Armin Kakas

Revify Analytics

Revify helps mid-market businesses ($10MM - $2B) move from data overload to profitable action. Our RGM-as-a-Service combines accessible, advanced analytics with expert Pricing & Revenue Growth Management advisory, providing a clear roadmap to unlock hidden margin leaks and drive revenue growth without enterprise-level complexity or cost.

Co-Founder

Revology Analytics

Revology Analytics is at the intersection of Advanced Analytics and Revenue Growth Management and specializes in impact and execution. If profitable growth, EBITDA expansion, and higher valuations are your goals, our strategies can help you achieve them.

We help mid-market companies ($10 million to $1 billion in revenues) overcome hurdles and elevate their business with pragmatic solutions focused on three critical areas:

1. Pricing & Revenue Management

2. Sales & Marketing Enablement

3. Commercial Analytics Transformation

Founder | Managing Partner

Pricing Lever

Consulting Partner for boutique Pricing Strategy advisory firm focused on Industrial Manufacturing and Distribution.

Consulting Partner

EBITDA Catalyst

Consulting partner for a specialized Revenue Management consultancy for middle-market and private equity portfolio companies. My advisory work focuses on three primary areas:

1. Margin Analytics & Optimization: Building 90/10 custom solutions for mid-market firms, primarily Manufacturers and Distributors, who want to augment their decision-making capabilities.

2. Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization: From distributors to retailers, provides crucial expertise to maximize ROI in this critical lever of profitability.

3. Sales & Customer Growth Analytics: Building on all-around analytics chops & deep understanding on the human sales execution factor, enables growth with both insights and Sales teams training & playbook development.

Reliancy

Senior Advisor for leading Sales & Marketing Enablement AI/ML advisory firm.

Senior Advisor - Revenue Growth Analytics

American Tire Distributors

I co-founded, built and scaled ATD’s first ever corporate analytics startup, driving incremental profits, valuation and industry profile for parent company ATD. Reporting to subsidiary CEO, I steered the data monetization strategy and execution of customer-facing ML-enabled SaaS solutions, growing the business from 0 to over 2,500 retail locations and manufacturers as customers. Additionally, drove ATD’s analytics transformation by prioritizing and building internal enterprise analytics solutions that augmented organizational decision-making capabilities, shifting the business to a data-driven culture.

A few key accomplishments in this role include:
• Forged key strategic partnerships with 10 of the 15 largest Point-of-Sale (POS) providers in the automotive aftermarket industry. Opened new revenue streams and paved the way for monetization of syndicated, anonymized POS transactional data.
• Led 15-member commercialization team (data translators, business development and sales ops managers) and influenced 50-member technical team to build innovative SaaS solutions that solved key customer pain points in competitive market and pricing insights, inventory management and optimization and profit / sales mix optimization.
• Realized substantial revenue and EBITDA growth for parent company in 3 years after conceptualizing and launching advanced analytics products across supply chain, revenue management and sales. 
• Represented analytics startup at industry conferences and served as trusted advisor and AI-translator to both ATD senior executive team and key clients within tire industry.

Vice President, Advanced Analytics Commercialization: Chief Customer Officer of Analytics Incubator

I was brought on to transition the revenue management function into a data science-driven department. I shifted the department to a Lean framework and expanded pricing capabilities by creating the company’s first in-house machine learning-enabled pricing solution that improved cash flow and liquidity using R, Python and Google Cloud SQL. 

Key accomplishments in this role include:
• Through architecting and deploying clearance price optimization platform, unlocked $300M in liquidity and $15M in gross profits from unproductive inventory despite difficult market.
• Developed and deployed descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics dashboards companywide using Tableau.

Director, Advanced Analytics: Head of Pricing and Margin Analytics of $5B Enterprise

Wells Enterprises

Recruited to transform administratively focused pricing team into strategic revenue growth management (RGM) group with analytics and strategy foundation for top 5 manufacturer of frozen desserts. Built RGM function from ground up, delivering volume and profit growth and providing actionable performance insights that optimized decision making. Shapeshifted business strategy and culture by establishing four key capabilities: 1) pay-for-performance mindset for promotions; 2) value-based pricing for private label business; 3) advanced analytics driven pricing architecture; 4) dynamic scenario analyses and optimization.

• Achieved 5% and 3% EBITDA growth in FY16 and FY17 despite relatively flat industry. Employed strategic price increases, restructured rebate programs across all channels, implemented rigorous pricing council reviews, and optimized price pack architecture.
• Brought order to chaotic pricing structure process by selecting team of 8 to create and implement standardized pricing strategy and processes and right size price and product positioning based on perceived price-value maps.
• Drove 13% in total Gross Profit $ in FY16 (+11% in unit volume and +2% in GP$ per unit) for anchor brand via tiered pricing strategy and optimized promotion plans that maximized in-store display and advertising support.
• Orchestrated launch of Tableau server and promotional data warehouse migration in MS Azure. Enabled self-serve descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics companywide. 
• Harmonized shipment and sellout data to produce macro- and micro-level promotion effectiveness platform that raised ROI from 80% to 92% in 1.5 years.

Director, Revenue Growth Management: Head of RGM and Advanced Analytics of $2B Consumer Goods Co. 

Best Buy

Accelerated dynamic pricing capabilities as lead of data science team in pricing and merchandising strategy analytics. Masterminded strategy and blueprint for pricing strategy across 1K+ stores. Engineered algorithmic framework to implement dynamic pricing for physical and online stores. Led global team to develop innovative solutions that drove business growth.
•	Designed pricing science roadmap, authored descriptive/predictive analytics capabilities, and directly contributed to the evolution and adoption of human capital/resources.
•	Cut 70% of budget by insourcing strategic planning and implementation function enterprise wide. 
•	Produced 30+bps jump in gross margin after introducing adaptive pricing techniques / capabilities.
•	Won Leadership Award for personal impact based on transformational strategies within pricing function.

Head of Price Analytics & Modeling: Building and Implementing Dynamic Pricing for $50B Retailer

MillerCoors

Collaboratively led a talented, tenured team of analytics professionals responsible for all aspects of revenue management for 500+ distributors and approximately 4k Walmart/Sam’s Club stores.

♦ Drafted an organizational roadmap for retail chain revenue management capabilities. Realized category and margin growth with the use of advanced price analytics.
♦ Successfully delivered unique and specific insights through a combination of integrated data and machine learning methods. Improved the quality and sustainability of newly presented insights.

Manager, Pricing Analytics and Strategy: Head of RGM for $700M Walmart / Sam’s Club Business Unit

GE Capital

♦ June 2011 - June 2012: Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE) Leader
♦ June 2008 - June 2011: Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP) Participant/Graduate
- 3rd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics (GE Capital Retail Consumer Finance - now Synchrony Financial)
- 2nd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics & Strategy (Vendor Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- 1st ECLP rotation: Price Analytics & Strategy (Equipment Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- ECLP Internship: Corporate Finance

Commercial and Consumer Finance Analytics and Strategy (various)

Revenue Growth Analytics advisor to executives in charge of growing Net Revenue, Gross Profit, and Sales Productivity | Posts and articles about Revenue Management + Machine Learning insights, methods, and processes.

As the founder of Revology Analytics, I have the privilege of offering mid-market businesses unparalleled expertise in advanced Revenue Growth Analytics & Management, focusing on three core advisory areas: Pricing & Revenue Management, Sales & Marketing Enablement and Commercial Analytics Transformation efforts. 

Beyond my advisory work, I am the creator of the Revology Analytics Insider, a bi-weekly newsletter offering readers unique insights into the world of Revenue Growth Analytics. You can catch the latest issues on LinkedIn and our website, revologyanalytics.com/articles-insights.

To learn more, please visit revologyanalytics.com

Revology Analytics is a Revenue Growth Analytics consultancy for middle-market companies in the Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution industries.

We are an impact- and execution-oriented advisory firm founded on Outcome-Based Analytics™, with focused specializations in AI/ML-enabled Margin Analytics & Optimization, Sales & Customer Growth Analytics and Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization.

Buzzballz, LLC / Southern Champion

- Develop and maintain strong relationships with national account buyers and distributor chain leaders to drive sales of BuzzBallz products, focusing on distribution, promotion, pricing, product placement, and merchandising.
- Facilitate customized consumer-focused selling efforts in key chain retailers to enhance brand visibility and sales for BuzzBallz
- Execute short- and long-term strategies consistent with company objectives, resulting in revenue growth and market expansion for BuzzBallz
- Lead and develop a team of national account Directors for BuzzBallz, ensuring high levels of success, consistent expectations and accountability
- Communicate chain activity and initiatives to both BuzzBallz regional sales team and distributor sales team, garnering support and alignment
- Conduct market surveys with BuzzBallz sales team and distributor chain managers to identify opportunities and gain insights into market dynamics
- Establish monthly, quarterly, and annual chain assessments, goals, and priorities to drive growth in BuzzBallz chain business
- Maintain budgetary compliance while achieving sales growth, profit, and volume targets for BuzzBallz
- Utilize strong communication and negotiation skills to build compelling sales presentations and collaborate effectively with Sales, Marketing, and Consumer Insights teams for BuzzBallz

Vice President Sales - National Accounts

Beam Suntory

• Manage a team of Regional Chain Managers to support $200MM annual sales depletions across 11 states, 7 primary regional accounts & execution within Centralized NAHQ call points (Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Sam’s Club, Meijer, Target, Total Wine, Albertson’s LLC, Target, Walgreens, CVS, HyVee, Big Red, Schnucks, Dierbergs, Coborns, Festival Foods, & Spartan – Nash)
• Responsible for assessing, assisting and guiding team in the development and management of the sales strategy for seven specific accounts in the Central Region
• Develop “Ways of Working” across the Central Region to ensure National Account program implementation & execution is a priority within these markets
• Garner share of mind internally within brand + financial stakeholders to drive success in Central Region NAHQ
• Support the team to execute strategy to deliver: demand creation, PODs, buyer share of mind, programming execution, cadence & clarity from the field + state management team
• Influence all stakeholders within Beam Suntory and wholesalers to ensure alignment and execution on NAHQ programming, commitments, and initiatives across Central Region.
• Responsible for overseeing and managing BI/EG budgets for the team and ensuring they stay within allotment.
RESULTS: Champion’s Club Award Winners; Sales plan achievement (2021)

Director - Central Region Chains, National Accounts

• Exceed KPI’s, sales target; met and exceeded monthly, quarterly & annual measurable growth targets across both sales & profit objectives two consecutive years in a row
• Manage own P&L; high exposure & elevated responsibility regarding financial management
• Champion’s Club Award winner: First place in Net Sales Volume Rate; Effen Award Winner; Jim Beam Award Winner; Big Things to Small Sizes (2018)
• Manage strategic partnership with retailer to secure optimal promotion planning & investment
• Partner with the broker to achieve & exceed sales target on key brands 
• Mitigated a trade overspend while staying within financial parameters & still growing sales 
• 2019 House of Suntory award winner (Tier 2 States)
RESULTS: Exceed sales targets & KPI’s multiple years In a row, Champion’s Club award winner

National Account Manager

• Direct & consistent interaction with multiple military buyers & DMMs at corporate headquarters
• Maintain a pipeline of fact based actionable consumer and shopper insights by utilizing the consumer insights team, internal retailer data, Nielsen, Spectra & additional sources
• Shifted and adjusted entire planogram process to streamline from an efficiency standpoint based on an internal Beam study 	
• Exceeded target goals for key Beam items & category trends overall
• Consistently increased points of distribution within domestic & international planograms 
RESULTS: Consistent sales & share growth outpacing overall Spirits category trends

Category Manager - Military

- Directly advise and support two Walmart beer buyers with daily communication and bi-weekly one on one meetings to create category solutions and insights
- Provide category management reports, trend analysis, customized regional reports and ad-hoc work directly to Walmart buyers and MillerCoors Category & Sales team utilizing Retail Link, Nielsen, & internal data systems
- Perform specific competitive analysis by category, brand and package to identify trends and opportunities for both Walmart & Sam's Club driving the retailer's goals and objectives
- Assess opportunities including out of stocks, Comac execution, display opportunities, and store of the community packages
- Attend category management round table discussions and new item sessions with Walmart buying teams, co-captains, and competitors to adjust criteria and evaluate new opportunities
- Incorporate consumer/shopper insights and behavior into retailer & category specific analysis and insights 
- Synthesize insights into business reviews & retailer partnered buying decisions & ultimately track & record results or next steps

Category Manager (previously Category Analyst)

Diamond Foods, Inc.

- Responsible for reporting, trend analysis, and proactive but calculated suggestions to improve or maintain sales
- High usage of Retail Link and advanced Excel techniques
- Direct interaction with Walmart both at corporate and on a store level
- Manage multiple aspects of processing including Sales Trends, Replenishment, and Inventory Management
- Support data trending from Walmart, Sam's Club, walmart.com, samsclub.com, Walmart International, BJ's & Costco

Walmart Sales Analyst

General Mills

- Projects entail in depth data analysis of category trends, key drivers, and unique opportunities for growth
- Responsible for every division of GMI (Meals, Snacks, Big G Cereal, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Betty Crocker, etc)
- Diverse range of experience from working with the retailers Schnucks, AWG, & Unified Northwest

Business Management Associate

University of Arkansas

- Graduated with Honors from the Sam M Walton School of Business
- Selected for competitive study abroad in India
- Marketing Honors colloquium course working directly with Walmart to present opportunities with social media for Gen Y moms

Student

• Thorough analysis of data processing and mining
 • Presentations to Kroger category management & senior management of General Mills 
 • Diversification of knowledge of CPG industry, particularly in regards to the Kroger region
RESULTS: Extensive use of Dunnhumby & Nielsen to produce strategy & data analysis

Business Management Associate Intern

Tyson Foods

• Manage own projects and products to be exported
 • Construct presentations given to CEOs internationally 
 • Administer the International website
RESULTS: Successfully use Retail Link to develop and produce accurate weekly reports based on domestic and international Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club sales for use by upper management

International Marketing Intern

VP Sales | Dynamic Sales Leader | 17 Years CPG | People First | Consumer-Centric Strategist | Efficiency Maven | Revenue Management Specialist | Data Obsessed | Insatiable Learner

As Vice President - Sales at BuzzBallz, I orchestrate a high-performing team of Regional Account Directors, driving sales exceeding $300 million with double-digit growth across the US. Spearheading key account leadership for major retailers like Total Wine, 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Kroger, I implement tailored strategies to boost brand visibility and drive sales growth.

Previously, at Beam Suntory, I led Regional Chain Managers to support $200+ million in annual sales across 11 states, fostering strategic partnerships with major retailers such as Walmart and Costco. My adept leadership garnered multiple Champion's Club Awards and exceeded sales targets consistently & annually across my career. 

With a proven track record in category management and strategic planning at MillerCoors, I provided actionable insights to drive growth in the Walmart beer category. My commitment to excellence and drive for results make me a valuable asset to any organization.

I am a high performer motivated by relationships & winning & believe you can excel at both with intent & sincerity.

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