Christopher Lao-Thiane

Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | Pan-Africa

Cob Editions · Sep 2024 - today

Fractional CMO for a portfolio of companies across East and Central Africa. Positioning, acquisition, team building, commercial frameworks. Embedded with founders and C-suite. Active portfolio:

• Beauty & haircare group | DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and a European e-commerce market
  Premium salon network, nine locations across three countries at its 2024 peak. Group marketing lead: rebrand and internationalisation under way, European e-commerce channel live, and a group-wide reporting system built and running the network's weekly decisions.
• Digital market infrastructure (regulated extractives) | Pan-Africa
  B2B technology company in mineral traceability. Built the company's institutional voice on LinkedIn: data-backed content system, C-suite distribution, measurable reach growth.
• Pan-African institutional communications | multi-market
  Brand architecture and editorial strategy across 3 countries, at institutional level.
• Field brand programme | mining cooperative
  Delivered a full brand identity on a four-figure envelope. Premium standards hold under hard constraints.

Senior Sales & Marketing Consultant | The World Bank (IFC-XSML)

Apr 2024 - Apr 2025

Sole external consultant to a World Bank/IFC-XSML portfolio company (beauty retail, Africa + Europe), deployed on the company's full marketing, sales and communication framework.

• Designed and installed the framework end to end: positioning, commercial processes, CRM and measurement. Revenue rose 58.4% from 2022 to 2024 over the company as a whole.
• Created the company's entire marketing and commercial organisation, which did not exist on the 2023 org chart, across three operating countries and a European e-commerce market, with a documented system transferred to the internal team.
• Launched the e-commerce channel, including paid acquisition and logistics setup.
• Delivered twelve weighted workstreams, from segmentation and loyalty design to NPS implementation and agency tender, reaching 84% of the agreed scope over 191 days against 126 planned.

Group Head of Marketing & Communications | Energy & E-mobility, 10 African Markets

Bboxx · Mar 2022 - Sep 2024

Bboxx: a leader in renewable energy and e-mobility, serving off-grid communities in 10 African countries (Rwanda, Kenya, DRC, Togo, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria). Group marketing lead: a fifteen-role marketing organisation designed, staffed and run functionally across the ten markets, nine subsidiaries under remit.

• Multiplied conversion by 3.3 across 10 markets by rebuilding the digital funnel end to end: low-bandwidth creative, retargeting driven by behavioural signals, offline-to-online conversion through community ambassadors.
• Multiplied conversion by 3.3, from 5.05% to 16.61%, and divided cost per sale by 2.8, from $9.58 to $3.47, with a digital and telesales strategy.
• Cut cost per lead in Ghana from $0.48 to $0.24 between May 2023 and May 2024 by segmenting audiences on energy needs rather than geography.
• Built and mentored local teams in 10 countries, with centralised real-time dashboards and local execution autonomy.

Founder & Performance Marketing Consultant

Cob Editions · 2018 - Feb 2022

Cob Editions: my own consulting practice. Performance marketing at industrial scale for media and consumer brands, across Europe.

• Designed and deployed a proprietary Real-Time Bidding and Machine Learning platform to generate qualified leads, with 200,000+ campaigns managed (CRM, retargeting, email, CRO, SXO).
• Generated 2M+ B2B and B2C leads, 2,402,428 cumulative from 2013 to 2019, on 2.19M euros of cumulative media spend across Meta, Google and LinkedIn.
• Sustained 1,000+ sales per month, 1,063 excluding duplicates over the September to November reference window, through cascading offers and continuous A/B testing.
• Held a 28.1% gross margin in 2018 on an owner-operated performance practice.
• Marketed an AI logistics SaaS around the customer problem rather than the technology.
• Industrialised creative production: 12,000+ landing pages, 50,000 campaigns, 200K ads, 12M keywords and placements bid daily.

Main clients: Canal+, Saatchi & Saatchi.

Head of Digital, then Co-Managing Director

Saatchi & Saatchi (Master Group) · Oct 2011 - Oct 2017

Head of digital, then co-managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi's agency within Master Group (Publicis network), leading its digital transformation across the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean: Reunion, Mauritius, Mayotte, Madagascar, South Africa, Martinique, Guadeloupe.

• Built the agency's digital division from scratch, three direct reports and a twelve-person team across seven markets, for global brands.
• Created and hosted the agency's regional digital conference series, including a session delivered to MEDEF, France's main employers' federation.
• Speaker on the online reputation of public institutions, at a conference built for public bodies and chambers of commerce.
• Won 4 creative awards (2013-2015), including 1st prize corporate film and digital design awards.
• Board member of Digital Reunion (President, Software Publishers Committee, 2014-2016) and AACC member (2012-2016).

Main clients: Orange, Coca-Cola, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Toyota, Heineken, Orangina, Total, Leroy Merlin, Nivea, Unilever, plus banks and insurers and institutional players (Réunion Tourism Board, city councils).

Account Director

Wunderman (WPP network), Reunion · 2010 - 2011

Account Director at Wunderman (WPP network), driving data-led communication for consumer brands in Reunion Island.

• Ran an inbound marketing strategy for a telco.
• Grew reach, engagement and in-store traffic for an automotive brand through a dedicated social media strategy.
• Managed a client portfolio on traffic-driving strategy (inbound and outbound), with budgets and delivery held on time and on scope.

Main clients: Red by SFR, NRJ Mobile, Ford.

Project Director

Nextedia (Lagardère Active group), Paris · Sep 2009 - Sep 2010

Nextedia (Lagardère Active group): a 250-person digital agency serving major international brands in France and Europe.

• Launched an e-commerce website for a global sports brand.
• Integrated social media, email marketing and display advertising for a major national gaming operator.
• Ran the full project lifecycle, from scoping (brief, needs analysis, benchmark, strategic recommendations) to delivery, managing project teams: e-commerce sites, magazine portals, viral and social mechanisms, interactive video, innovative display campaigns, newsletters, CRM programmes.

Main clients: Bang & Olufsen, Essilor, Groupe BEL, La Française des Jeux, Levi's, Nivea, Sony, TimeSport, TotalGaz, Unilever.

Project Delivery Manager

Nextedia · Oct 2005 - Sep 2009

• UX design (site architecture, wireframes), functional specifications, coordination of creative and technical contributors, testing and QA.
• Delivered digital marketing projects for a range of clients, on time, on budget and to quality standards.
• Built campaigns across social media, email and search engine marketing, and trained clients to run their own.
• Helped shape the agency's internal project management processes and best practices.

Customer Relationship Management Manager

RogueLink · 2004 - 2005 · Oregon, USA

RogueLink: an Internet Service Provider in Oregon, offering broadband, email hosting, web design and e-commerce solutions.

• Set up a customer feedback programme and a dedicated retention strategy.
• Built and ran multi-channel acquisition campaigns for the California and Oregon markets, and set up the CRM processes: onboarding, retention, engagement.