Leader’s Corner: Celine Boussidan, Alliance

Uncover Celine Boussidan’s insights on flexibility, leadership, and navigating the dynamic landscape of technology marketing, offering valuable lessons for aspiring marketers.

Celine Boussidan is a seasoned marketing leader with more than two decades of experience in the industry. Having spent a significant part of her career outside London, Celine served as the Chief Marketing Officer at Huma Therapeutics until September 2023. 

Now, she is venturing into the realm of a fractional CMO and freelancing, showcasing her commitment to exploring diverse opportunities. 

Discover more about Celine’s career trajectory, her switch from one male-dominated industry to another and her thoughts on the evolving role of marketing, in this exclusive Leader’s Corner interview at The Studio.

Leader’s Corner insights with Celine Boussidan

Choosing one word to describe her career development journey, Celine Boussidan settled on “flexibility”. In her view, she was never a perfect fit for the role or never ticked all the boxes, on the other hand—

“I always embraced every opportunity and every situation as a push for me just to grow, to learn more and to prove to myself that I can do it.” Out of this situation, she created something positive. 

Celine’s mindset is moulded by the idea that if things are not perfect, then it is time to adapt. She perceives each career move as an opportunity not only to contribute to marketing strategies but also to build herself up.

As a leader, Céline emphasises the importance of care, both for her team and herself. Her leadership style revolves around active listening and understanding the unique strengths of individuals. 

“The same way we're encouraging marketing just to be tailored, personalised to our audience. We also have to be tailored and personalised to our stakeholders internally and to our team members.”

Reflecting on her unconventional journey into marketing from an engineering background, Céline acknowledges that marketing found her rather than being a deliberate career choice. Meeting the right person at the right time opened the door to a fulfilling career in product marketing. 

“When I started in IT, I think I can count on one hand how many women were working in data centres, networking, backup and restore storage.” Going back to her time at Dell, she also commented on the lack of women in the workforce.

“At the same time, I'm incredibly grateful that I was given the opportunity just to learn from people that built up their career there, that also nurtured me, that also trained me, that also encouraged me… and never again at no point in time made me feel like I was an imposter.”

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