Duncan McKay

Duncan McKay is a highly experienced marketer with over 15 years of experience in launching and commercializing new products for major consumer goods companies. He has a successful track record of creating and launching innovative products in the UK and Europe and has demonstrated his ability to develop partnerships and execute effective go-to-market strategies. 

Starting his career as a management trainee at L'Oréal, duncan has worked at various roles that helped him develop a strong business foundation at brands like Unilever and Wall's. 

Duncan successfully built an £18m revenue business for PepsiCo within 12 months and won PepsiCo's Chairman's Award and the Marketing Excellence Award. He grew the Quaker business to be the fastest-growing cereal brand in the UK and led Flora's brand team in the UK, delivering the fastest growth in the grocery channel in just three months.

Currently, Duncan is a CEO and founder of Aistetic, a B2B technology platform that delivers next-generation 3D body models from mobile devices to reduce clothing waste. The company is a University of Oxford spinout that applies state-of-the-art computer vision and deep learning to real-world problems associated with 3D body reconstruction and measurement.

Aistetic is part of the Digital Catapult's Machine Intelligence Garage and Data Market Services Accelerator, a part of EU Horizon 2020. Through Aistetic, Duncan is on a mission to disrupt and make accessible 3D body measurement, and the company is poised to make a significant impact on the fashion industry.

McKay is also fluent in French, some Italian, and Spanish, having lived in Rome, Paris, and Barcelona. His innovation partners are the University of Oxford, Innovate UK, and OxLep. 

After his B.Sc. in Economics and Politics at the University of Bristol, Duncan started his career as a Management Trainee, where he worked in various roles, including customer team (J Sainbury), manufacturing (uptime project), and market research, which helped him develop a strong business foundation. In 2001, he became the International Junior Project Manager for L'Oréal, based in Paris, responsible for developing two product franchises for pan-European markets. These franchises included Garnier Synergie Skin Naturals, which comprised 13 SKUs and had sales of 29 million units, generating a turnover of €60 million.

As a Product Manager for Garnier Body, he was responsible for overseeing a range of products that included 12 SKUs and 2 sub-ranges. He managed a product line that generated over £4 million in turnover and sold 2.3 million units. 

In 2004, he became the Innovation Manager at Unilever and the Regional Brand Development Manager for Wall's at Unilever in 2006, responsible for the European Walls Classics Portfolio in 15 countries. After two years, Duncan was promoted to Global Brand Development Manager for Wall's, where he was responsible for the strategy for the brand worldwide. In this role, he managed a €1m budget and a team of one direct report and one intern. 

In August 2010, Duncan joined Unilever UK as a Marketing Manager for Flora, the company's €175m turnover brand, responsible for managing a team of four (two direct reports and two indirect reports) and reporting to the Category Director. He left this role in December 2010 to take up a new role as Senior Group Marketing Manager for Grains UK, where he was responsible for marketing Quaker Oats and other cereal brands. He was later promoted to Group Marketing Manager for Grains UK and then to Marketing Manager for Juice.

He did his MBA in General Management from INSEAD in 2011, and in 2014, Duncan left Unilever to join PepsiCo, where he worked for four years. During his time at PepsiCo, he built an £18m revenue business for PepsiCo within 12 months and won the Chairman's Award, a global award selected by the CEO and Chairman of PepsiCo. He also grew the Quaker business to be the fastest-growing cereal brand in the UK and led Flora's brand team in the UK, strengthening and shaping the business plan in three months, delivering the fastest growth in the grocery channel.

In May 2018, Duncan became Head of Ecommerce Europe at Pepsi Lipton, where he was responsible for the company's e-commerce operations across Europe. He held this position until November 2020 when he left to found Aistetic, a University of Oxford spinout that applies state-of-the-art computer vision and deep learning to the real-world problems associated with 3D body reconstruction and measurement. 

Duncan and his team are on a mission to disrupt and make accessible 3D body measurement. They have innovation partners that include the University of Oxford, Innovate UK, and OxLep. Aistetic is also part of the Digital Catapult's Machine Intelligence Garage and Data Market Services Accelerator (EU Horizon 2020). McKay remains the CEO of Aistetic as of April 2023.

Duncan's vision is to disrupt and make accessible 3D body measurement using state-of-the-art computer vision and deep learning technology. With Aistetic, his mission is to offer sustainable solutions for consumers in fashion and clothing by providing accurate, reliable, and accessible body measurement tools. 

In his own words, he says:

"We are building an immersive e-commerce shopping experience from your smartphone, where from a simple upload of images we are able to create a highly accurate photo-real 3D body model and take your measurements digitally.

This enables a high level of measurement accuracy and sizing recommendations for a better fit in order to reduce returns, an interactive body model for a virtual “try-on” to increase conversion as well as valuable data for retailers to optimize new product development."

The company's technology can be used for a wide range of applications, from fitness and health tracking to virtual try-on for apparel and medical diagnostics.