MarTech Unravelled

Today's episode of MarTech Unravelled podcast looks at the world of AdTech - what it is vis a vis MarTech, challenges in driving ROI in emerging markets and the talent requirements to serve an ever changing consumer landscape. Our guest for this episode is a seasoned advertising executive with over 20 years experience working at the intersection of marketing, technology and business. Stanislas Martins is the Managing Director for West Africa at Aleph, a global digital media sales powerhouse. In this role, he oversees the company's operations and growth across platforms such as X, Spotify, Snapchat, Pinterest, Taboola, and Audiomack across West Africa. His career includes leadership roles at Meta SSA, Jumia, and Insight Publicis. Stanislas is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK and the President of the Association of Digital Marketing Professionals of Nigeria (ADMARP).

On the third episode of Season 2, Namrata Sinha VP of Digital Business and D2C at BSH Appliances, a subsidiary of Robert Bosch Group based in Germany, graced the podcast to talk about "Winning Customers in Long Cycle Industries". She is a passionate Consumer Marketing & Digital Transformation leader with over 15+ years of experience driving digital-first engagement strategy and optimizing consumer lifecycle experiences.Namrata has worked in Consumer Goods, Technology, Banking, and Automotive sectors leading Consumer Experience Journeys, Direct to Consumer eCommerce, Go-to-Market strategies, Performance Marketing, and Digital Innovations. She champions Data–driven Marketing and Consumer Experiences.

Is the role of the CMO changing or have some CMOs lost sight of the basics? We tackled this topic with Dr Mzamo Masito, a seasoned brand and business executive, currently the Africa Regional Lead for Canva and the immediate former CMO for Google Africa. Dr Masito has over 27 years of experience in technology, telecommunications, sport and consumer goods. His illustrious global career has seen him hold various positions including VP Brand Building at Unilever, Chief Brand Officer at Nike Africa where he successfully led the brand positioning for the 2010 World Cup, Marketing Executive at Vodacom Africa and Global Head of Brand Engagement at Vodafone. His ultimate mission is to "Democratize Opportunity and increase Transcendence for Every African"In recent months, a discussion on how CMO roles are evolving given the rise of data, tech and AI has been trending. In addition, the notion that some CMOs have lost their essence/effectiveness as storytellers and brand custodians let alone lost credibility in the C-suite.

Opening the second season of MarTech Unravelled is Jason Masai Head of Product - Digital at M-Pesa Africa. We open this season talking about Product Management: The Glue of Great Digital Products. This discussion is timely in an emerging market like Kenya and Africa as a whole where digital transformation is accelerating across all sectors.Jason Masai is a digital transformation leader working at the intersection of Technology, Customer, Business, and Design. His career spans over 17+ years in Banking,Telco and Fintech with experience in leveraging technology to drive a competitive advantage for organizations through innovation while delivering customer value.At M-Pesa Africa he is leading the digital transformation of M-Pesa across the continent, by offering innovative solutions on the M-Pesa super app across 6 markets.

On this week's episode of MarTech Unravelled, I hosted Susan Gatura to walk us through the topic of the day "Making Sense of Data in MarTech". Susan is a data leader, mentor, and advocate for nurturing the next generation of data professionals in Africa. She founded Phoenix KE Analytics, a thriving data community that empowers aspiring and established data professionals through mentorship, skills development, and networking opportunities. With a background in finance and a self-taught journey into data, Susan is currently a Senior Analytics Specialist at MultiChoice Group. She has been recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 Woman in Kenya, shortlisted as DataIQ Data Champion, a finalist for the WomenTech Global Community Award, and been included in the 50 Inspiring Women in Tech in Africa 2023.Our conversation covered:Susan's unconventional journey into dataMisconceptions around the data professionThe data ecosystem and various roles availableRecommendations for marketers on an underutilised toolData StorytellingData PrivacyHow to keep pace in an ever evolving technology and data landscape

Global Marketing Executive Nneka Keshi is our guest on this week's episode of the MarTech Unravelled Podcast.  Our topic for the day was "Digital Marketing: The lifeline for small business."  Small businesses account for over 70% of employment across the African continent making them an economic driving force, however several barriers stifle their growth.  Nneka Keshi is a dynamic and accomplished Global Digital Marketing Executive with over 19 years of international experience in brand and digital marketing. As a thought leader in the industry, she has excelled in strategy, customer acquisition, omnichannel marketing, media planning, and business development. She has consistently demonstrated her ability to drive growth and innovation through marketing.  Nneka's extensive experience cuts across the USA, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.  With experience working at global brands like Microsoft, L'Oreal to name a few.

It can cost 5 - 25 times more to acquire a new customer versus retaining an existing one, this is according to a Harvard Business Review report. In this week's podcast episode, we discuss "Customer Success: The overlooked ROI driver" with my guest Anna Ambrozevich - Customer Success Consultant and Founder of the CRO & Personalisation Academy in Uzbekistan. Anna believes customer success is the missing piece and connector between business and product goals. Having worked both on the client side and vendor side and seen the gaps that existed, Anna gave a well rounded perspective on this topic. Anna has over 10 years experience in MarTech management across global corporations including PepsiCo, Philip Morris International (PMI), Alibaba and led Customer Success Strategy for Dynamic Yield and Algolia across Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe.

Nyandia Gachago, ACIM, co-founder of AI creative agency, Minty Lime based in Nairobi Kenya, discussed the transformative impact of AI on brands in this week's episode of the MarTech Unravelled podcast. Nyandia is passionate about all things AI and how it can integrate into our businesses and personal lives. We started the conversation by first understanding what AI looks like in the context of her work, demystifying the often futuristic and out of reach notion that some may have. Nyandia explains that AI is here to make our everyday lives more efficient. In her work running an agency, she highlighted the vast benefits AI has had in servicing clients. She cited the ability to deliver work in a shorter amount of time, leading to speed to market, added clarity and variety in creative ideas, precision in measuring outcomes amongst various other benefits. She went on to give an example of a marketing strategy which ordinarily took up to 2 months to complete, however with AI this has been shortened to afew weeks given the vast amount of data available. At any given time at her agency, Nyandia is running several AI tools for various tasks including reporting, idea refinement, infographics, presentations and even CGI images. Her toolbox includes tools like ChatGPT , Google's Gemini, DeepSeek AI , Grok , Canva AI, Napkin AI , and Runway ML. Additionally in her personal life as a mother, Nyandia mentioned how she leverages AI to create menus for her kids, shoppings lists and recipes.  Listen to the full episode for more insights.

In this week's episode we talked to Frans Riemersma, Founder of MartechTribe. The topic of the day was "The MarTech Stack - Designing & Driving value from your organisation's stack". Frans Riemersma is a leading MarTech expert, researcher, and speaker who helps brands optimize technology stacks. He has co-authored several key MarTech reports on composability and GenAI including the infamous MarTech Landscape map in collaboration with Scott Brinker - VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot. Frans is a lecturer at a Dutch Business School and University, where he shapes industry insights through research, consulting, and speaking at global events. We covered the topic of composability, how to audit an organisation's stack to get maximum value for the customer, department collaboration when it comes to martech stack ownership and future trends to keep an eye out for in this space.

Anne Nyachomba, a Certified Customer Experience professional with 19 years of experience across a variety of industries is our guest this week on MarTech Unravelled. This week, we tackle the topic of "Customer Experience (CX) Design". Anne has worked in Banking, Insurance, Data, Technology, Non-Profit, and Public Health sectors, leading impactful CX strategies across Africa and Asia. She also serves on the CXPA Africa Advisory Regional Council and was named among the Awesome Women to Follow in CX 2 times -(2024) and CX for Tech (2025). We delved into the intricacies of CX, its impact on the organisation's bottomline, guiding principles to building unforgettable CX and how to continuously adapt to one's customer.

In this week's episode we covered a somewhat misunderstood and sometimes overlooked area of MarTech. We covered "Brand's role in MarTech". This week's guest is a seasoned brand and story telling professional with over 15 years building transformative brand narratives and driving growth for businesses across Africa and the United States and is the former VP of Brand and Product Marketing at Cellulant, a Pan-African FinTech Company. Divine Muragijimana, Founder of Savoir Faire - a global marketing and branding consulting firm, started off by driving home the importance of branding in martech, emphasizing that a brand is the heartbeat of a business, encompassing purpose, mission, vision, values, and culture. We then tackled the issue on why investing in brand is sometimes given a back seat, the importance of localisation of storytelling gleaning from her vast experience building a fintech brand that spanned several countries, what trust as a key element in brand building looks like and the future of storytelling for differentiation.

In this episode of "MarTech Unravelled, my guest Odd Morten Sørensen tackles the age-old question "What is MarTech?" Odd is a Marketing Operations professional with 20 years of strategic and operational experience specializing in Marketing Technology, Automation and Operations. After several years on the customer side he has now gone back to consulting through his new agency PlayMOps. We tackled this topic from various angles including misconceptions that leaders have around MarTech, skill sets necessary to thrive, the technology ownership conundrum, marketing operations and key trends to take note of.

In this week's episode, Rutger Katz, Founder of Neon Triforce a boutique consultancy in the Netherlands, discussed the application of the Lean methodology in marketing. He begins by highlighting the three core components of this methodology: Purpose, Process, and People. Purpose involves building the right products and experiences, Process focuses on efficiency and eliminating waste, and People emphasizes team empowerment and realistic KPIs.

Rasmus Houlind, Keynote Speaker and Author of Hello $FirstName - Profiting from Personalisation & Chief Experience Officer at Agillic (An Omnichannel Marketing Automation Platform based in Denmark), discusses the complexities of personalization in marketing. He defines personalization as matching content with customer insights. Tune in to hear more!