Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM

C&S Cabinets

Full Stack Marketer

Concertina Team

CIIT College of Arts and Technology Inc.

Instructor

Netcore Cloud

Customer Success Manager

TL;DR Digital Marketing

President & CEO

Brand30

Member

BorderBuddy

MoEngage Inc.

Autogrow

Marketing Strategist

Growth Blazers

Full Stack Marketer | Digital Marketing Instructor | Speaker/Trainer

Over the last decade, I’ve worked across FinTech, E-commerce, and SaaS, helping businesses unlock the power of digital marketing and MarTech.

In 2020, I realized that the strategies and successes I’ve helped others achieve could be applied to my own ventures, allowing me to assist even more businesses in my own way.

I took action.

I joined masterminds and business groups, executed campaigns firsthand, and consulted as a marketing strategist and customer success expert. Through these experiences, I’ve built a growing community of professionals eager to learn and apply the strategies I’ve developed.

Now, I’m preparing to launch my newsletter, Future-Forward Marketing, where I’ll be sharing actionable insights that have fueled my success.

My mission: To help you master the complexities of MarTech and digital marketing, turning them into powerful growth engines.

My results:

→ 10+ years of experience driving growth in FinTech, E-commerce, and SaaS
→ Managed multimillion-dollar portfolios, ensuring high retention and growth
→ Educator at CIIT Philippines, empowering the next generation of digital marketers
→ Preparing to launch Future-Forward Marketing, a newsletter packed with actionable insights and strategies

If you’re looking to build a robust, data-driven marketing strategy, I’m here to help.

Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM, CSSWB

Last year, I watched an enterprise burn through a massive budget on a platform their organization couldn't digest.

The technology was perfect.
World-class vendor.
Proven at scale.
Executive champion.
Unlimited budget.
External consultants.
Everything textbooks say you need.

Six months later? Dead.

Not because the platform failed. Because the organization couldn't absorb it.

After 15 years implementing marketing technology across Southeast Asia, I've seen this pattern destroy more transformations than any technical failure:

Organizations have an absorption capacity. Exceed it, and everything fails.

Think of your organization as having a digestive system for change. Feed it too much, too fast, and it rejects everything. Even the good stuff.

I learned this lesson repeatedly across enterprises serving millions of customers.

Major platform implementations failed not because the technology was wrong. 

They failed because they required:
- Workflows that didn't exist
- Skills nobody had developed
- Cultural shifts nobody prepared for
- Integration patterns that weren't documented
- Governance models that weren't designed

This painful education led me to develop a MarTech Maturity Framework that measures absorption capacity across four dimensions:

*Integration Debt: How many manual handoffs exist between systems?
*Data Debt: How fragmented is your customer information?
*Process Debt: How many workflows still run on spreadsheets?
*Vendor Debt: How much overlap exists between tools?

The rule is simple: Score below 60% on any dimension, and new technology multiplies problems instead of solving them.

One client scored 85% on technical capability but 35% on process maturity. We spent six months fixing processes before touching technology. Result? 22x ROI improvement using mostly existing tools.

Vendors will never tell you this.
Consultants won't admit it.

But here's reality:
Most organizations can successfully absorb about 30% of what vendors promise.

Not because vendors lie.
Because organizations overestimate their readiness.

You wouldn't run a marathon without training. Yet companies attempt digital transformation without building organizational fitness first.

The solution isn't moving slower. It's building absorption capacity systematically. Strengthen your foundation before adding weight.

Your Absorption Reality Check:
- How many transformation initiatives has your organization "completed" versus actually adopted?
- What percentage of your tech stack features do teams actually use?
- How many platforms solved one problem but created three new ones?

If you're uncomfortable with the answers, you're not alone.

Want to dive deeper? I've just published below a comprehensive analysis combining insights from Oxford Saïd Business School's latest research with real-world implementation patterns across telecommunications, fintech, and digital platforms.

#DigitalTransformation #MarTech #AITransformation #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalChange

Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM

Marketing Technology | Building SukiNomics | 15+ Years helping eCommerce/SaaS/FinTech scale with MarTech & Strategy

View newsletter: Future-Forward Marketing

Insights from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford's latest webinar on intelligent systems, validated through 15+ years implementing enterprise 

Open article: From Oxford to Operations: 10 Critical Lessons on Leading AI Transformation That Actually Works by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 9 min read

From Oxford to Operations: 10 Critical Lessons on Leading AI Transformation That Actually Works

Your marketing team has more tools than ever. They're using less than a third of them.

Every modern marketing organization runs on four foundational systems:

→ CDP (Customer Data Platform): Your single source of truth for customer data. Unifies profiles across every touchpoint.
→ DAM (Digital Asset Management): Your single source of truth for brand content. Eliminates hours wasted searching for the right assets.
→ MAP (Marketing Automation Platform): Your engine for scalable engagement. Delivers the right message at the right time.
→ CXM (Customer Experience Management): Your orchestration layer for the entire customer journey. Connects acquisition to advocacy.

Together these four markets exceed $50 billion.

The growth trajectory is strong. 
The utilization rate is not.

McKinsey found not one of 50+ senior marketing leaders could clearly articulate their martech ROI. The problem is not the technology. It is how we buy and deploy it.

Three insights that separate winners from laggards:

→ First-party data readiness is now a competitive moat. Those without unified customer data are scrambling as third-party cookies disappear.

→ AI integration is table stakes, not differentiation. The real advantage comes from AI working across all four pillars, not in isolated point solutions.

→ Fewer tools with deeper integration beats more tools with shallow adoption. Organizations with composable architectures deploy new capabilities 80% faster.

The winners in 2026 are not the ones with the biggest martech budgets. They are the ones who can actually measure what that budget delivers.

Full analysis with 2025 market data and strategic recommendations below:

TLDR The Core Four martech stack (CDP, DAM, MAP, CXM) now exceeds $50 billion in combined market value, with CXM and CDP showing the fastest growth th

Open article: The Core Four martech stack in 2025: A $50B+ ecosystem reshaping customer engagement by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 10 min read

The Core Four martech stack in 2025: A $50B+ ecosystem reshaping customer engagement

Enterprise tools do not fail because of bad technology. Hear me out…

I’ve seen dozens of enterprise tool implementations fail or fall way behind schedule.

Same pattern every time.

Marketing buys a CDP. IT refuses to integrate it. Analytics team never gets access. Finace never brought in to understand brand & longterm ROI.

Years later, the platform sits unused while everyone blames each other.

The real problem was simpler.

Nobody wanted to collaborate.

#Digitaltransformations require co-ownership. The tools do not care about your org chart.

They require integrated data flows, unified governance, and cross-functional decision-making.

When you purchase an enterprise tool, you are not buying software. You are buying an org-wide commitment to work differently.

That means:

#Marketing must explain business outcomes in technical terms IT understands.

IT must translate infrastructure constraints into business impact.

Analytics must make data actionable for both teams.

Finance must understand ROI beyond immediate cost reduction.

Every successful implementation I have seen had one thing in common. Teams who treated the tool as a shared asset requiring shared accountability.

Every failure had people who wanted results without collaboration.

You cannot #lead transformation initiatives alone. Not because you lack the skills. But because enterprise tools touch multiple systems, multiple teams, and multiple workflows.

The question is not whether you can drive the project. The question is whether you can get everyone to own the outcome together.

#Stakeholdermanagement is not politics.

It is the actual work of making technology deliver business value.

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The expectations of executive leadership are shifting. In #digitaltransformation, the C-suite can no longer lead through decks, dashboards, and delegation alone.

I saw this firsthand during a week-long executive program at UCD Smurfit in Dublin. We analyzed why GE Digital failed while Airbnb succeeded. We visited Pinterest, HubSpot, and Google.

One pattern emerged across every case: the gap between technology capability and organizational capability. That gap closes only when executives get close to the work.

The Magazine Luiza transformation in Brazil shows what this looks like.

When Frederico Trajano became CEO in 2016, he faced a choice. Follow the Silicon Valley playbook of burning cash for growth, or find another way.

He chose neither separation nor delegation. He personally incubated a technology unit of 55 engineers, eventually growing to 850. He housed them in a secluded corner of headquarters with one instruction: build digital tools for both online and offline businesses with total focus on the end user.

The result was a 7,900% stock price increase over four years. The company transformed from a traditional retailer into a tech company.

The Thinkers50 Transformation Playbook captures the key insight. If a technology unit is left to fend for itself inside a larger organization, it will get rejected.

It needs to be separated and incubated by the CSuite, who should give it opportunities to get initial credibility through small wins.

This is why executive sponsorship is the connective tissue in digital transformation.

Harvard Business School research calls this the “use of self.” Leaders model future behaviors early in the process. They visibly tackle new challenges outside their comfort zone. This serves as a template for others to follow.

In #MarTech, the same principle applies. You cannot lead a CDP implementation from a quarterly business review. You cannot transform customer experience through filtered reports.

HubSpot  CEO Yamini Rangan  recently shared what works instead:

Do gemba walks. Sit with your team. Watch how the work happens. See where the friction is.

Triangulate feedback. Listen directly to customers, partners, and employees.

Experiment with #AI yourself. Write prompts. Share what you learn. You cannot #lead transformation if you are not learning the tools shaping it.

Communicate relentlessly. Share what is known, what is unknown, and how decisions are made.

As Rangan puts it, the best C-suite leaders today lead by doing. They provide clear direction and then protect the space for teams to execute.

Sources: 
- Thales Teixeira, Leandro Guissoni, and Frederico Trajano, An Unlikely Case of Successful Digital Transformation, The Transformation Playbook, Brightline Initiative/Thinkers50.
- Ryan L. Raffaelli, Leading Organizational Change, Harvard Business School Core Curriculum, 2017.
- UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Digital Transformation Executive Program, Dublin, 2025.

A candid, documentary-style photograph from the side of a conductor's podium. A single hand, cufflink visible on a suit sleeve, holds a baton steady in mid-air, commanding attention. The conductor’s body is partially visible but anonymous. The background orchestra is a wash of indistinct shapes and warm stage lights, representing diverse, fragmented elements waiting to be aligned. Shallow depth of field. The mood is authoritative and singular.

I’ve watched the same pattern destroy implementations across fintech, government, ecommerce, healthtech, and SMEs—and it’s not what you think.

Over the past 15 years working with enterprise clients on martech implementations, member management systems, and #digitaltransformation projects, I’ve reviewed my notes and found one consistent thread:

80% of #martech implementations fail to deliver their promised value—and the failure point is almost never the technology.

𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝.

The data backs this up:
• 97% of mid-sized enterprises reported a martech failure that negatively affected customer relationships in the last 12 months .
• 72% fail from lack of post-launch monitoring .

Across every sector I’ve worked in—from government agencies managing constituent data to healthtech companies orchestrating patient journeys—the pattern is identical.

The Core Four stack (CDP, DAM, MAP, CXM) gets approved at the executive level, then delegated to mid-level leaders who lack the authority to make it work.

Here’s what I’ve observed goes missing:
→ No one mandates data sharing between Sales and #Marketing.
→ No one resolves the turf war between Acquisition and Retention teams.
→ No one reallocates headcount from legacy system maintenance.
→ No one absorbs the political cost of standardizing processes across business units.
→ No one owns the compliance risk of unified customer data.
→ No one protects the 18-36 month transformation timeline against quarterly pressure.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬—𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲.

When Gartner surveyed marketing leaders, they found that successful implementations have one thing in common: active C-suite involvement in vendor selection, change management, and continuous oversight.

This isn’t about blame.

It’s about recognizing that the Core Four requires a different kind of leadership engagement than traditional software purchases.

Read on below to understand what real executive sponsorship requires—and why the gap between leaders and laggards widens every quarter you wait.

The Core Four martech stack is not a technology decision. It is an organizational design decision. And that is why it keeps failing without executive 

Open article: The Core Four: Why your Martech Stack is an Organizational Problem by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 4 min read

The Core Four: Why your Martech Stack is an Organizational Problem

Arch Insurance Group Inc.

AVP, Strategic Initiatives Lead

- Lead the overall deployment of a Lean Transformation with specific responsibility of initiatives and continuous improvement practices and routines.
- Guide the current state and future state, implementation plan, along with impact and value of changes.
- Use a standard set of Lean/Problem Solving tools and analyses to develop insight, solutions and drive the consistent use of Lean standards in the delivery of Value Stream or Function.
- Deliver performance objectives as stated in charter.
- Be accountable for the consistent and successful delivery of agreed standards of Lean in initiative.
- Guide training and problem solving workshops with senior managers & teams.
- Coach senior leaders to be effective in their roles as sponsors; and coach leaders at all levels on their role to support and sustain continuous improvement in their area including their own management practices and routines.
- Work with leaders and managers to provide continuous improvement updates and report-outs to Senior Leadership.
- Coach managers and teams on the tools and techniques they will need to successfully identify, prioritize and capture tangible benefits.

AVP, AMS (Continuous Improvement)

American Family Insurance

- Led implementation of the management system in designated areas of the organization; including, business assessment (Lean maturity), value stream scoping, project selection, implementation of standard work, leader standard work, and visual management systems;
- Led the development and implementation of complex process experimentation and piloting;
- Provided ongoing support and mentoring throughout all project phases on business process management and improvement concepts, methods and tools;
- Provided coaching and mentoring to Executives, Directors, Managers and Front-line employees on how to best use the Lean methodology to achieve their goals;
- Created awareness of, and urgency around the need for change; acts as an agent of change for the organization.
- Coached and mentored cross-function teams from different entities in how to identify and reduce non-value added activities.
- Trained employees in the continuous improvement methodologies so they can identify daily opportunities to improve their own work.

Ignite Consultant - Sr. Agile/Lean Coach

Eaton

- Facilitated Rapid Improvement Events (RIE’s) including mentoring and hands on training
- Coached process owners on definition and implementation of Process Standardization, Leader Standard Work, Visual Controls, Process Checks, Daily Accountability, Manning Strategy and Gemba Walks

Sr. Continuous improvement Analyst

HellermannTyton North America

- Responsible to educate and  provide hands-on direction for employees in LEAN manufacturing
 - Conducted projects to reduce scrap, reduce machine downtime, increase productivity and reduce lead times
 - Created and maintained an active project list with emphasis on improvements in Safety, Quality, Delivery and Productivity
 - Worked with different groups to assess current processes and identify continuous improvement opportunities
 - Provided manufacturing data for the launch of new products and process
- Provided floor support on all engineering related topics

Industrial Manufacturing Engineer

Everbrite, LLC

- Define, prioritize and lead LEAN manufacturing projects that align with the company objectives 
 - Implement the LEAN methodology (i.e. OEE; KPI; CNQ; 8 Waste; …) to improve company performance
 - Lead and facilitate cross-functional teams and problem solving projects on processes throughout the company 
 - Gather and analyze data for improvement studies, which relate to proper utilization of company labor, equipment, materials, technology and facilities 
 - Lead Kaizen training and events throughout the company

Lean Champion

Briggs & Stratton

- Defined and prioritize the projects that will have the biggest impact on the organization
- Identified which lean tools the projects will use
- Presented the project results to all levels within the company and at the Engineer Quarterly meeting
- Provided workshop about lean techniques
- Supported and facilitate data and document control processes
- Oversee, developed & maintained performance measurement support systems, reporting and communication
- Worked directly with process owners to design and implement processes, process controls, process standards and a continuous improvement program
- Gathered and analyzed data for improvement studies, which relate to proper utilization of company labor, equipment, materials, technology and facilities; recommend and assist in the implementation of changes to technology or business processes. Cost/benefit studies will be performed as necessary
- Facilitated and/or led cross-functional process improvement teams and/or problem solving projects on processes throughout the company

Project Manager - Engineering Process Improvement

- Gathered and analyzed data for improvement studies, which relate to proper utilization of company labor, equipment, materials, technology and facilities; recommend and assist in the implementation of changes to technology or business processes. Cost/benefit studies will be performed as necessary
- Facilitated and/or led cross-functional process improvement teams and/or problem solving projects on processes throughout the company

Improvement Process Coordinator

Canguru SA

Industrial Engineer

RR Donnelley

Internship - Working in finishing department

Mangels SA

Internship - Production Planning and Controller

Locomotiva industria e Comercio de Têxteis Industriais LTDA

Intership on New Products Development

LinkedIn Top Lean Six Sigma Voice | Transformation Coach that combine the power of Lean methodology and practical wisdom to help you tap into your limitless potential

With 10+ years of experience working with Continuous Improvement, I worked in different companies guiding them in identify and eliminate waste to reduce cost and improve their workflow to maximize the customer value. 
I have experience in leading teams and individuals to identify, unlock and achieve their maximum potential in manufacturing and non-manufacturing environment, I provided Lean training to 500+ people, facilitated/participated on 40+ Kaizen events and helped generated $3M+ in cost savings throughout my career.
I am process-oriented and a result-achiever with a growth mindset that carries a great passion to teach people to become daily problem solvers and to spark their interest and curiosity about the great world of continuous improvement.
Now that you learned a little bit about me, let's connect here at LinkedIn so I can learn a little bit about you.

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