dmg media Ireland has selected 40 brilliant young minds in the marketing industry as part of the 40 Under 40 series.

Orla Cleary - senior brand manager, Procter & Gamble

As senior brand manager, Orla Cleary takes care of the Hair, Skin & Femcare categories for Procter and Gamble in Ireland.

With eleven years’ experience in marketing, she has developed a love of brands and everything to do with how to create, grow and communicate them.

Cleary has created and managed many award-winning, iconic advertising campaigns for Procter & Gamble, Red Bull & Paddy Power.

Some career highlights include driving the digital strategy for the Irish business for P&G, leading the launch of three new Red Bull variants and accepting the All-Ireland Marketing Award for Best Brand Campaign on behalf of the Paddy Power team for the ‘Loyalty is Dead, Live for Rewards’ campaign.

Currently, Cleary is very excited about the future of the media landscape in Ireland. She is laser-focused on engaging Gen Z ‘the unreachable generation’ from a creative, media and advertising perspective.

• Hobbies: I love taking gym classes, especially ‘Heated Spin’. I am an avid reader and podcast listener. Last year I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and took part in a musical!
• Best piece of advice ever received: Early in my career, I was advised to always take a deep breath and try ‘zoom out’ when in a tough spot.
• Why I love my job: I love working with and influencing many internal and external stakeholders. I love working with people on a shared goal that helps drive my brands forward.
• Motto for life: "Feel the fear and do it anyway."

Catherine O'Toole - head of marketing, The Very Group

Catherine O’Toole is a highly creative, customer-centric marketing professional with 20 years’ experience within retail, FMCG and e-commerce industries.

In her role as head of marketing at Very, she leads a high-performing team and oversees the marketing strategy and its implementation for one of Ireland’s largest pure-play online retailers.

Since joining over five years ago, she has led the business through a rebrand (from Littlewoods Ireland), challenging market conditions including Brexit, the development of a new creative platform, ‘Let’s Make it Sparkle’, and has launched several innovations including a new financial services product ‘Take 3’ and a mobile app.

She is most proud of the title sponsorship of Breast Cancer Ireland’s Very Pink Run (formerly Great Pink Run). Over the last two years together they have raised over €1.2m to fund lifesaving research and awareness programmes. 

Before Very, O'Toole worked in various marketing roles in P&G, Boots Ireland, Newstalk and Dundrum Town Centre. Prior to her career in marketing, she worked in fashion retail roles in Blacktie, House of Fraser and Bay Trading.

Over the course of her career, O'Toole has won numerous awards including ‘Marketing Student of the Year’ and most recently Best Consumer Campaign (2025) and Best Brand (2024) at the Spider Awards, which recognise the best in Digital Marketing Excellence.

For the last four years, she has been listed on the Business & Finance CMO 100 index, recognising the Top 100 Marketing Professionals in Ireland.

O'Toole holds an MSc in Marketing Practice from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, a Bachelor of Business Studies, specialising in Marketing from TU Dublin and has completed Marketing Week’s Mini MBA in both Marketing and Brand Management.

• Hobbies: Reading (favourite book: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert), listening to podcasts (favourite podcast: A Bit of Optimism by Simon Sinek) and walking (favourite place to walk: Killiney Hill Park).
• Best piece of advice ever received: I really admire Anna Wintour and her leadership approach. Anna leads her team by creating a fast-paced environment as she believes people do their best work when things move at pace. Her way of supporting it is by giving timely, direct feedback so teams are confident they are moving in the right direction and there are no delays.
• Why you love your job: The excitement of seeing a campaign go live and it having an impact is the best feeling. It is not just that the idea is finally out in the world, but it is the fact that you created it together with lots of different people, overcoming obstacles and not giving up.
• Motto for life: "Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways." - Glennon Doyle.

Rob Guckian - brand manager, Disney+

Rob Guckian began his marketing career at Smyths Toys where he was a PR & promotions executive, working on a broad range of initiatives including press relations, marketing campaigns for new store openings and project managing the company’s famous Winter Catalogue.

In 2016, he joined Disney as the retail marketing manager for Ireland, working on commercialisation and marketing activations across a number of retailers including Dunnes, Tesco and Easons.

In 2020, he transitioned to become the Brand Manager for Disney+, leading the company’s strategy and marketing efforts in Ireland.

• Hobbies: I'm an avid music fan. I attend one or two concerts a month and am currently prepping playlists in advance of Eurovision.
• Best piece of advice ever received: Keep asking questions, we will never know everything.
• Why you love your job: I’m really fortunate to work for a company that thrives on creativity. There is nothing more exciting than carefully planning media firsts and seeing them come to life.
• Motto for life: Just be yourself, everyone else is already taken.