Business Growth Strategist

Esme
Guevara

Fully Remote · Based in Colombia & Canada

Book a 30-min call See case studies
Portrait of Esme Guevara
Hello,

I’m Esme Guevara

Esme Guevara

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

Peter Drucker

I’m a business strategist, consultant and expert generalist with a passion for building, creating, problem solving and growth. Always the leader, never the expert, I use design thinking frameworks, insights & research and psychology to clearly identify the source problem and its context, and to find the most viable, real-world solution with lasting impact.

Over more than 15 years I’ve developed strategy for brands and businesses in FinTech, HealthTech, HRTech, MedTech, SaaS, IoT, AI & data, B2B services, healthcare, consumer goods, aviation, media services, market research and manufacturing. Having lived in 7 countries on 3 continents, I work fully remote across LatAm and North America, in English and Spanish.

Most of my career has been about stepping in when a company has a good idea but no system to execute it, or when a business is underperforming, and then building the structure or redesigning the operating model that makes growth repeatable, with measurable commercial results.

I have a unique perspective on life and business.

My motto is that brand and strategy are everything.

Track

Record

  • 50+launch & transformation programs built and governed
  • 300%+increase in capacity through operating model redesign
  • 73%reduction in MVP delivery costs
  • ~90%increase in B2B client lifetime value
  • 30%YoY top-line growth
  • 40%YoY volume growth, the highest in brand history
  • Double‑digitmarket share growth, reversing a multi-year decline for a #1 national brand
  • 9.5%YoY increase in shipments for a #1 national brand
  • $15Mpreferred vendor agreement won
My

Strengths

  • Strategy

    Create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with a given scenario, I can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. Listening to others while accumulating lots of information, I eliminate distractions to pinpoint what is happening and why, think of alternatives and choose the best option.

  • Activate

    I generate a lot of enthusiasm around projects, events and activities, bringing energy with a “let’s just do it” attitude that activates others to follow. My optimistic outlook helps others believe in the project and their own potential. I’m known for taking things from the talking stage to the doing stage with confidence and determination.

  • Quality-Orientation

    While naturally set difficult-to-reach goals, I am demanding when I see quality being compromised. Committed to excellence and self-improvement, I proactively manage weaknesses in the plan or in the team to achieve favorable results, rejecting a one-size-fits all approach, leveraging each person’s special talents, skills, and knowledge to achieve the goal.

  • Relate

    Good at bonding and working well with people (even those who I meet for the first time), I share knowledge and skills as a way to coach and mentor others to help them accomplish their goals. Still, I like to work alongside those who share my values and strengths while providing others with details of what they do well to help build their talents.

  • Take Charge

    Instinctively take charge, see what needs to be done. Willing to speak up, assessing the consequences of an action, I take calculated risks. Realistic and practical, I’m industrious, diligent and persistent, maximizing available resources and talents.

  • Innovative

    Fascinated by problems that puzzle, I frequently identify ways to transform obstacles into opportunities in cost-effective and efficient ways. Data and fact-driven, I invent alternative courses of action that may not be obvious or familiar to most.

Work

Experience

  • Go-To-Market

    Led and developed go-to-market business and marketing strategy for 7 brands/industries and multiple projects world-wide including operational, financial, marketing, communications and manufacturing plans.

  • Product Development

    Led +50 concept-to-market development of services, physical products and technology/software products including P&L development and global vendor selection and management.

  • Sales

    Developed sales processes and lead generation strategies using off-shore vendors to achieve 20-30% close rate, including sales materials, process management and script development. Also have customer-facing sales experience.

  • Business Processes

    Have spearheaded multiple business process creation and process improvement initiatives, to improve workflow, team coordination, team and resource efficiency and profitability.

  • Team Development

    Recruit, evaluate, hire, onboard and manage team members, freelancers and agencies/vendors remotely and locally with a focus on mentorship and building a cohesive work vision and workflow.

  • Sourcing

    Source and develop partnerships and vendor relationships internationally to reduce COGS up to 30% of local market rate and increase profit margins without sacrificing quality of delivery.

  • Business Planning

    Led yearly business planning and budgeting with management team including preparation of pre-planning reporting, analysis and yearly target/KPI setting.

  • Data and P&L Analysis

    Develop and monitor KPIs and analytics for business performance and strategy change. P&L development for different lines of business and/or customer initiatives.

  • Cost Reduction

    Led cost-reduction initiatives for product manufacturing and/or delivery, owning the P&L and operational roll out plan in coordination with multiple departments and/or vendors for physical, service and tech/software products.

Client

Case Studies

Let’s

Work Together

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Client: QTalent

HRTech Product Development

Background

Client had developed a job board website but it lacked UX/UI optimization and had no unique value proposition other than servicing a niche industry. Client admitted that there had been little thought to the business model or how the product would perform in the market and expressed the desire to scale a company based on a tech product.

Problem

Develop and launch a technology software product in the HRTech space without any prior knowledge of software or HRTech space.

Action

  • Benchmark and Research current HRTech landscape and ideate concept, brand and value proposition. Re-positioning brand/product to focus on talent discovery aspect of HR process.
  • Made UX/UI optimization the focus to maximize ease of use and adoption.
  • Sourced and vetted UX/UI design partner in Ukraine to help us ideate and finetune key product features at a fraction of the cost of a full time UX/UI freelancer in N.America.
  • Proposed outsourced-team business model to maximize value for budget, sourced and shortlisted developer partners in Argentina, Ukraine and Canada (upon Client request). Negotiated contract for a favorable hourly development rate for a fixed scope project.
  • Sourced Tier 1-equivalent creative agency partners from Pakistan for branding development and sourced and managed freelancers based in Colombia and South Africa for content and website development and go-to-market plan execution.

Client: Respect Studio

Client Retention & Revenue Growth

Background

A 6-person Ukrainian agency with a few small clients. I first resold their LinkedIn lead-generation service to the Canadian market (paying their full rate and selling at a markup) and asked for a few changes to the offer. When the pandemic hit, I was brought in-house.

Problem

A small client base, a service offer that wasn’t built around what clients were actually paying for, and an operating flow that couldn’t scale delivery.

Action

  • Rebuilt and repriced the service offer, adding content services and launching content strategy as a new revenue line.
  • Led client strategy and targeting with two campaign types: mass targeting across a whole industry, and a new account-based model targeting specific companies for each client.
  • Changed the operational flow and replaced ad hoc delivery with structured account management so the team could work more effectively.
  • Scaled a fully remote operating model across Eastern Europe and North America.

Client: Fisherman’s Friend

Commercial Turnaround

Background

The #1 throat lozenge brand in Canada. A legacy brand whose marketing had barely changed, still built around the fisherman.

Problem

Sales had been relatively flat year over year for five years. An aging consumer base saw it as “grandfather’s lozenge brand”, and newer competitors with more modern branding were winning a broader audience. Shoppers Drug Mart, the #1 pharmacy chain, was threatening to delist the brand to make room for growing brands.

Action

  • Replaced separate agency briefs with 360 planning: the creative, media, PR and experiential agencies built the yearly plan together in one room, so every idea worked as one campaign.
  • Worked within fixed constraints, including an inherited 30-second TV commercial and no packaging or logo rebrand.
  • Repositioned the brand around the strength of its flavours: “tough love for your throat” (#SuckItUp).
  • Targeted 25–35 year olds through Tough Mudder and CFL activations, influencers and social media, while keeping loyal older buyers through TV and radio.
  • Negotiated with national retailers, including Shoppers Drug Mart, to prevent delistings.

Client: Arya Health

Sales Process Development

Background

Bootstrapped EHR Startup with Doctor founders was struggling to sell product due to lack of sales process.

Problem

No sales experience or training and no sales process in place to be able to track sales progress or iterate sales process.

Action

  • Evaluate sales process and prospect buying decision-making, key stakeholders in sales process, challenges and common objections.
  • Map new sales process from first contact to close with a customer-centric focus
  • Re-develop sales materials, repositioning the product USP for target market and user experience, develop sales decks and sales scripts, identify CRM and sales tech stack.
  • Train doctors on sales fundamentals, addressing objections, sales materials including live sales coaching calls and feedback sessions.

Client: Al Safa Halal

Cost Improvement

Background

Halal brand was acquired by Tier 1 Pakistani company wanting to enter N.America. All SKUs were manufactured by different private label manufacturers.

Problem

Reduce COGS and improve taste profile for portfolio of 20 frozen and refrigerated products.

Action

  • Liaise with private label manufacturers to explore options for cost-savings
  • Identify key ingredients that could contribute to cost-savings.
  • Source alternative ingredients and negotiate costs based on sales volume projections
  • Work with R&D to reformulate and improve taste profile with new lower cost ingredients
  • Focus group test flavour and taste profiles with potential consumers
  • Update P&L and manufacturing forecast based on improved SKUs

Client: Hain Celestial Group

Shelf Life Extension

Background

New refrigerated product launch for National Brand was delayed and entailed use of new equipment for packaging and production. Shelf life testing is done in real-time but due to delay in production, there was not enough chronological time to test full shelf life until national launch.

Problem

Shelf-life testing results after production for national roll out came back with a shortened shelf life and we had orders from national retailers Canada-wide. There was no additional time for shelf life testing without incurring fines.

Action

  • Discuss options for manufacturing process changes with R&D and Production team but none would provide assurance of extended shelf life until after shipping product Canada-wide.
  • Executed freeze-thaw stability testing on product.
  • Request and evaluate cost of reefer truck shipping (frozen) to refrigerated warehouses.
  • Updated P&L with minimal margin loss.

Clients: Healthy Hippo, QTalent, Dype, Andropique

Vendor Selection

Background

Working with startup brands, budgets are always tight.

Problem

Finding vendors and freelancers that are affordable and can deliver world-class results and deliverables.

Action

  • Source and vet vendors for brand design, ad creative, digital marketing, UX/UI design, website design, B2B lead generation and software development in countries where there is a favorable forex and where work culture is similar to N.America like Philippines, Ukraine, Colombia, Pakistan, South Africa, Malaysia.
  • Negotiate contracts, set scope and terms of payment to favour client brands.

Client: Respect Studio

Team Scaling

Background

After developing a sales process to commercialize services to North America for this Ukrainian agency, needed to expand team.

Problem

Sourcing candidates that spoke B1-B2 English and that could fit within compensation budget for agency and that could be onboarded and be managed remotely with a 7 hour time difference.

Action

  • Create job posting and role definition and interview process to vet candidates.
  • Define roles and reporting process
  • Create 1-week onboarding process for new hires
  • Develop 3-month training process for hire success.