Background
I joined Sony as a financial analyst at a moment when the VAIO division was struggling. The Electronics segment, which VAIO was a meaningful part of, had nearly zero operating profit. Sony had publicly committed to a turnaround, and the pressure to make the numbers work was real.
My role wasn't strategy. I was the person who helped build the tools that made the numbers visible in the first place.
The Problem
VAIO sold across 15+ European countries, each with its own sales entity, its own accounting nuances, and its own way of reporting. Manufacturing costs came from Japan and China. Revenue lived in European sales systems. Nobody had ever stitched them together into a single view of profitability by product, by dealer, by country.
You can't manage what you can't see. And nobody could see anything.
What We Built
Working under a senior manager and director who drove the strategic vision, I wrote the code. VBA models that pulled manufacturing cost data from Asia and connected it to European sales figures, producing the first profitability reports Sony had at that granularity. Product-level margins. Dealer-level margins. Country-level margins. All in one place, updated on a cadence leadership could actually use.
I then took those reports across Europe, presenting to country leads and sales entities to align how we were measuring and managing the business. That work helped create the operational clarity the turnaround required.
The result made Sony's annual report. The Electronics segment hit 5.4% operating profit, significantly ahead of their own target, after starting from near zero three years earlier. VAIO was named as one of the products that contributed to that achievement.
I was promoted.
Then I Became the Client
After years on the finance side, I moved into running search marketing for Sony's European ecommerce operation. Same company, completely different seat. Now I was the one managing agencies and budgets, not helping to build internal systems.
When I took over the program, I put the existing agency on notice immediately. Coming out of finance, I had already seen how the operation was running and didn't like it. We went through a full pitch process. Ogilvy won, but winning didn't mean business as usual.
Building a Program That Had to Perform
The first thing we reworked was the commercial structure. We moved to a cost-plus model where Ogilvy covered their costs but had real upside tied to performance. They had skin in the game. That changed how the relationship worked.
Then we reworked the strategy itself. The program had been focused on branding. I shifted the entire orientation toward direct sales, using what we'd now call ROAS as the organizing principle. We identified the keywords with the best return, funded them as aggressively as the budget allowed, and restructured everything else into a tiered system that protected the high-performers while still giving room for brand activity.
I had several meetings a week with the Ogilvy team and was regularly on-site working through changing product priorities, seasonal shifts, and campaign decisions. I also launched the first conversion rate optimization program in Sony's European ecommerce operation, alongside a structured ad testing approach that let us see what messaging actually worked before scaling it.
The program ran on a nine-figure budget. Over three years it drove $300M in direct sales, a 300% increase, while reducing ad costs by 5%.
Why This Matters for Your Agency
Most people who consult on agency operations have read about it. Some have managed a team or two.
I spent years inside a company where operational discipline wasn't optional, where financial accountability was measured at a granularity most agencies have never imagined, and where I helped build the systems that made performance visible across an entire continent.
And then I sat in the client seat, managing the agency relationship, setting the strategy, controlling the budget, and running a program that had to produce real results.
That's the lens I bring into your agency. Not theory. Not coaching. A specific way of building systems that make delivery visible, quality measurable, and growth possible without everything depending on you.
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