. They’re genuinely fanatical. These people are incredible! We want to dig deeper into what it is about Compass Box that, in a communications sense, why she feels customers display such loyalty to the brand.”
“We have so many stories to tell. Everything has a thread you can pick at, and you can go down that rabbit hole for hours and weeks if you want, and you’ll always discover more because there’s so much going on beneath the surface. As the CMO, that’s a blessing, but it can be the biggest challenge because, most of the time, you have a split second to catch a consumer’s attention and you obsess how on earth you can tell them all these stories. It’s absolutely impossible!”
There’s a neat bow that ties up our time with Racheal. Her view of her contribution to Compass Box, and its people, long after she’s left the building is a fascinating one. It completes the arc, from eager youngster trying to get her foot in the door at Compass Box, to retired and happy, in a bar somewhere exotic, watching people enjoy the fruits of her labours.