Head of Partnerships
VERNOST MARKETING TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
Total des années d'expérience :26 years, 7 Mois
Vernost is a Tech partner for GEMS Rewards, part of GEMS Education Group. With a team of 300+ people based across Middle East and India, it offers a range of solutions covering Rewards programs, Apps, Fintech, Travel & more. It has clients across Retail, Hospitality, Education, Banking & Airlines. Current deliverables and achievements include:
• Building the complete ecosystem of 800+ partnerships on GEMS Rewards from scratch covering dine, shop, leisure, wellness, services and retail with over 150+ partners onboarded in just 2 months on re-launch in 2019.
• Working with the Senior GEMS Rewards Team and also independently to explore innovative and value based new partnership opportunities, drive partner discussions and execute successful partnerships.
• Developing deep relationships with partners and all stakeholders to be able to generate active engagement of commercial offers and campaigns across the annual marketing calendar.
• Developing customized Partnerships structure and approach as per industry / type of value proposition and mentor the Partners to successfully convert discussions into Partnerships.
• Seamlessly working with cross functional teams including legal, operations, technical and marketing to efficiently get all partnerships, campaigns and communications executed as per agreed vision and timeline.
• Ensure managing risk through documentation and delivering program KPIs across partner benefits, member savings and experiences.
• Building the relevance of GEMS Points as a core currency of the program ecosystem & integrate the same into the academic ecosystem.
• Strategically work on integrating multiple GEMS Group company offerings into the Rewards program to drive cross engagement and mutual synergies across the group.
BizX is an award winning Barter, Loyalty & Marketing solutions Agency, with its corporate office in Seattle, USA, and the regional Middle East base in Dubai. It is also the loyalty partnerships consolidator for Etihad Guest, Jet Privilege, Air Arabia Rewards, Etisalat Smiles & Landmark Shukran. Key focus areas for my role included:
¥ Active role as a channel partner in creating and managing Loyalty Partnerships and Channel Relationships.
¥ Signed up and managed partners for Etihad Guest, Air Arabia Rewards, Jet Privilege and Etisalat Smiles.
¥ Created and implemented 360 Degree integrated Marketing Solutions for brands and businesses combining Digital, Social Media, Direct Marketing, Radio, Print, Outdoor and Loyalty. Managed a Consultative and Business Development role.
¥ Launched Jet Privilege in the Middle East with over 12 Loyalty and Marketing partnerships in the last 3 years.
¥ Launched over 20 Loyalty and Marketing partnerships for Etihad Guest over the last 4 years.
¥ Planned and implemented successful ATL, BTL and Tactical campaigns for clients in segments like Home Decor, Retail, Jewelry, Arabic Fashion, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Automobile, Leisure etc. over the last 4 years.
¥ Delivered learning and implementation support on Loyalty to partners through a consulting, planning, designing and implementation role for coalition loyalty programs.
¥ Created acquisition and partnership strategies and Return on Investment (ROI) models, to help partners develop the value proposition and achieve business objectives.
¥ Analyzed the challenges faced by the business in sales, customer retention and repeat business growth, and map the customer journey to tap touchpoints to grow business volumes using Loyalty.
¥ Led and managed the loyalty team and allocated resources to achieve business objectives.
¥ Built a robust pipeline of partners to build partnerships and sustainable volumes of miles as loyalty currency.
Involved with the independent startup Marketing Consultancy in UAE to offer integrated Marketing and Communications Solutions to the B2B, Trade and Retail industry. Segments included Retail Marketing solutions, Trade Marketing Solutions, Loyalty, Events Management, Social Media, PR and Direct Marketing to consult various brands and businesses for marketing implementation.
Recruited by Kingston to launch the Group Marketing Department and market the group brands Pierlite Australia, Rexton Technologies UK, GP Batteries Hong Kong and Xpelair UK.Reported to the MD. Key responsibilities:
• Corporate Communications and PR - Standardised and implemented Corporate Communications and newsletters at a regional level. Managed planning, creation and distribution of content with PR agencies. Successfully created communication formats, emails and social media content for various stakeholders.
• Brand Marketing: Successfully developed and implemented integrated Brand marketing communications strategy to engage the trade network of manufacturers, distributors and influencers across the region.
• Events Management: Successfully organized Brand building Events (brand launches, retailer events, product launches, press conferences etc.) at Head Office and External locations for Business Development. Developed trade relationships through dealer conferences and trade delegations, and built market presence through industrial exhibitions like Project Qatar, The Big5 Dubai, Erbil international Fair Iraq and Elecrama India.
• Loyalty and Incentivising: Worked on developing a B2B loyalty program and sales incentivising project for the distributor and dealer network to drive engagement and sales.
• Events Marketing: Successfully marketed corporate Events through press conferences, press releases, email campaigns and direct marketing to trade councils, chambers of commerce etc. to build participation. Worked with Group MD who is associated with Industry Business Group and Sharjah Chamber of Commerce to develop marketing strategies and collateral for events like “Made in Sharjah”.
• Brand Standardization: Developed Brand guidelines for packaging, catalogues and promotional collateral, and ensured the Brands were correctly positioned through campaigns and store activations across the Region.
• Social Media Marketing: Set up the Brand profiles on social media channels and blogs to publish online content and engage target audience of customers.
Grew from the role of an executive to Management to manage the Brand Marketing for Home Centre. Reported to the General Manager and the Head of Marketing. Key areas managed:
• Corporate Communications - Represented the Home Centre brand at the Group level to formulate and execute the corporate Brand guidelines. Created and managed content for the Landmark Group newsletter as the editorial representative for Home Centre.
• Loyalty Management - Implemented Shukran, the Group Loyalty program across the Home Centre retail stores. Worked extensively with retail teams to create a loyalty marketing calendar and custom retail promotions to engage the huge loyalty member base of Landmark Group to drive engagement and incremental sales.
• Brand Marketing and Positioning- Successfully executed over 50 Tactical Promotions and 20 Brand Campaigns over a 5 year period to achieve a sustained growth year on year. Managed and executed Brand campaigns across ATL, BTL, PR and online channels as per retail calendar and Brand standards.
• Marketing Budgets - Allocated and standardised countrywise Branding budgets as per retail calendar whilst controlling spends within agreed allocation. Managed the agencies for media buying and creative design.
• New Branding & Store Launches - Successfully managed the strategy and communication for new store launches including promotions. Also managed the new branding of Home Centre across 9 countries/64+ existing retail stores across Middle East & India spanning 201011 as per brand standards and corporate guidelines.
• Digital & Online Media: Designed and launched social media and mall media campaigns to promote the Brand and engage consumers. Worked with media agencies to develop strategies, design and implement digital online campaigns, buying of online and digital media and inmall media for brand campaigns.
Primarily responsible to drive company initiatives, technologies, products and services into the marketplace.
Key focus is to create demand for product and service portfolio of media and software solutions. Successfully created clientele with hotels and real estate developers in Goa to generate service revenues.
Reported to the Managing Partner.
Responsible to plan and implement all aspects of marketing programs. Was tasked with conducting market research to shortlist potential clients to deliver marketing content and generate channels for further negotiations and finalizations.
Responsible for marketing company’s exceptional product portfolio of web solutions to end users, partners and customers and to generate business.
Reported to the Senior Marketing Manager.
Strategic analysis, planning and implementation of social media strategies and campaigns across all key social media channels, including integration of offline and traditional marketing implementation with online and digital social media marketing formats.
