Ross Thomasson
Telco, Sales, Finance & Commercial
Experienced CxO & business leader in sales, commercial and operations with experience on four continents and 35 countries helping companies of all sizes realise value from their people, customers, clients and internal systems.A rare skillset and understanding of both the established markets of the world and the developing power houses in the emerging markets.An authoritative and authentic leader having the integrity to balance ambition, skill and strong personal values, with a personal desire and proven ability to deliver results in a pressurised constantly changing multi-cultural environment.Able to demonstrate a wide spectrum of business, people and life skills, adept at developing multi-level meaningful relationships within formal and matrix style organisations.A strategically astute mind with an ability to understand and communicate complex technical concepts in simple, clear language.Not afraid to challenge the status quo in an appropriate manner to drive a step change in behaviour, performance or delivery.
Companies I've worked with
There are some links below to showcase the significant contribution I've made within the named companies, there are many more where I've been part of the team success or on secondment from my employing company including ANCO&CO, BT, C&W, Cisco, DHL, DTZ, Du, Ernst & Young, Etisalat, HP, Lloyds, MTS, Novartis, Proximus, RIM, Terenci, Thames Water, SFR, Singtel, Swisscom, Verizon and Zain.With remarkable regularity companies ask for help because of my extensive knowledge of working across countries in different industries and my ability to be "First Man" on the ground building an organisation from its bootstraps starting with placing the right people into the organisation, people that can make a difference by building teams that put the customer at the heart of the business to deliver increased shareholder value.
Intelligentae
Managing Director
Intelligentae is a B2B consultancy business focussed on providing insight and guidance on how companies can more efficiently deploy their internal resources to deliver improved shareholder returns by improved utilisation of their existing resources.We often help enterprises build and scale their sales and commercial teams to deliver real and quantitative value with clear supporting metrics that enable a clear view of the prospect to cash cycle.Recent success stories includeThe setting up of a new sales team within a LATAM capital raising partnership to deliver a 10X increase in profitability, we also completed some revenue assurance work resulting in the recovery of a significant amount of unbilled fees.Establishing a sales centre of excellence for a Spanish real estate company that included locating and negotiating a central business hub, setting up an offshore inbound customer call centre, building a comprehensive customer acquisition methodology, putting in place tools to measure the customer lifecycle including pipeline management, contracting, revenue assurance and commission plan methodology.We also contribute on a non-profit basis toward implementing rural broadband solutions in areas that under served by the mainstream providers.Conscious of our impact on climate we operate a small tree planting program to help reduce our impact.
ROSA Capital
Non-Executive Director & Board Advisor
ROSA Capital provide executive and strategic guidance in telco, finance, property & IOT to worldwide customers.Although a board member I have been engaged on a number of recent client engagements including:Working with a large multi-national car manufacturer to establish a dealer network in South Africa.Development for an international real estate fund of a SMART building in the BTR sector whereby they could secure a greater return on capital by offering renters an opportunity to live, work and play in one building with all the latest SMART building technology, the piece of work included defining the vision, securing relevant suppliers through a robust tender process and managing the deployment of all equipment.Implementation of a revenue assurance system for a medium size telco that suffered from appearing to have a good forward looking revenue stream from closed deals that did not deliver the expected revenues. The piece of work resulted in a clear line of "revenue sight" from customer acquisition through closure, delivery, loyalty and advocacy.ROSA also has a small probono fundraising team that provides seed finance to small companies in several countries, to date they have provided over 100 loans and created 310 new jobs that impact 1,500 family members typically in Africa with a plan to do more.
CFG Global Capital
Non-Executive Director & Board Advisor
CFG raise capital for their clients, currently their largest client is Godwin Capital, a UK based development and investment company who partner with blue chip companies such as McDonalds, Lidl, Starbucks.Godwin use the money raised as early finance for a full range of real estate transactions typically pre-planning opportunities where the capital is repaid when the development receives formal planning and more traditional finance is raised.CFG work with a wide network of intermediaries, family offices, wealth, & fund managers and give them access to both standard and bespoke, diversified investments that are always asset backed.All CFG investment opportunities are independently audited and CFG offer a range of services to support the majority of financial intermediaries that enable them to build strong and enduring revenue streams.
Liquid telecom
Group Chief Sales & Marketing Director
Contracted to establish a Global Enterprise Business unit within the Liquid Telecom Group OpCo’s within the three year contract period.Part of the leadership team that transformed the group from a primarily wholesale and engineering business into a customer centric enterprise business.Established and implemented the process, procedures and best practice to enable the enterprise sales, marketing and commercial functions within the group all focussed on our people, customer experience and resultsEstablished and implemented the group functions including pre-sales, commercial, bids and sales focussed on the acquisition of large multi-national corporate business.Resulted in a 100% increase in organic revenues with significant further increase by acquisition of other companies.Enabled a line of sight from rumour to cash to ensure all revenues were captured and implemented a revenue assurance strategy to capture any leakage.Embedded a global sales organisation overlaid on to the national business units to manage customers across the footprint.Developed and implemented process and procedure that integrated legacy and new IT back office systems to provide insight and business intelligence previously unavailable in a consistent manner.
Vodafone
Various CxO, Director and management roles
Over 20 years experience in one of the largest UK companies with a footprint that spanned the globe.One of the initial 15 Vodafone global Enterprise founders that created a stand alone business function with full P&L accountability to serve over 1,000 multi-national customers across the Vodafone footprint of OpCo's and partners.As Chief Operating Officer and Regional Director led the teams that established the Vodafone Global Enterprise brand & entities in Bahrain, DRC, Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kuwait, Mozambique, Nigeria, Qatar, South Africa, Tanzania, UAE and Zambia.Provided support and thought leadership to establish similar entities in a further 15 countries across Europe, Asia and The Americas.Established the global bids, pricing and sales operations functions for Vodafone Global Enterprise with centres of excellence in the UK, US, Europe & India. The teams had worldwide accountability for all commercial activity and acted independently but in concert with the local operating company.Led the IT, Telecom, Media, Leisure and Professional Services sectors managing the end to end profitability of all Vodafone UK enterprise customers in those sectors.Led the early Vodafone UK regional management structure for Vodafone Corporate.
Contact
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