Cai Thomas
Head of Marketing & Operations
Contact
LINKEDIN:
linkedin.com/in/caithomas
TWITTER:
INSTAGRAM:
WEBSITE:
Education
BSC Geography & Environmental Management
University of the West of England 2:1 2006-2009
Geography, Chemistry &
Business Studies
Backwell Comprehensive School 2005
Skills
- Staff management
- Agency management
- Agile / Jira management
- Technical understanding
- Salesforce
- Microsoft Office
- Marketing automation
- Firefighting
- Leadership
- Partnership growth
- Negotiations
- Customer Service
- Google Ads / Analytics
- Segment Analytics
- UX / CRO / SEM
References
References are availble on request
Summary
Experienced entrepreneurial marketing & operational professional with a strong commercial & technical competency. Broad experience in multi-channel B2C & B2B marketing, creating, & developing core partnerships with the largest channels in the competitive travel industry.
Adept at business development & implementing change management to diversify the business & its inbound product supply, along with outbound marketing channels.
Focused on developing marketing, development & operational teams through direct & agency driven recruitment. Passionate about automating marketing processes & channels with a ROI focus, driven by trackable metrics, testing & implementation of best practices.
Professional Experience
Head of Marketing (June 2015 – Present)
TRAVELOPO / Bristol, United Kingdom
Driven development of the business from a property manager to an online travel agency. Worked to build partnerships with 700+ property suppliers and the top 7 vacation rental marketplaces. Responsible for building and managing marketing, technical, operational and accounting teams, including sourcing and management of external contractors and agencies.
Key Achievements
- 700% growth in in inbound partnerships (supply)
- Onboarding and management of the largest Travel portals (Booking.com / TripAdvisor / Expedia / Airbnb / Hometogo / Holidu/ Google)
- Design & project management of implementation of Salesforce CRM & internal software ecosystems (PHP / NodeJS / Angular / Laravel / PHP)
- 300% growth in business turnover
- Restructuring of businesses processes and implementation of automated administrative tasks
- Driving the change from an enquiry driven business to an instant bookable model, focusing on decreasing the cost per acquisition and increasing average booking value, whilst improving data accuracy
Founder (February 2013 – June 2015)
CAI THOMAS ONLINE MARKETING / Bristol, United Kingdom
Driven development of the business from a property manager to an online travel agency. Worked to build partnerships with 700+ property suppliers and the top 7 vacation rental marketplaces. Responsible for building and managing marketing, technical, operational and accounting teams, including sourcing and management of external contractors and agencies.
Key Achievements
- 1,000% ROI on implantology services for a national dental brand
- 1st page keyword ranking for all clients via SEO
- Sourcing and management of international contractors for development of websites for clients
Head of Marketing (February 2013 – June 2015)
ALL YOUR LIFE / Bristol, United Kingdom
Assisted development alongside the managing director in the expansion of the spa and photography franchise network from 1 to 5 franchisees. Driving lead generation to grow by over 8000% in 12 months using a marketing stack composed of paid social, SEO and affiliate marketing.
Key Achievements
- KPI Driven management of marketing campaigns
- 8000% growth in lead generation with a 3500% ROI
- Management of external partnerships including Groupon, Living Social & Amazon
- Responsible for planning, management, development, testing & deployment of scalable group websites and booking systems, including the recruitment and management of web developers
Managing Director (October 2010 – January 2013)
PCD IT SUPPORT LTD / Bristol, United Kingdom
Cofounded, managed and developer a remote computer support computer service after obtaining investment from 4 investors. Built a large portfolio of recurring remote support subscribers. Growth attained via PPC, SEO, SMM, postal marketing, along with networking and exhibition events.
Key Achievements
- Grew subscriber list to 100s of recurring support subscribers in 12 months
- Recruited and developed IT Support Staff, including several apprentices under the national apprenticeship scheme
- Formed partnerships with global security brands such as F-Secure
Marketing Manager (August 2009 – September 2010)
ALTERNATIVE BATHROOMS / London, United Kingdom
Managed, developed and grew a small online bathroom shop, supported by a network of physical stores in to one of the fastest growing luxury bathroom websites in the UK. Including management of purchasing and operational teams. Grown via a mix of SEM, SEO & PPC Marketing, along with the development of a trade enquiry platform.
Key Achievements
- 550% growth in 9 months, exceeding all KPI targets
- Drove growth in online purchasable product range from 500 to 15,000 products
- Sourcing of partners, including but not limited to web development, software and distribution
Founder (April 2006 – October 2007))
Skylinesolar.co.uk / Bristol, United Kingdom
Founded, built & managed an ecommerce store selling solar panels and wind turbines via a self built website and the eBay marketplace. Forming multiple international partnerships to allow drop shipping of industry leading eco-power products.
Key Achievements
- 100% of traffic generated via SEO
- Self serviced all customer services, sales & development
- Company sold due to academic constraints (final year at university)
Hobbies
I enjoy walking with my dogs on a daily basis and hiking with my family on a weekend. I have spent more than 1,500 hours researching my family tree (ancestry), which has put me in contact with numerous academics, leading institutions and clubs, subsequently leading to my research and name to be include in several books and pieces of academic research.
I enjoy walking with my dogs on a daily basis and hiking with my family on a weekend. I have spent more than 1,500 hours researching my family tree (ancestry), which has put me in contact with numerous academics, leading institutions and clubs, subsequently leading to my research and name to be include in several books and pieces of academic research.
As a side project to keep my knowledge up to date, I manage and have automated multiple social media accounts, with the 3 biggest having 70k, 35k and 20K Instagram followers, with user submitted content being the only source of content, posts regularly generating over 4K organic engagements (likes/comments).