My Purpose
Discover my true purpose.
I am a creative mind and I like to create things from scratch. My purpose in life is to take care of my little creations and see them grow and scale.
As a professional business leader, my experiences at tech companies like Yahoo and Amazon, and at CPGs like Unilever and Philips, helped and still help me to realize the importance of the test-and-learn approach and working with a clear purpose in mind.
Learnings from failures are key to secure a brighter future for us and the future generations to come.
"You have the rare and pretty unique ability to combine a think big strategic perspective, with a more hands on - get your hands dirty approach." [Keith Higgins, EVP eCommerce @ Unilever]
Recent Positions
My roles
VideowindoW
CMO & Strategic Advisor to CEO/CFO
Jun. 2023 – Nov. 2023
I have been the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Business Developer at Videowindow, a Dutch start-up that uses procedural generative AI to transform glass façades into media devices and entertainment experiences. My role involved shaping the company's growth and innovation strategies, driving marketing activities and business development, developing robust sales funnel strategies, and fostering strategic partnerships. I have been also actively involved in product development and stakeholder management. My skill set there included AI strategy development, product leadership, cross-functional team leadership, and data-driven decision-making.
Philips
Director - Global Venture Leader DTC Subscriptions & Web3 Memberships, Grooming & Beauty
Apr. 2020 – Feb. 2023
In this role, I lead an agile team of digital experts and drive the direct-to-consumer digital transformation in bringing recurring revenue business models to life.
My responsibilities include:
- Initiate and launch disruptive new models on membership, leveraging the power of Web3 technologies and applications
- Managing the integral burn rate for the OneBlade NXT venture to improve business performance, from idea generation to go-to-market and revenues for the venture
- Developing clear and achievable strategies, objectives, and tactical plans based on consumer & customer needs, market opportunities and in alignment with Market Solutions Combinations (MSCs)
Unilever
Senior Global eCommerce Manager - Head of Foods Division
Jan. 2018 – Mar. 2020
As the first e-commerce dedicated role integrated into the category, in this role I expanded my capabilities and broadening my scope, driving the digital eCommerce strategy across Foods Retail brands and supporting the global and local markets and eCom teams in launching initiatives to achieve Unilever's growth targets.
My job was three-fold: (1) define and roll-out the global strategy; (2) build brilliant brand experiences through digital content optimization across markets; (3) lead new revenue streams projects across the globe.
Senior Global Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce Co-Creation Manager @ Hatchouse - Head of Foods Division
Sept. 2016 – Dec. 2017
The co-creation manager role acted as the business expert representing disruptive and new business models in the innovation process. This key role required influencing skills that could manage up and down across a diverse group of stakeholders.
Main activities and responsibilities:- As Head of Foods, I partnered with brand development and markets to ensure that the pipeline our new e-models is fit in terms of ambition, quantity, and quality
Top five milestones and achievements:
- Successfully presented a Foods scanning business models and companies of interest analysis to the Global President of Foods, in a privileged and confidential 1-to-1 session. The analysis had the objective to recommend a list of start-ups and established companies for acquisition, investment, or partnership. From my recommendation, more than 60% are under investigation for further assessment
- Thorough and detailed pre-assessment analysis and light commercial due diligence of several companies of interest in EU for the Vice President of Foods Europe and the EU President. Total Cost saving: hundred of thousands of EUR in consultancy fee
- Co-founder of three Foods projects with the potential of becoming double-digit million dollars companies by Y3. Reduced time to market by 2x/3x times compared to regular launches
- Taken part in a 12 weeks Corporate Accelerator @ Innoleaps Startup Bootcamp in Amsterdam, the #1 ranked Startup Accelerator in EU. Delivered two validated and profitable DTC business models, approved in terms of funding, money, and resources by the President of Unilever Europe
- Successfully led several workshops in the U.K., India, and Turkey, with the purpose of educating marketers and senior leaders about Direct-to-Consumer business modeling and of finding new growth opportunities across categories. Output example: 1-month prep., 30+ marketers involved, 10+ ideas developed, 2 business ideas awarded, 1 into the funnel for rapid validation, 4.55+/5.00 rating feedback by attendees
Past Relevant Work Experiences
Highlighting here only the most relevant ones.
Find all my past work experiences in my resume or on my personal LinkedIN page.
Amazon
Country Deals & Events Manager, Italy and Spain
Jul. 2015 - Aug. 2016
This was both a Senior Project and Marketing management role.
The Deals & Events Manager is responsible for the organization and ongoing optimization of our daily deals and deal events such as Prime Day (PD), Black Friday (BF) and Cyber Monday (CM) as well as the continuous initiation of new customer-oriented deal events and their implementation on Amazon.xx websites.
Key achievements:- Awarded as one of the Top Trainers in Europe (May 2016);
- Coordinated the three most important ground breaking sales events, PD/BF/CM, with sales up more than 1,000% YoY in Italy, 1,500% YoY in Spain, the two countries with the highest growth rate worldwide;
- Transformed the Deals Program into a double digit million dollars program within two years;
- Built the Deals Champions structure, first successful example in EU
- First and only Deals Manager in EU to have led public speaking presentations during Quarterly Financial Reviews (All-Hands meetings)
Main activities and responsibilities:
- Management and expansion of the Deals program in both Italy in Spain in order to contribute to the growth of traffic to the Amazon websites via daily deals and deals events
- Coordination of all involved category teams along with Finance, PR, Customer Service and Traffic units
- Management of the 2nd most trafficked page of Amazon websites, the Deals page (after the Home page)
- Progress Review documents, presented to the Sr. Leadership and the Country Manager on a weekly basis
Amazon
Cross Site, Deals & Events Manager, Italy
Jan 2014 - Jun 2015
This was both a Content, Merchandising and Project Management role.
Main activities and responsibilities:
- As the Deals Manager, I developed the Deals platform in Italy and coordinated several teams of Retail and Marketplace to realize great deals for our customers through our set of widgets
Milestones:- Prime Day management: in charge of coordinating the biggest sales day ever in history: +900% YoY sales compared to Black Friday 2014
- During Black Friday Week (BFW) and Cyber Monday (CM) 2014, the two most important and successful sales events brought live in 2013 in Italy, delivered a strong increase in most major deals metrics: the average sell-through for Lightning Deals (LDs) was the highest in a comparison with US and EU5 locales, with a +3,083bps YoY increase
- As the Cross site & Events manager, I planned and executed cross site events, coordinating the Italian Site merchandising and Brand Specialists community, composed by more than 50 talented professionals
Milestones:- Increased the number of events in 2014 by 88%; sales increased by 299%
- Updated the guidelines for the IT Home page; as result, attributed sales for strategic categories increased by 450% YoY (units by 554%), thanks to the extra visibility given through strategic placements
- In charge of coordinating marketing and design for the launch of the strategic project ‘Made in Italy’, with potential for a worldwide expansion
- As Customer experience manager, I was in charge of Item Data Quality (IDQ) improvements and the development of the Mobile experience, by testing, planning, creating, measuring merchandising campaigns
Milestones:- As Item Data Quality Subject matter expert, drafted the very first Operation Plan on Sept 2014 for IT and the IDQ Roadmap with goals, actions and targets on March 2015
- Launched the Mobile Champions program and Mobile PlayBook (for best practices sharing) in IT
- As a People manager, I managed one resource, focusing on the development of his skill set.
My Certifications
Check out my most recent certifications.
(Re)-invent your business model with the Odyssey 3.14 approach
HEC Executive Education, Paris, February 2017
This course gives access to Odyssey 3.14 - an original approach developed to help invent or reinvent a business model. This highly innovative approach has been developed by Laurence Lehmann-Ortega and Hélène Musikas from HEC Executive Education and has been shown to be very effective. It is taught to top executives, entrepreneurs, and HEC students. In the course, you learn about the concept and tools that combine innovation and strategy. Starting with the 3 pillars that make up the core business model, this approach recommends 14 directions to consider in order to invent or reinvent any business model. Odyssey 3.14 is the result of over ten years of research, consulting and teaching. Over 100 companies that have successfully invented or reinvented their business model have been thoroughly analyzed and are used to inspire to develop new, innovative business model. At the end of the course, the attendee is be able to:
- Define what a business model is and how it relates to other the tools and frameworks in strategy
- Understand the 3 components of the business model and how they are linked
- Remember the 14 directions in which to explore and imagine a new business model
- Understand the Odyssey 3.14 global approach, which means being able to apply this approach to any industry
2017 Unilever Accelerator Program
Innoleaps @ Start-up Bootcamp, Amsterdam, March to June 2017
Innoleaps help large companies scale the agile mind, skill, and toolset within the entire organization based on the "Lean Transformation Framework". Which:
- Accelerates integral business transformation & innovation processing;
- Transforms the mindset and therefore culture into the lean start-up way;
- Facilitate training, educates, enables, and activates employees;
- Navigates business growth, creates and validates new business models.
Through the experience of the 12 Weeks Corporate Accelerator Innoleaps, the #1 ranked Start-up Accelerator in Europe, my team and I delivered two validated and profitable DTC eBusiness models, approved in terms of funding, money and resources by the President of Europe of Unilever.
