After spending the last five years in the role of corporate affairs director at Heineken UK, James Crampton is swapping leafy Guildford for Ho Chi Minh City, while retaining the same job title.
The move to Heineken Vietnam sees him bring his experience leading the corporate affairs function, with board responsibility for reputation and corporate stakeholder management in the UK, to Asia Pacific’s largest beer market. On his LinkedIn profile he said he is relishing a fresh challenge: “I’m thankful to have worked with some truly amazing people in the UK, especially the very talented corporate affairs team… Now onto something a little different…”
He continued: “I’m really looking forward to working with and learning from my new colleagues in Vietnam, the largest and most exciting beer market in the region. Một hai ba, dô!” – a phrase that literally translates as “one, two, three, in!”, but is colloquially the Vietnamese way of saying “cheers!”
Over a 25-year career in internal and external comms, working both consultancy-side and in-house, Crampton has gained broad experience across corporate entities, financial markets, regulatory agendas and consumer environments, including deal and crisis situations. His role will see him continue to support meeting commercial and business objectives by building and managing corporate reputation.
After beginning his career at business consultants the Brunswick Group, Crampton moved to media relations roles in both the financial service and the brewing industries, before becoming head of financial comms at Diageo, where he spent almost five years, moving between roles in Africa and then the UK. He then switched to entertainment giant Merlin as corporate affairs director, where he spent four years leading the development of the function and integration into the wider business, before moving to Heineken UK, as corporate affairs director.