Strategic Operator

Some of the most valuable problems in a growing business don't live inside one function.

I work across product, commercial, partnerships, technology and operations — building the context, alignment and ownership that turn a stalled opportunity into something a business can actually run. Thirteen of my seventeen years have gone deep into one such problem: loyalty and commerce ecosystems, at enterprise scale.

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Where I Help

Two ways this experience gets put to work.

One is broad: cross-functional strategic advisory for businesses navigating complex, ambiguous problems. The other is deep: thirteen years of specialist experience in loyalty, rewards and commerce infrastructure.

Cross-functional strategic advisory & operating partnerships

General

For businesses with an important opportunity or problem that crosses product, commercial, technology and operational lines — and no single owner already positioned to move it forward.

Cross-functional strategic initiatives

Bringing clarity and ownership to opportunities that matter, involve several functions, and don't yet have a natural senior owner.

Platform & ecosystem strategy

What to build, what to partner for, what to integrate, and where your platform should sit within a wider ecosystem.

Commercialisation & platform evolution

Turning strong technology or product capability that lacks an operating or commercial model into something that can go to market.

Operating partnerships

For select technology businesses, working alongside the founder or leadership team as an operating partner — commercial execution, partnerships and systems thinking, applied directly.

Loyalty, customer engagement & commerce advisory

Specialist

Thirteen years spent designing, building and running a POS-integrated loyalty, rewards and gift-card platform — working closely with retailers, hospitality groups and POS providers across multiple markets, including Starbucks, KAUAI, Bootlegger and Gloria Jean's, and integrations spanning Oracle MICROS Symphony, GAAP Hospitality, Pilot, Sage, IQ Retail/Klipboard and BCX (Vodacom).

For retailers & hospitality businesses

Assessing existing loyalty programmes and technology ecosystems
Defining requirements, running RFPs, and selecting or implementing loyalty platforms
Improving the internal operating model around loyalty — roles, responsibilities, process and team capability
Mentoring existing teams
Fractional strategic ownership of the loyalty function, where a full-time senior hire isn't the right move yet

For loyalty, POS & payment platform providers

Assessing an existing loyalty / value-added-services proposition
Identifying gaps and opportunities across product, integrations and APIs
Partner ecosystem and go-to-market strategy
Determining how a broader VAS marketplace could evolve

Fractional Ownership, in practice

The Missing Owner

Most loyalty programmes don't underperform because the technology fails. The platform usually works, and the provider usually delivers. What quietly erodes commercial performance is that ownership of the outcome is split across marketing, operations, IT, finance, the loyalty provider and outside agencies — everyone owns a piece, and no one owns the result.

The Missing Owner is a continuous, merchant-side executive function that closes that gap — connecting strategy to execution across the provider, the operations team and the customer, so the programme's commercial performance has a single accountable owner again. It's delivered as a fractional engagement, right-sized to the business, not a full-time hire.

Start with an Executive Discovery Workshop

How I Work

I don't arrive with a preconceived answer.

The same operating model applies whether the problem is a stalled cross-functional initiative or an underperforming loyalty ecosystem.

Immerse

Get inside the business before proposing anything — the people, the systems, the history of what's already been tried.

Understand

Map how the parts actually interact, not how the org chart says they should.

Connect

Bring together the people, systems and information that aren't currently talking to each other.

Identify leverage

Find the small number of places where a well-placed intervention changes the whole picture.

Orchestrate

Take ownership of moving it forward — not just recommending it and stepping away.

Improve

Leave the business with stronger capability than it had before, not a new dependency on me.

Selected Experience

Two stories, seventeen years apart, that show the same pattern.

2008 – 2013 · Vidamo

Building categories before they had names

Long before mobile loyalty and digital engagement were mainstream priorities, I co-founded Vidamo and led product development across a portfolio of mobile and SaaS products — mobile vouchers, CRM-linked workflows, customer profiling and early mobile-to-web engagement — taken from concept through to funded, licensed, revenue-generating products used by DHL, Unilever, RE/MAX and the United Nations, among others.

Several initiatives were backed by NORAD development funding, and one, mProperty, became a recurring-revenue platform adopted across agencies including Seeff and RE/MAX.

What this demonstrates: the ability to take a product from concept to real commercial adoption, repeatedly, across genuinely different problems.

2013 – 2026 · Swarm Rewards

Keeping an enterprise platform alive through reinvention

Co-founded and led product, partnerships and platform expansion for Swarm Rewards, a POS-integrated loyalty, rewards and gift-card platform, through thirteen years that included shareholder transitions, recapitalisation, and full platform redevelopment — all while enterprise customers including Starbucks, KAUAI and Gloria Jean's continued operating live, mission-critical loyalty programmes.

Integration partnerships spanned Oracle MICROS Symphony, GAAP Hospitality, Pilot Software, Sage, IQ Retail/Klipboard and BCX (Vodacom), and the platform was a 2025 FNB App of the Year finalist.

What this demonstrates: preserving customer trust and commercial continuity through genuine operational instability — not just steady-state growth.

Businesses I've worked directly with

StarbucksKAUAIBootleggerGloria Jean'sTwispWiesenhofKing PieDHLUnileverMicrosoftRE/MAXNorwegian Airlines

How We'd Work

Different depths of involvement, the same underlying commitment.

Whichever silo applies, the shape of engagement is consistent — from an outside perspective through to meaningful, ongoing ownership.

Strategic Advisory

Experienced outside perspective for founders and leadership teams pressure-testing a decision or an unclear opportunity.

Defined Strategic Projects

A contained problem with a concrete output — assess, understand, recommend, roadmap. Often the simplest place to start.

Fractional Strategic Ownership

Meaningful responsibility for an important initiative over a defined period — building capability the business keeps, rather than depends on me for.

Operating Partnerships

For select opportunities, deeper involvement alongside strong technology or product capability that needs experienced commercial ownership.

A genuinely exceptional executive or long-cycle operating role remains of interest where there's unusually strong alignment — though it isn't the primary focus of these conversations.

About

Seventeen years at the intersection of product, partnerships and commerce.

I'm a South African strategic operator with 17+ years across mobile technology, SaaS, commerce infrastructure, loyalty and rewards, and platform partnerships. My work has never sat neatly inside one function — it consistently lives where commercial, technical and operational complexity meet.

That's meant founder-led product building, enterprise integrations, platform migrations under real constraint, shareholder transitions, and long-cycle partnerships that sometimes took a decade to mature. The common thread isn't any one title — it's getting inside ambiguity, understanding how a system actually works, and helping turn it into something that runs.

2008 – 2013

Vidamo

Co-founder. Early mobile engagement and SaaS products, concept to commercial rollout, across multiple industries.

2013 – 2026

Swarm Rewards

Co-founder. Product, partnerships and platform expansion for a POS-integrated loyalty and commerce platform, at enterprise scale.

2026 – present

Vlaming.io

Selective strategic advisory, fractional ownership and operating-partner engagements across platforms, product and loyalty ecosystems.

Get in touch

Have an important opportunity or problem that crosses functions — or a loyalty ecosystem that needs one accountable owner?

Tell me briefly what's going on. I respond personally to every message.

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