Rebuilding themarketing enginewhile it ran.

When I joined The Malachite Group, the marketing function lacked the structure required by the scale of its brands. Roles were not clearly defined, responsibilities overlapped, expectations were inconsistent, and alignment between the team and leadership needed to be rebuilt. The paid-social manager had already resigned and would leave one month into the engagement.

At the same time, Afro Nation Portugal 2025—the flagship festival’s fifth-anniversary edition—was one week away from going on sale. The immediate task was therefore twofold: deliver a global festival campaign while rebuilding the organization responsible for it.

I restructured the marketing team, repositioned roles, and established clearer accountability across campaigns, creative, content, social, paid media, CRM, and festival operations. Role charters, RACI frameworks, process documentation, Asana, and a new meeting cadence gave the team a shared operating system and leadership greater visibility into the work.

I vetted and appointed a new paid-media agency, managed the marketing team day to day, and worked directly with the CEO and founder on priorities and decisions. The role combined organizational leadership with active campaign direction: leading the digital point of sale, briefing advertising and brand assets, directing content, establishing social calendars, and building the onsite festival-media operation.

For Afro Nation Portugal, the marketing challenge extended far beyond selling a local event. The campaign had to motivate a globally dispersed audience to travel to Portimão, coordinating brand, lineup, destination, ticketing, content, paid media, CRM, PR, and onsite storytelling as one system.

The resulting festival brought more than 40,000 people from over 180 countries to Portugal. An eight-person core marketing team, supported by agency partners and more than 30 onsite media operators, delivered the campaign and captured the festival as it unfolded.

The broader engagement extended the new operating structure across Piano People, a 3,500-ticket Afro Nation destination edition in Punta Cana, and confidential business-development opportunities. For Punta Cana, I also managed the festival-media operation and live social coverage distributed through HOT 97’s channels.

The result was not simply a successful festival campaign. It was a marketing organization better equipped to deliver the next one.