Aileen Caskie: Putting Strategy and Heart at the Centre of Marketing

When Aileen Caskie talks about marketing, she doesn’t start with channels, clicks, or campaigns. She starts with people.

“Only five percent of your audience is ready to buy at any one time,” she often tells clients. “That means ninety-five percent need nurturing.” It’s a deceptively simple statement, but it cuts to the heart of why her work stands out: strategy first, sales second, always anchored in understanding the customer journey.

For more than three decades, Aileen has been helping businesses, from three-person startups to 3,000-strong enterprises, do just that. A Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, she has helped over 40 companies with innovative marketing solutions from service launches to brand transformations, with more than 20 detailed case studies and testimonials to prove it. Yet, despite her credentials, it’s not theory that defines her, it’s the way she applies marketing to real-world business challenges with a mix of creative flair and strategic rigour.

From Words and Pictures to Strategy and Growth

Aileen’s career began in the creative industries. Armed with an English degree from the University of Stirling, she spent some of her early years in London as a freelance journalist and editor, later turning her hand to graphic design and publishing. “That was where I really discovered the power of words and visuals together,” she recalls. “A compelling story, told well, can change how people see a brand.”

By the 1990s, she was already working in people-focused organisations like the National Union of Students and Women’s Aid back in Glasgow. Those experiences instilled in her a deep sense of purpose, something that continues to underpin her work today.

In 2001, she moved back to London and spent more than a decade as an independent consultant. The clients were diverse, Barclays, RBS, Visa Europe, BNY Mellon, but the lesson was consistent: even the biggest organisations can lose their way without a clear sense of strategy and story. Navigating regulated industries demanded diplomacy and creativity, and Aileen proved she could bring both.

The Birth of Dynamic Heart

In 2010, Aileen launched her consultancy, Dynamic Heart. The name wasn’t chosen lightly. “Dynamic, because marketing never stands still. Heart, because businesses that thrive put customers at the centre,” she explains.

Dynamic Heart quickly became her platform for helping businesses rethink how they approached growth. Whether it was a scaleup trying to break into a new market, a heritage organisation in need of a brand refresh, or a FTSE-listed company managing a merger, Aileen designed bespoke programmes blending brand strategy, communications, and leadership coaching.

The services were practical, but the philosophy was bold: marketing isn’t a cost centre, it’s the engine of growth.

The JANET Transformation

Perhaps the best illustration of her approach came with JANET (Joint Academic Network), a technology provider delivering ultra-fast broadband for research and education.

When Aileen arrived, the organisation’s marketing was adrift. The visual identity looked stuck in the 1960s, the team was struggling, and leadership couldn’t articulate clear value propositions. Over 12 months, she rebuilt everything.

She began with an intensive round of interviews with stakeholders, uncovering the gaps and frustrations. Four redundancies later, a new structure emerged, supported by freelancers for specialist skills. She recruited a new marketing director, modernised the brand, repositioned development projects exploring emerging technologies as customer-facing propositions, and oversaw collaborations with agencies to bring in fresh expertise.

The result? A credible, modernised brand that could stand proudly alongside its high-tech peers, including those working at the level of Hadron Collider connectivity.

The Investment Mindset

If there’s one message Aileen wishes more leaders would take on board, it’s this: marketing is not overhead.

Drawing on Gartner research, she advises businesses to allocate around 10% of turnover to marketing, flexing between 8–14% depending on context. “If your competitors are marketing, and you’re not, you’re falling behind,” she says.

That principle shapes everything from 18-month B2B sales cycle nurture campaigns to startup discovery contracts. It’s not about spending for the sake of it; it’s about building the infrastructure, brand, communications, customer experience that drives sustainable growth.

Scotland, Startups, and the Power of Collaboration

Today, Aileen is based in Edinburgh, and has worked with a mix of corporates, professional bodies, and ambitious startups. Her client list reads like a cross-section of the modern economy: SSE, Prudential, Citizens Advice Scotland, the ICT division within the Digital Directorate of the Scottish Government, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and a VC backed health technology start-up, to name just a few.

Now, as a seasoned leader in her 50s, Aileen is channelling that experience directly into Scotland’s startup ecosystem by joining Nexus (www.nexus.scot), a community designed to connect founders with real-world expertise. For Aileen, it’s the ideal platform to spend her spare time in selective, high-impact engagements: advising on strategy, funding readiness, supplier management, and market positioning while helping founders shorten the learning curve.

Her belief is that her lived experience is a competitive advantage when paired with entrepreneurial energy. Through Nexus, she aims to help brilliant entrepreneurs create credible businesses, devising strategies, mapping stakeholders, shaping propositions, and building the nurture content required for long B2B cycles.

The ambition is bigger than any single company. Aileen sees cross-generational collaboration as a catalyst for Scotland, and the wider UK, to lead in innovation: matching startup pace with strategic depth so founders move faster, avoid costly missteps, and scale with purpose.

Purpose and People at the Core

For Aileen, marketing without purpose is marketing without heart. She encourages clients to define not only what they sell but why it matters. Aligning with UN Sustainability Goals or demonstrating social impact isn’t just about reputation, it’s about attracting the next generation of talent and customers who expect businesses to stand for something.

She also champions cultural alignment inside organisations. “If your own people can’t clearly explain your brand, how can you expect customers to understand it?” she says.

A Career Still in Motion

Even with 35 years behind her, Aileen isn’t slowing down. Dynamic Heart continues to offer six-to-12 session programmes tailored to clients’ needs, and she remains selective about the projects she takes on, focusing on those where she can make the biggest difference.

Her recent track record speaks volumes: a full rebrand for SSE, digital marketing strategies for Rubric, communications and marketing leadership at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and creating an ambitious account-based marketing strategy in fintech.

She’s as passionate about the basics today as she was as a young journalist: clarity of message, strength of purpose, and the power of story to change how people see the world.

The Heart of Growth

Aileen Caskie’s story is one of evolution, from words and pictures to boardroom strategy, from London finance giants to Scottish startups. What ties it all together is a simple but profound belief: marketing is the only function dedicated exclusively to growth.

Through Dynamic Heart, she continues to prove that with the right strategy, marketing can be more than a campaign, it can be the catalyst that transforms businesses, industries, and even society.