Andrew Charlie Ford, Founder and CEO
Andrew founded CustomerGig to help offer business strategy and marketing services for businesses to achieve rapid and sustained growth.
Andrew is a c-level global board business leader, with more than 25 years of
experience growing revenue and EBITDA across large, scale-up private-equity, and
start-up SaaS and tech businesses, across Europe, USA, Americas, Asia, MiddleEast &
Africa. He works with Founders / CEOs, and other board
members / business leaders and cross-functional teams, in order to drive key
strategy, financial modelling, creativity, digital, data, people, culture and
operations strength with a focus on customer engagement, experience and
long-term preference, loyalty and advocacy.
Veremark HRTech SaaS (2021 to 2022) - CMO growth adviser. Built the global growth plan, brand strategy, integrated sector campaigns covering: FinTech / FinServ / financially regulated; Professional Services; HR Staffing & Recruiting; IT / Tech / Software; & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Built the performance marketing team = SEO web content, technical & backlink partners, SEM LinkedIn & Google Ads, Biz-Dev email sequences & calls, HubSpot, Google Analytics, video, blog & white-paper content. Planned the competitive-differentiator Verepass Career Passport launch, with key US-based partner & video / written content. Secured $2.8M seed round raised September 2021, and $8.5M series-A funding in June 2022.
"Andrew is a great team member. He contributes wherever he can and tries to spread the company values and message in every interaction. He joined Veremark at an early stage and acted as both a strong execution oriented executive and mentor to others in the team achieving results that ensured the company was able to raise multiple rounds of investment. He also readily opens up his network of contacts to help the company achieve its goals and would happily recommend to any company looking to enhance their marketing efforts." Daniel Callaghan, CEO, Veremark
Wejo connected-vehicle analytics, cloud & SaaS (2021 to 2022) - CMO Adviser interim | Collaborated with the GMs & Sales teams on new emerging sector strategy & plans for 2022. Launched Wejo Neural Edge technology & CES, Las Vegas, January 2022. Built the plans for PR, media & Analyst relations, collaborating with IR, CTO, SVP Product & Head of Strategy, with resourcing, communications, and engagement. Coached the demand-generation team for 2022 integrated campaigns, and HubSpot / Salesforce. Created the Wejo brand strategy and story, for the next phase of growth in US, European & Asia markets. SPAC listing planned Q4 2021.
"You (Andrew) have been excellent in your role and have been a benefit to me and my team." Tahmin Clarke, SVP IR, Finance, Legal & Compliance, Wejo
Cyance MarTech SaaS (2018 to 2021) - Holding Chair, and led fourth seed funding round, Q1 2021. CMO, Board membership.| Developed integrated ABM & demand-generation campaigns targeting key segments, using AdTech programmatic, press relations, events, and Analyst Relations. Resulted in >400% growth in SaaS MRR with 60+ customers across EMEA, USA & Asia markets.
"Andrew has provided high quality advice and Go To Market planning & direction during the transformation of Cyance from a data focused agency into a full fledged SaaS business. A seasoned professional with 'hands on' CMO level client side experience. A highly valued advisor to our board as we continue to scale and accelerate the growth of the business. Andrew's depth of international experience is also a big asset." Mike Housley, Chairman, Cyance
PSYT mental health & wellbeing App (2019) - CMO interim | Business Planning, Branding & Messaging, working with key Content providers to secure their inclusion on the app and in media activities, Social Media plan design and delivery, Digital content and marketing deployed on Google.
Optunli HRTech SaaS (2018) - CMO interim | Built the go-to-market strategy and secured the first professional services sector
customers for this B2B workforce / talent optimisation & B2C career-management start-up. Worked closely with the founders,
sales and CTO to engage new prospective customers to understand their
people-strategy transformation needs and future opportunities.
"You’ve (Andrew) been instrumental in helping us to build our marketing strategy and accelerate our marketing activities in some key areas over the past few months. Our priority ....... needs to be on building on the solid marketing base you have helped us to build...." Delia Zanatta, Founder & CEO, Optunli
Aventus Blockchain & SaaS (2018) - CMO | Developed the marketing strategy, hired a new team, in order to build UK and US awareness, education, partnerships, and lead-generation, and prepare for wider rollout to other European, ME, APAC and LATAM markets. Board membership.
"Andrew and I worked together at Aventus, where he led the department of marketing with a high level of professionalism. I enjoyed working with Andrew as he is a true team player, an empathic person and always up to date with the latest trends in marketing. I recommend Andrew for management and leadership marketing positions, to implement best practices accumulated through his great experience." Teodora Sevastru, Digital Marketing Manager, Aventus / ArtosRed Box Financial Services compliance & Call-Centre performance SaaS (2016 to 2017) - CMO | Introduced new customer-focused product development planning and marketing strategy to target FinTech & Financial Services vertical, for EMEA, USA & Asia markets. Grew scale-up business revenues £12M to £19M, and pipeline increased by 40%. Developed strong partnerships with Bloomberg and Booking.com. PE-backed.
Precisely / PB Software (2014 to 2016) - VP Marketing | enterprise customer data management, location intelligence, customer engagement, logistics & ecommerce SaaS - Transformed B2B marketing with new inbound marketing strategy and campaign delivery to target Financial Services across different country markets. Introduced behaviour-intent data analytics to drive rich targeted and integrated inbound campaigns. 200% increase in identified opportunities.
"I've worked alongside Andrew for 18 months. In that time he has introduced method and strategy into the marketing and communications function, and as a direct consequence there is much better alignment and cooperation with the sales and account management teams. Andrew is focused and clear-headed, and inspires his team to accomplish great things." Rob Dallison, Vice President, Precisely software
Norton by Symantec SaaS & Cloud Security (2009 to 2013) - Director of Marketing | Transformed the leadership team and culture, resulting in award-winning campaigns, and a 9% increase in online Smartphone and Tablet installations. Grew the international B2B2C & B2C business to a SaaS multi-device & cloud subscription model. Achieved $650m (USD) annual revenues across direct and indirect channels.
"Andrew was a member of our Norton Voice of the Customer Council and was responsible for ensuring we communicate with our customers to ensure they know throughout their lifecycle what value the company is adding. Andrew is collaborative, professional and extremely customer focused and we worked together on numerous projects to show the value of the customer relationship." Robyn Weeda, Director Support and Customer Experience, Norton by Symantec
Dell enterprise (2006 to 2009) - Head of Marketing | Built and led a new team and marketing strategy, comprising new acquisition & retention campaign managers, product marketing managers, and direct ecommerce channel managers. Transformed the revenue number mix to 50% solutions / professional services / software. Achieved forecasted $2.8bn (USD) annual revenue.
"I had the pleasure to work with Andrew in his capacity as Marketing Manager Corporate Accounts UK, and later as European Marketing Manager Corporate Accounts Europe. Andrew had a good knowledge of global and local market dynamics, the competitive landscape and more specifically product and service portfolios. He worked well with the sales organisation, listening and participating well within senior management teams." Katherine Bennett, General Manager, Dell Mid-Market business unit