Cindy-Ann (CA) Hersom
Owner and CMO
CA’s 20-year marketing career has taken her across the world, shaping her unique expertise in integrating sustainability across business and communication to help people in need.
As an owner and CMO of ignition, a smart and agile agency transforming the industry through Sustainable Brand Experiences, CA leads cause and creative services for blue chip corporate and global NGO clients. She also oversees the agency’s marketing and business development.
A dual South African and U.S. citizen, CA’s foresight on the intersection of communities, brands, corporations and civil society is manifested through her experience as the first external affairs lead for Coca-Cola’s Southern Africa division, where she championed multi-communication strategies across 10 culturally diverse Southern African countries and led key brand campaigns in West and East Africa markets.
In the recent past, she served as The Coca-Cola Company’s Global Brand Director for the Corporate Brand, where she was part of a core team that designed the business system’s first sustainability marketing platform with her specific focus on driving engagement around the global water challenge. CA has also served in key leadership positions on several high-profile initiatives and spoken on behalf of Coca-Cola at the World Economic Forum on Africa (1999) about the importance of private and public sector partnerships in times of humanitarian need.
Starting out in the 1990s as a political news reporter in South Africa, CA’s creative background and strategic communications talent led to her appointment as the country’s youngest ever, executive-level public relations director at South Africa’s foremost PR agency, where she led the launches of several newly invested multi-nationals against the backdrop of significant socio-political change (1993-95). It was during this time that CA embarked on her life-long journey to better understand and leverage the nexus of brand marketing with community programming to deliver consumer loyalty, opinion leader trust and advocacy in a changing world.
CA is married to co-owner Mike Hersom and the proud mother to their son André.
Favorite quote:
“I would have written you a short letter but I didn’t have the time.”
