JAMES RICHARD MCRONALD ECOMMERCE & DIGITAL STRATEGIST

address: 100 Victor Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8SS

mobile: 07940 55 64 62
e-mail: jmcronald@hotmail.com

A highly skilled, passionate and driven, senior level professional. With extensive experience in food & drink marketing and
consumer retailing. Specialising in eCommerce strategy, sales growth, digital brand transformation, multi-channel
marketing, social media, lead generation, CRM, PR and retail management. A customer relationship champion who is
dependable, practical and innovative. Able to bring an employer proven organisational, growth and leadership skills.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

UNION HAND-ROASTED COFFEE September 2014 Present

Union Coffee is a roaster, importer and distributor working in the specialist coffee sector. Their products are noted for their
high quality and ethical sourcing. With a direct to consumer channel focused squarely on customer satisfaction.

Key Personal Achievements

1. Increased sales revenue by over +400% in less than three years
2. Increased customer base by +600%
3. Launched new subscription service; CoffeeClub and created 25% incremental revenue

HEAD OF ECOMMERCE & DIGITAL STRATEGY Sept 2014 Present

Created and managed the Union direct to consumer strategy; focusing on increased sales, new customer
acquisition, brand visibility, increasing repeat custom and retention of existing customers.
Rebuilt the Union web presence with a focus on brand, sales and customers, increasing conversion rates by
+100%, visitor rates by +600% and retention rates by +150%.
Heavily involved in general rebrand of business. Entirely responsible for digital creation and execution.
Designed and created new Union sales channel; CoffeeClub, a subscription based web service designed with
habitual customers in mind, giving them increased satisfaction and guaranteeing consistent sales volume.
Introduced and managed all online marketing channels, including, Pay Per Click, Display, Video, affiliates, onsite
and blogger outreach.
Created and managed the social media strategy and success measures; twitter, facebook, instagram and blogs.
Redesigned, built and managed all sends of customer emails. Increasing subscriber list by +600%.
Designed a number of new products, aimed at enticing and delighting new and existing customers, such as the
discovery tasting pack, the introduction to Union pack, the Geisha Collection and CoffeeClub packaging.
Helped create annual Brand partnership event Supermarket Siesta with likeminded brands, Naked Wines,
Market Porter, Bloom & Wild and Biscuiteers.
Overhauled internal fulfilment processes to streamline orders and overhauled delivery procedures.
Helped oversee rollout of Zendesk CRM in conjunction with customer service team.

SSP UK Ltd December 2013 September 2014

SSP is an operator of food and beverage brands in travel locations worldwide. As The Food Travel Experts, it is the partner
of choice at over 140 airports and over 250 rail stations around the globe. It owns a large portfolio of well-known brands
including Upper Crust, Caff Ritazza, Millies Cookies and Mi Casa Burritos.

Key Personal Achievements

1. Created and delivered the digital and social media strategies
2. Delivered 4 new, brand websites
3. Project managed key changes to the Bite Card to save +1million annually
HEAD OF DIGITAL (INTERNATIONAL) Dec 2013 Sept 2014
Identified key weaknesses in the very light digital presence to date. Wrote the future strategy focused on three
key pillars; Digital (websites, mobile and in-store), CRM and Social Media, with intent for UK execution and
testing then global application latterly.
Built new brand websites, including responsive design, parallax scroll and day parting.
Created a childrens' tablet game for key brand The Flying Hippo to create distraction at table.
Introduced digital signage messaging outside new brand unit as a footfall driver.
Trialed a phased change to Bite (loyalty card) to reduce total business discount 1million pa.
Launched Upper Crust social content strategy focused on changing consumer brand perception.
Worked with O2 Priority to deliver the digital elements of their above the line 1 lunch campaign.
Trialed partnership with WEVE's pouch mobile loyalty platform.
Helped to create the new SSP CSR policy.

PRET A MANGER EUROPE Ltd March 2010 December 2013

Pret is a global, food retailer with a focus on freshly made sandwiches, great staff and exceptional customer service.

Key Personal Achievements

1. Increased website traffic +300% per month
2. Created all social platforms and grew the total audience to over 150,000 followers
3. Nominated for the mobi awards for Pret's responsive, mobile website

PR & DIGITAL MANAGER Jul 2013 Dec 2013

In addition to digital responsibilities below given sole ownership of on and offline PR. Including proactive,
reactive, new shop opening pieces, crisis management and social content management.
Launched Pret A Manger's first ever proactive PR programme based around a customer relationship and
education model (TRUE), intended to tell the Pret story.
Created a new form of reporting for the board and other key stakeholders.
Created a social and offline crisis management document and escalation procedure.

ONLINE MARKETING & WEB MANAGER Apr 2010 Jun 2013

Responsible for all global digital brand exposure on and off the Pret company websites. This included web
content, web processes and online marketing channels. Whilst I produced much of the content myself, I also
managed five agencies; digital, social, creative, web and PR.
Rebuilt Pret A Manger's customer website. Including on-brand imagery, improved customer journey, increased
content and marketing focused real estate. Also included search engine optimisation, online campaign
management tools and dynamic CMS tools. Resulting in a +50% increase in traffic yr/yr.
Built and launched a social media strategy across all channels (facebook, twitter, foursquare, flickr, pinterest and
Google+); managing resources, employee contracts, and crisis management.
Implemented a digital strategy across all channels with Managing Director and CEO buy-in. Resulting in a +80%
increase in facebook fans in a period of two weeks.
Built Pret's mobile website platform to reflect their 14% mobile device web penetration, subsequently grew
mobile traffic by +100% by Q4 2013.
Built and launched Pret's iPhone Application, running from managed dynamic feeds, the app contains a shop
finder, full menu and daily soups with frst year downloads of 35,000 users.
Launched and managed Pret's Super Club; a monthly email newsletter campaign.
Launched and built a marketing database feed that held all product information (ingredients, nutritional
information, descriptions etc) and feeds dynamically into several different systems.
Helped to re-brand and re-launch the Pret Delivers e-commerce platform, including updated styling and journey
paths and online marketing support, including an email lifecycle campaign.
Trialed a new external online job applications system as part of a key business objective to improve efficiency in
the job application process.
Helped re-launch the Pret Card, the quick payment card.
MAJESTIC WINE WAREHOUSES Ltd April 2003 March 2010
Majestic specialises in selling wines by the case. It believes wine should be available to all and as such seeks to
demystify wine through exceptional customer service and product knowledge from its staff.

Key Personal Achievements

1. Achieved an overall year on year online sales growth of +20%, and increased ROI by +10%
2. Helped grow online sales from 8% to 12% of total business turnover
3. Increased Affiliate sales turnover by +100% in one year and improved ROI by +20%

ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER May 2008 Mar 2010

Responsible for Majestic and Wine and Beer World online branding development and marketing campaigns.
Including customer emails, SEO and paid search, affiliates and social media channels.
Improved email campaigns, including new lifecycle and event triggered mailings. Implemented a data rich
campaign of customer personalisation and improved year on year email sales by +35%.
Introduced online video content to reflect the Majestic brand and created a video identity.
Undertook a data capture campaign and grew customer email database by +10%.
Increased web traffic from search engines to account for over +50% of all online sales.
Involved in rolling out and marketing the Grape to Glass Blog site.
Integrated sister companys (Lay and Wheeler) online marketing strategy under our own.

RETAIL STORE MANAGER Apr 2003 May 2008

Achieved like for like sales growth of +17.5%. Increased customer transactions by +10% and average sales
value by +8%. Trained and developed large numbers of team and delivered exceptional customer service.

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS

PRET A MANGER
Advanced HTML and CSS training
Creative Design and Photoshop

MAJESTIC WINE
Google trained in Pay Per Click advertising
WSET Level 3 Advanced Certificate in Wine and Spirits, Pass with Merit
In-House: Management & Product Knowledge Skills
Personal License, Licensing Act 2003

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY 1997 2000

English Language BA (Hons) Second Class, Division One (2:1)

CALDAY GRANGE GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1990 1997

Pass in all 4 subjects taken Grades B C
Pass in all 11 subjects taken, Grades B C. Includes Maths, Sciences and English

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS & INFORMATION

Created C&J brand for our wedding and designed all visual elements www.facebook/cazandjamie
Conquered a lifelong fear of heights after taking up climbing.
Organised and ran wine tastings and created a personal fine wine investment portfolio.
Self-taught the guitar and performed on stage in bands.

Date of Birth: 17th November 1978

Interests: Traveling, food and wine, music, playing the guitar, theatre and cinema, ancient history.