Petar Lafchiev

Following from the successful launch of the Adobe Practice and it becoming more self-sufficient, I've taken up a new objective of securing new business around EMEA for our team.

Responsibilities include:

• Working with clients and other teams at Merkle to support the development of customer strategy and translating this into Marketing Technology roadmaps, business cases and detailed solution requirements
• Guiding clients on the adoption and use of Marketing Cloud Platforms from vendors such as Adobe,IBM and Salesforce
• Analysing clients'  marketing programme performance and supporting the development of robust test and optimisation strategies to maximise performance
• Running workshops across EMEA to define solutions and enhancement to platforms that will deliver meaningful business benefits
• Leading the design and delivery of platform enhancements and customer marketing programmes and cross-channel journeys
• Jumping into new opportunities presented by sales and client service teams by supporting requirements gathering, qualification, proposal writing and pitch delivery
• Working as part of a global Merkle community of Marketing Technology experts to provide thought leadership and training to colleagues and clients

This role currently runs in parallel to my management and leadership responsibilities within the Adobe Practice.

As part of Comet Global Consulting's acquisition of Merkle Inc, senior management asked me to move to Barcelona and kick off a brand new Adobe Practice alongside our existing IBM and PEGA practices.

Responsibilities included:

• Interviewing over 150 candidates and hiring a team of 12  people - 9 Campaign Consultants and 3 Technical Consultants
• Designing  and delivering a successful team structure and dynamic
• Creating the necessary training paths required to get the team Adobe Campaign certified
• Mentoring and support on client project work and direct line management
• Working on key client engagements to ensure successful deliveries
• Building an European resource management process suitable to our new scale
• Creating a set of contract templates in order to ensure standardisation across projects and clients

Our practice's clients include some of the best brands in the UK including Sainsbury's Bank, Virgin Holidays, Premier Inn, AVIVA and others.

The practice scored one of the highest scores on the GLINT intracompany Check-in survey across Europe. It measures a team's engagement, happiness and view of their company.

A business-technical role focusing on implementing, running and supporting  IBM's marketing technology stack (Unica/Silverpop/IBM Marketing Cloud) for a number of clients. Main responsibilities include:

• Client requirement gathering
• Database implementation and management
• IBM technology implementation and management 
• Custom solution development 
• Multichannel marketing campaign deployment
• Marketing Reports

Clients included - Virgin Trains East Coast and News UK.

A role focused on the technical enablement and support of IBM's Marketing Cloud business partners in EMEA. Responsibilities include:

• Enable and develop key strategic partners by building relationships with their technical ‘champions’
• Deliver custom product demos of IBM's technologies at numerous events and partner offices across the world
• Train, enable and guide resellers and agencies in development and delivery of Marketing Cloud client engagements
• Support partners in becoming self-sufficient in implementing Marketing Cloud solutions whilst ensuring end client success

As a result, I've built very strong relationships with some of the key marketing technology consultancies, agencies and resellers across EMEA. Moreover, my work has been recognized by IBM's management through a number of VP awards and the highest yearly performance ratings possible.

Working on site with Occam's product development team on the integration and implementation of several IBM technologies. My responsibilities included:

• Powershell scripting the installation and configuration processes of IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM Marketing Platform, IBM Campaign, IBM Cognos BI and IBM Cognos Framework Manager.
• Integrating the above with Occam's login portal via SSO and Windows active directory 
• Supporting the ongoing relationship between Occam and IBM

My work resulted in a series of scripts that installed and configured the entire IBM stack of software in less than 2 hours (down from the usual 2-3 days of manual work required).

My job role was highly varied and was based on the needs of the IBM European sales team and the relevant business partners. It includes, but was not limited to the following:

• Organising, participating and presenting at numerous EMEA  enablement events
• Act as the single point of contact for all highly complex and unusual business partner challenges – including financial, operations and organisational issues
• Developing from scratch and maintaining a worldwide business partner community webpage  that enabled collaboration and made IBM much easier to do business with. 

The feedback on my work resulted in being fast tracked through the IBM foundation program as part of the top 10% club.

• This programme is the equivalent to a level 7 qualification or to master’s degree level and is made up of 11 modules.It is aimed at experienced marketers looking to gain a more strategic understanding of the scope of both on and offline marketing.

• For more information please see here.

Graduated with First Class Honours

Specialised in English and Mathematics - graduated with 5.55 out of 6.00 - equal to over 340 UCAS Points.