Joan Colletta is Senior Director, global brand marketing for McDonald’s. In her role, she leads McDonald’s Global Creative Effectiveness Program, inspiring and enabling the marketing community to harness the power of the McDonald’s brand to move people and the business. In her role at McDonald’s, Colletta has driven greater focus on brand building communications, helped lead the global marketing response to the pandemic and driven alignment and inspiration for elevating the creative work, connecting with over 1,500 marketers and agency partners in workshops around the globe.
Joan is a passionate, cross-trained marketing communications leader with extensive experience on the corporate, creative agency and media sides of the marketing world. Prior to McDonald’s, Colletta was managing partner, communications planning lead for Mindshare and has held marketing communication leadership positions at Cramer-Krasselt, Miller Brewing Company and Leo Burnett. Over the course of her career, she’s guided business-building strategies, integrated approaches and award-winning ideas for an impressive roster of iconic brands including Heinz, Miller High-Life, Cheerios, Special K, The Gap, Allstate and Hallmark. Notably, her strategic leadership served as the catalyst for Corona’s “Find Your Beach” platform, which broke the brand out of its “beach” occasion typecast (without breaking the brand) while contributing to double digit sales increases, sustaining its position as America’s number one selling import.
Joan has been a finalist juror for the Effie’s, AdAge Creativity Awards, the Jay Chiat awards and has received various recognition for her own work, including Clios and Cannes Lions. Her leadership skills were also honored in 2020 when she was recognized as a finalist in the inaugural North American WeQual awards. Joan resides in Chicago and is a graduate of Northwestern University.