Maria Farrell is Chief Operating Officer at AAR, where she leads its agency benchmarking and commercial advisory services. She works with brands to improve the effectiveness of their agency relationships through commercial strategy, remuneration design and governance.
Maria leads AAR’s work in helping organisations address challenges around cost transparency, inefficient agency models and misaligned performance outcomes. Her expertise spans agency selection, remuneration frameworks, rate card benchmarking, commercial audits and performance measurement, supporting the design and optimisation of agency operating models that deliver measurable business impact.
Drawing on AAR’s proprietary benchmarking data and commercial audit methodologies, Maria oversees the development of solutions that help organisations build agency structures and ways of working aligned to business objectives and measurable results.
Operating within a rapidly changing marketing landscape – shaped by new agency models, cost scrutiny and increasing demand for accountability – she helps ensure AAR’s clients have agency ecosystems that remain fit for purpose, high-performing and commercially effective.
Maria joined AAR in 2015, having previously qualified as a Chartered Accountant at BDO. Her early career included finance roles at Asprey plc and Diesel London, as well as agency-side experience within a digital content business.
