Welcome to In Her Words, New York Festivals Lady Liberty’s monthly interview series celebrating women innovators across the industry. As part of the Lady Liberty Leadership Program, the series offers audiences an opportunity to connect with the voices, ideas, and experiences shaping today’s creative landscape through thoughtful conversations, personal reflections, and an evolving monthly focus.

Meet Christina Peyton, Founder at KLAR Consulting.

Christina Peyton is a global marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience building brands, driving growth, and leading high-performing teams across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Before founding KLAR, Christina served as Global Vice President at WPP, where she led integrated go-to-market strategy, AI-led initiatives, global partnerships, and innovation programs that delivered multimillion-dollar impact. She has held senior roles across agencies, consultancies, and global networks, partnering with brands ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 100 leaders.

Known for her clarity of thought, strategic rigor, and collaborative leadership style, Christina founded KLAR to provide businesses with the kind of marketing excellence typically reserved for large enterprises—delivered flexibly, affordably, and through a modern, AI-enabled approach.

Lady Liberty: What’s something about you that isn’t widely known, but really shapes who you are or what drives you? 

Christina Peyton: I grew up in the Swedish countryside in an academic family, where the expectation was simple: work hard, think for yourself, and never rely on anyone else for your financial independence. That was set in me young, and it has shaped every chapter since. It is why I have always built things from the ground up, whether that meant launching Health@WPP from zero into a category leader, taking on global projects with high stakes, or relocating across three regions to chase the work I wanted to do. The Swedish part is quiet, but it shows up in how I work and how I think about the evolution of brand marketing. Build properly, prove it works and only talk about it after. 

Lady Liberty: What does creativity mean to you today, personally and professionally? 

Christina Peyton: For me, creativity has always been about finding the sharpest possible idea that combines commercial outcomes with a brand truth, and then having the strength of conviction and the discipline to discard everything that doesn't fit. And yes, this can mean eliminating ideas that you are very fond of. However, after twenty years in the industry, I believe the heart of creative thinking is finding the truth of a business problem, seeing it from all angles: the brands, the customers, partners, and increasingly even seeing it from the angle of an AI agent. Then, articulate that truth clearly, build the narrative, the offer, and the go-to-market engagement strategy so you can activate the idea with uncompromising conviction. To make all of this possible and to foster creativity, we must keep curiosity at the core. My curiosity is the reason I keep reinventing what I do and the reason I started KLAR. 

Lady Liberty: How is AI changing the way you approach creativity? And where do you draw the line between it as a tool and your own creative thinking? 

Christina Peyton: AI has changed the speed and the surface area of what is possible, but it has not changed where the value sits. I’ve led AI adoption and enablement work that took an organization to 70 percent adoption. What I learned in that work is that AI is extraordinary at expanding range, pressure-testing ideas, and compressing time, but it is not a substitute for human thinking, instinct, and commercial judgment. The line for me is clear. AI accelerates the process, and the thinking. It allows us to test a diverse range of thoughts and to both test and challenge expressions of an idea, but it does not replace the human thinking. The strategy, the truth about a brand or an audience, the decision about which idea is worth backing, and most importantly, accountability for how that work performs is still human, and in my experience, it is by combining AI with human judgement and wisdom that allows to create work that wins.