About me
• Seasoned executive with 10+ years working in early stage start-ups, advising on funding, business development, launch, expansion strategies, marketing, PR, branding, digital marketing and product strategy.
• Possesses a unique balance of business acumen, strategic insight, leadership and creative flair. Strong track record in business development and exploring innovative ideas in the connected world.
• Passionate about problem solving, idea assessment, including market sizing, competitive analysis, and go-to-market strategy, applying lean methodology techniques to launch MVPs and find product market fit. Growth hacking, product and business development, capital raising including marketing materials and business introductions.
Work history
Co-founder
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With a personal lifelong passion for music, and a belief that people are inherently competitive, our mission was to bring the best out of people in the form of great video content via participation. Challenging, nominating and discovery through video is what sets FightMe apart from generic video sites and social networks; rather than interacting through likes or comments alone we wanted to inspire like-minded individuals and brands to unite with each other. Video challenges allow you to spark true interaction with friends, followers and target audiences.
• Co-created the idea, wrote the initial business plan and set global company strategy and goals
• Bootstrapped and built an MVP prototype securing the initial seed funding
• Managed all day-to-day operations of the business, including hiring and managing a 15-person team.
• Secured our Series A funding of £1.3 million with various investors including HTG Ventures and angel investors in the Yahoo-acquired Summly
• Led and executed initial launch for FightMe in two international markets, (US & UK), achieving a 10x user growth post beta launch
• FightMe being featured in app store as “App of the week” and “best app to commute to work”
• Securing coverage of the launch in over 100 global publications and TV features including, The Telegraph, BBC news, ITV news, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Huffington Post. TechCrunch, naming FightMe as best Start-up name ever
Marketing:
• Built FightMe’s brand from scratch, drafted all marketing and sales collateral, taglines, and marketing promotions
• Created the marketing department and overall digital marketing strategies, social media, including cross-platform CRM, mobile marketing automation, promotional marketing
• Co-produced two promo videos with “FightMe Boris Bike take over” generating over 200k views in the first week or release
• Offline event production, hosting live music events, street team events, networking events and ambassador programmes
Product Strategy:
• Helped Implement Kanban production methodology across development, design and marketing teams
• Implemented and maintained AARRR analytics and a wider metric dashboard
Business Development and Operations:
• Managed all brand accounts and partnerships, to increase acquisition and brand awareness
• Created partnership with various brands and celebrities - serving and building deeper relationships with athletes in the extreme sports markets for all of FightMe sponsored brand challenges
• Pitched to brands and influencers- formulated the program, analysed targets and co-produced all marketing materials
• Dealt with all legal aspects of the business including copyright, investor documents, employment contracts
• IP management, business development, due diligence
• Maintained Financial models and cash flow and maintained weekly analytics
• Dealt and managed all R&D claims
Communications Manager & Strategic Business Planning
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• Part of the core founding team that launched Lulu publicly in just under three months, from initial product idea, development, private beta to public launch on Web & Mobile
• Produced, led and executed the strategic planning and marketing strategies for the Lulu app school ambassador program in England and North America. The brand’s most effective marketing and acquisition strategy to date
• Managed all communications activities including managing PR agencies and in-house copywriters, communications and social media assistants- Conducted market research (including focus groups) that directly influenced product development as well as the marketing roadmap
• Created, developed and assisted with pitch decks for investor meetings, collating relevant data and effectively presenting it
• Played a central role in the strategic/business planning process and oversaw implementation of these processes internally
• Created and executed social media strategy across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Wordpress. Integrating social media efforts within the email marketing strategy. Created and co-wrote the Lulu blog
• Organised promotional events and industry talks and hackathons to increase brand awareness and university meet-ups to source brand ambassadors and other outreach events for the brand and CEO including F.ounders, WebSummit, Disrupt & Noah
• Secured global coverage for the public launch of Lulu including publications such as Reuters, FT, Wall street Journal, TechCrunch and The Sunday Times, where Lulu had a weekly start up dairy that I co-wrote on behalf of the brand
• Achievements include liaising with Prime Minster David Cameron’s office during his Tech City tour and being chosen as one of the startups he visited, making the BBC &
ITV news
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Skills
- Fashion
- Events
- Marketing PR
- TV
- Excel
- Office
- Photoshop
- Powerpoint
- Word
- Github
- Trello
Education
Media and Sociology
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