Although the majority of my career is classical brand and business development in FMCG, over the past four years working independently as a strategist with an agency we have delivered strong direct selling programs for mass market brand development, in addition to this we have done a number of projects in Africa developing financial services directed at the largely un-banked African community in allegiance with the World Bank and a variety of mobile service providers. I am currently consulting and driving a large FMCG investment project in sub-Saharan Africa for a listed South African company which will evolve into further programs in a number of African states. I have had the privilege of driving business strategy for a division at Tiger brands in a period which saw the division achieve its highest market share ever in the national market with a strongly differentiated product offering and exceptional contribution from value added offerings driven by innovation with the leading mainstream propositions. I also drove the outsourced manufacturing for niche innovation, identifying and contracting production with integrated logistics that could meet and deliver product quality and service levels in line with our overall brand and business proposition. As a category executive I was a member of the executive team and in addition to functional responsibilities headed up the small team of food scientists as well as drove the contractual arrangements with our science and ingredient partners and together with my technical and commercial counterparts drove the motivation for capital investment for the upgrading of existing plant as well as motivating the first continuous mixing plant in the South African market. I led the development of business strategy for the businesses within my portfolio to successful and industry leading profitability with the full support of an exceptional technical, finance, sales and logistics team which remain in my view the core to the achievements in the business although I would certainly like to take the credit for the evolution of the business from a pure commodity to a truly premiumised value added branded proposition. I also enjoyed the role as category head on committees focused on expanding the footprint of the business into sub-Saharan Africa although this focus was predominantly focused on our immediate neighbours. (Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique) Since leaving corporate in October 2016 I have been consulting on business, marketing and communication strategy for an independent agencies clients in the local and broader African markets. These projects have included the development of successful mobile and cashless banking programs in Ghana, Zambia and Uganda.