Charles Duque

· Communication with key stakeholders.

· Represent the industry in events, interviews, media appearances and conferences.

· Respond to EU RFP’s, recruit local implementing agencies through public tenders, gather multidisciplinary, multicultural teams to deliver tangible results, achieve KPI’s and reach objectives.

· Ownership of six concurrent 3-year lifecycle marketing campaigns to raise awareness and increase exports of value-added EU-dairy products in North and Latin America.

• Monitor project scope, progress and budgets totaling 20M€.
• Lead discovery and educational trips for media, journalists, influencers and trade.
• Work simultaneously in EN, FR, ES & PT

· Managed U.S. subsidiary LLC, 750K€ annual budget.

· Operations and HR of an event, experiential and retail concept venue.

• Lead planning process to increase awareness, create buzz and/or promote a specific product, cause or message at large or for stakeholders.
• Connected with experts to curate B2C/Influencer edutainment events including pairings, classes and cooking ateliers.
• Entrepreneurial disposition while identifying potential revenue streams to offset event costs, such as tickets, sponsorships or partnerships.
• Built relationships with trade, journalists, media outlets and influencers to generate buzz and increase visibility.
• Set tone and provided tools to successfully generate viral communications plan to grow social media channels.
• Supported staff and PR agency to tailor activities and invite the right mix of press, media and influencers for successful, efficient and effective events.
• Organized annual industry event including recognition ceremony to federate trade

· Designed and implemented a store-in-store turnkey concept for supermarket deli departments.

· Manage prototype showroom including online sales channel, advertising, affiliates, strategic partnerships, content management and social media.

· Source, purchase, promote and elaborate seasonal collections.

· Investigate and pioneer new methods of driving traffic and leads through emerging forms of online sales and marketing, event planning, pop-up stores, demoing and contests.

· Manage internal and external relationships with service providers, marketing agencies, manufacturers, brokers and retail category managers.

· Significantly increased revenue figures, client acquisition and customer retention through pertinent programs, projects and trade actions.

· Counseled over 500 French F&B exporters through consulting projects such as personalized commercial partner searches, investment strategic analyses, and custom prospecting missions.

· Identified markets where greater penetration could be achieved and reported on development opportunities for growth.

· Managed and accompanied numerous overseas trade missions, planned several U.S.-based topical seminars and co-organized large scale promotional events highlighting French CPG.

· Managed a network of six regional trade counselors, in-house admin staff, and interns.

· Attended trade shows to gather/report market trends and nurture relationships with importers and distributors.