Hot 100: Grainne Brankin, CBS Outdoor International

This is not least for overseeing the advertising group’s mandate as the sole outdoor provider for London 2012, but also for navigating it through a number of disputes, including the highly publicised legal battle with London Underground and Transport for London.

Although the contract for London 2012 was signed long before Brankin joined CBSO in May 2011, she was instrumental in advising on legal issues related to the group’s advertising contract for both internal and external outdoor advertising formats at Westfield Stratford, just a stone’s throw away from the Olympics site.

What’s more, last year saw Brankin and her now 14-strong team develop a savvy approach to litigation.

In what has been a challenging time in the advertising market, Brankin has continued to steer her team from success to success across the globe.

Under her guidance, CBSO won a landmark case in Dutch procurement law last year.

It also successfully renegotiated the terms of one of the group’s biggest contracts in Italy and increased the group’s holding in China. No mean feat.

“One of the interesting things in Italy and the Netherlands was that we took a slightly more holistic approach and did some policy work around what we were doing,” she says. “Relationships with clients aren’t binary, you’re within the relationship and so you’re looking to influence rather than just litigate and I think companies have to be more clever than ever before about how litigation fits into their relationships.”