HELLO! I’M ROB STROSS
An experienced and driven Chief Marketing Officer with over 15 years international and UK e-commerce, marketing, leadership, commercial and digital experience across Media, Travel and Fintech sectors
GROWTH MARKETING
Growth Marketing is what I do - building and motivating marketing and partnership teams, helping secure funding and scale businesses quickly. In my current role, I have helped launch WeSwap from an idea to a £300m turnover business
I'm open for a chat - whether you are looking for a permanant CMO or maybe you need to scale your business but not sure as yet exactly what your marketing team should look like and don't want to commit to a full time CMO salary as yet? More of an on demand CMO. Either way lets talk
WORK EXPERIENCE
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER - WESWAP.COM (2014 – Present)
WeSwap.com, the world’s first ‘Peer to Peer Currency Exchange’ service; allows travellers to swap currency directly with each other at the interbank rate with no hidden fees. In 2018 WeSwap was voted Best Travel Money provider at the British Bank Awards
My role is to deliver growth at WeSwap in terms of users, volume and revenue. In under 4 years we have grown to 500,000 active users and a turnover of £300m with low acquisition costs (£12 per active user). WeSwap is now an established a digital currency exchange platform with a well-developed and proven revenue model.
This has been delivered through the following 4 areas
Customer Acquisition. Building an in-house digital acquisition marketing team focusing on Paid Social, SEO, Mobile Paid search. In addition, I have also managed the growth of a partnership team – successfully integrating WeSwap Connect into some leading UK travel brands
Customer Retention. Integrating a CRM system (email, push, text) to drive new user conversion and repeat usage from existing users
Brand Awareness. Managed a successful £2m above the line awareness launch campaign and ongoing PR activity to support the digital acquisition activity
Data – key to our success has been building a data team to allow us to track KPI performance of all key channels and respond and reallocate budget accordingly
WORK EXPERIENCE. Fintech Marketing
Key Achievements
WORK EXPERIENCE. Travel Digital
SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR – DIRECTFLIGHTS.COM (2010 – 2014)
Directflights.com is one of the UK’s leading travel search and comparison portals. My role was to oversee the strategic development of the website and Directflights.com brand to maximise inbound site traffic and revenue generation. My main area of responsibility involved managing a team of sales and marketing professionals to drive traffic to the site and hit revenue targets.
Finalised marketing strategy (£2 million budget) to drive traffic to the site network. This includes management of a key Digital Marketing Agencies (SEO, PPC and Affiliate), Public Relations, Print Advertising and Exhibitions.
New product development – overseen the launch of several digital product improvements including launch of hotels section, car-hire, holidays
Commercial – negotiation of sales contracts with key clients. Agreed commercial terms with all major airlines and online travel agents onto the website both in the UK and US
Representing Directflights.com with the media and speaking at key digital/travel conferences
SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR – GLOBAL TRAVEL MARKET 2009 - 2010
Global Travel Market operated a network of travel meta-search websites. As Sales and Marketing Director I had overall responsibility for driving the business in the UK - managing key commercial relationships, overseeing all marketing and research activity, overseeing new product launches, preparing budgets and representing the organisation within key trade associations.
WORK EXPERIENCE. Media
UK and Australia
TNT MAGAZINE GROUP 1998 – 2008 (Various Roles)
The TNT Group is a media publishing house specialising in providing a range of print products, websites and events for young travellers living and working in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I started as Marketing Exec and left as MD 10 years later. Key roles below..
MANAGING DIRECTOR TNT UK 2006 - 2008
Full P&L responsibility for TNT UK - £8m turnover, £3.4m EBITDA, 58 staff. During this period I revamped TNT Magazine and tntmagazine.com in February 2007 and managed the implementation of a number of brand extensions launched - TNT Shop, TNT Forex, TNT eMag, TNT Jobzone and TNT Travel Show.
MARKETING DIRECTOR TNT UK 2001 – 2006
Overall responsibility for all TNT Group marketing activity & brand development strategy. Marketing Budget circa £1.5m
GM - TNT MAGAZINE AUSTRALIA 1998 – 2001
As GM of TNT Australia I oversaw the company transformation from making a loss for 4 years to profit generating in 1998 -99 with a record turnover of $3million in 1999-2000 and 16% growth yoy.
EDUCATION
Bournemouth University - Post Graduate Diploma in Tourism Management
Portsmouth University - BA honours degree (2/1) in Economics and Geography
Leeds Grammar School - 9 O Levels, 1 AO Level, 3 A levels - Economics, Geography, English
Now is time for a new challenge....