Cécile KossoffGroup Chief Brand, Marketing and Communication Officer, Mazars
Cécile joined Mazars in July 2018 as Chief Brand, Marketing and Communication Officer of the group, reporting to its CEO Hervé Hélias. Her main responsibility has been to design and implement a new brand and reputation building strategy, through state-of-the-art marketing and communications, as well as distinctive thought leadership. In addition, Cécile will help drive greater gender diversity at Mazars.
Before joining Mazars, Cecile was Global Director of Marketing and Communications Excellence at McKinsey & Company, and a member of the global communications leadership team. Her latest achievements in this company have been the creation of a “centre of insights and excellence” for McKinsey’s reputation building, dissemination and communications strategies globally, and to provide an approach and infrastructure to establish state-of-the-art marketing and communications across the Firm. Prior to this, she led a three-year major project to review the McKinsey brand positioning, developed and rolled out a new client value proposition and narrative, as well as a new brand architecture supporting the evolution of McKinsey’s services and delivery models. Cécile joined McKinsey & Company in 2007 as Communications Director for the French office, where she managed McKinsey’s reputation during four years, including PR, events, client communication, reputation risk management, and employer brand building. She was also in charge of driving the internal and governance communications program, and advised the “strategic” clients of the Firm in France on their communications issues as well as change programs.
During her nearly 12 years at McKinsey, Cécile was a leader and a co-author of the McKinsey’s « Women Matter » series of research, which build the case for developing female leadership and provide insights for achieving gender diversity at the top of corporations. She is engaged in regular activities to shape the debate and build awareness in this space, including engagement with corporations’ top management and governmental institutions, media interviews and speaking in conferences to advance women in the economy and society.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Cécile had an experience of 15 years in marketing and communications, mainly in the publishing and online services industry. In particular, she worked as Strategy, Marketing and Communications Director for LexisNexis France (part of the Reed Elsevier group), where she was a member of the French Executive Committee and a member of the Global Marketing Council of the Group. For six years in this company, she helped design and drive the marketing and communications aspects of a major transformation program, which included deep brand positioning review and brand migrations, rolling out a new business model that turned the business from print to online and from local to global, as well as established a new client value proposition across all services.
Cecile’s recent publications include: “Women Matter 2017: Time to accelerate – 10 years of insights from McKinsey research”; « Women Matter 2016 - Reinventing the workplace to unlock the potential of gender diversity », McKinsey, 2016; « Gender Diversity, When Men Step Up », Eyrolles, 2015; « Women Matter 2013 - Gender diversity in top management: Moving corporate culture, moving boundaries », McKinsey, 2013
Cécile earns a Masters’ Degree in Communications strategies and Linguistics and a pre-Phd degree from the Institut d’Etudes Européennes (European Institute, University of Paris XIII) in Semiology of Communications.
