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Louise McEwen is McLaren Racing’s Chief Marketing Officer, one of the most senior women in Formula 1’s commercial landscape, whose route into the sport came not through a racing career but through two decades of sports marketing work that eventually landed her at the heart of one of the grid’s most storied teams. [1]

EARLY YEARS

McEwen’s entry into motorsport was, by her own account, neither planned nor straightforward. Her first contact with Formula 1 came through a sports marketing agency where she was working on Vodafone’s account. Vodafone was moving into Formula 1 to build brand awareness, and McEwen found herself working initially on the Vodafone–Ferrari partnership — an introduction to the sport she has described as “incredible.” [1] From there, her career developed through Vodafone itself and eventually through its McLaren partnership, building the kind of deep institutional knowledge of Formula 1 that most marketing executives spend careers trying to acquire. She has noted that the path was anything but linear: “It wasn’t necessarily linear, and I didn’t intentionally go into motorsport, but I’ve been in and around motorsport for around 23 years.” [1]

INSPIRATIONS

McEwen has spoken about the importance of making women’s career paths in motorsport visible — not just in driving roles, but across the full breadth of what the industry offers. She sees diversity and inclusion as directly connected to high performance, a view she holds as an executive who has lived the reality of being a woman navigating a sport not originally designed with her in mind. [1] Her advice to women considering careers in motorsport reflects hard-won self-awareness: “Control what you can control, and try not to worry about everything else, or what you don’t know. That is easier said than done, but if I look back and think about how I’ve held myself back, it is those ‘what if?’ questions.” [1]

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

In a McLaren interview published on May 1, 2025, McEwen expressed a clear intention to use her position to influence the next generation and to help make women’s career paths across motorsport more visible and accessible — including in roles well beyond the cockpit. [1]

References:

[1] McLaren Racing interview with Louise McEwen and Stephanie Carlin