Member Interview with Darius LaBelle

We are delighted to bring you a Member Interview with Darius LaBelle, Managing Director, November Five Middle East 

What’s your golden rule?

Be useful before being clever.

Who has been your biggest influence?

Byron Sharp and the work coming out of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science (especially How Brands Grow). It gave me a much clearer, evidence-based way to think about growth. This is data-led theory that shifts the thinking of marketers. Grow the brand, make it easy to buy, and measure what actually moves behaviour. Then bring it to life through high-quality CX. Availability gets you into consideration, but the experience is what earns trust, repeat use, and advocacy. That thinking has been a useful counterweight in an era that can get obsessed with short-term optimisation and platform metrics.

What is your most hated business expression?

Not my job

What’s the smartest business idea you’ve ever had?

Building my life alongside my wife and treating our partnership as the foundation for everything else. The line between life and business is blurred when you’re leading, building, and constantly making high-stakes decisions. My “unfair advantage” is that I’ve never been doing it alone.

Which leader do you admire most and why?

Bill Bernbach. He helped shift advertising from “selling stuff” to earning attention through truth, taste, and humanity. Bernbach treated people like intelligent participants, not targets or users. He used creativity to make brands feel culturally relevant and emotionally resonant, not just functionally louder. 

What is on your mind the most right now as a marketing leader?

For many brands, the most important experiences customers have are now products, platforms and service journeys, not campaigns. That means the work needs to be built to perform: reliable, accessible, measurable, and genuinely useful, with CX and trust designed in from day one.

Why is being part of The Marketing Society important for your career?

Connecting with real operators who are on the leading edge of our industry

Why does marketing matter to you?

Marketing can be a force for good. It can scale behaviours that improve lives, elevate inclusive representation, and connect growth with responsibility. Done with accountability, it’s one of the most powerful levers we have to drive both business performance and positive impact.

Tell us something that’s not on your CV

I’ve built a small golf community with friends that’s become a real anchor point for friendships and building core memories. What started as a few rounds turned into something structured with regular events, annual trips, and a culture that’s genuinely inclusive and welcoming.