The owner of an award-winning Tavistock bed and breakfast has been recognised for his former career as an international marketing expert.

Iain White-Duncan, owner of Number One Drake Road has been awarded the Influential Man in Business Award in Marketing & Brand Strategy 2026 awards, rewarding his 30-year career building international brands and latterly his £140m work with IMO, the world’s largest automated car wash company.

Iain and husband Jack White-Duncan now jointly run the boutique One Drake Road guesthouse and apartments, which won the Green Tourism Gold Award and gold in the 2025–26 Devon Tourism Awards. They also were national finalists at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2026.

Iain said: “I am elated to share that I have won the Influential Man in Business Award in Marketing & Brand Strategy 2026. This means a great deal. I’m absolutely thrilled.

“It recognises a career spent in the corporate world building brands, shaping reputations, leading international marketing teams and helping businesses grow, before taking everything I’d learned and pouring it into our own business adventures.

“Today, that experience lives and breathes in One Drake Road & Apartments, the business Jack and I have built together with an enormous amount of love, hard work, creativity and determination. I’m incredibly proud of my corporate career, but equally proud that I had the courage to turn the page and start a new chapter.”

As a marketing and communications executive, Iain led multi-market teams delivering strategies, shaping brands, driving growth and protecting reputation. He is recognised for building trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, inspiring high-performance teams markets. He blended strategic vision with operational discipline to align brand, business and stakeholder priorities worldwide.

“As MD at IMO, I led a global brand, product development, customer strategy and growth initiatives. I drove our digital revenue transformation and led a global brand refresh, transforming a ‘tired’ legacy.”