Marcel Ruettgers
Revenue Operations Consultant
Experience
Partnerships Growth Lead
Blaze
- Spearheading affiliate and partnership growth strategies, scaling Blaze.ai into one of the fastest-growing AI tools of its era.
- Managing and optimizing professional affiliate marketing initiatives, marketplaces, and distribution partnerships to drive customer acquisition.
- Designing hypothesis-driven growth experiments to accelerate revenue and market share.
- Building scalable frameworks for affiliate channel success, ensuring alignment with Blaze.ai's broader goals and vision.
Chief Operating Officer
High-BROWSE
Country Manager IKEA Food Netherlands
IKEA Group
- Led food operations, safety, and quality control across 11 stores.
- Managed P&L, budgeting, and financial planning for the food business.
- Expanded plant-based and sustainable food range by 20%.
- Implemented inventory optimization program, reducing waste by 10%.
- Oversaw new café and restaurant openings and promotions.
- Directed team of retail managers and food specialists.
- Ensured compliance with policies, regulations, and brand standards.
- Developed training programs on food safety and customer service.
- Collaborated with global IKEA food leadership on best practices.
- Represented IKEA Netherlands food business at industry events.
- Analyzed data on customer preferences and eating trends.
Acting Country Food Manager | Range & Commercial Leader
IKEA Group
- Collaborated with the marketing team to launch successful marketing campaigns.
- Implemented a cost-saving strategy that reduced food waste by 15%.
- Recruited and managed a team of 5 specialists, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and a 7% increase in revenue.
Founder & Fractional Executive — Growth & AI Systems
MRCO
- I help founder-led businesses scale by fixing operational bottlenecks, particularly lead response, follow-up systems, and revenue operations.
- Build AI systems that respond to leads in seconds (voice agents, automated follow-up, booking systems).
- Design growth and partnership programs that compound.
- Fix operational gaps between marketing, sales, and delivery.
- Recent work includes AI lead response systems for service businesses, partnership channel builds for SaaS, and RevOps infrastructure for scaling teams.
- Before going independent, I spent 18 years in operations and growth leadership, including Country Manager at a large retail organisation (€80 M P&L, 11 stores) and Growth Lead at Blaze.ai (scaled partnership program 900% in 9 months).
Range and Commercial Leader
IKEA Group
- Developed a new pricing strategy, resulting in a 10% increase in commercial sales.
- Implemented new marketing strategies, resulting in a 7% increase in customer retention.
IKEA Food Manager
IKEA Group
- Led the strategic launch and management of IKEA Kaiserslautern's food department, innovating with a coffee bar at the entrance.
- Managed a team of 30, overseeing profit and loss and significantly contributing to store management objectives.
- Achieved a 10% increase in revenue and margins, exceeding financial goals through strategic planning and operational excellence.
Country Product Manager
EF Education First
- Lead the country operations for the language travel program for 10-18 year olds.
- B2C sales through warm outreach and email outreach.
- Tour and trip planning on location.
Industries Experience
See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time. Longer bars indicate deeper hands-on experience, while shorter ones reflect targeted or project-based work.
Experienced in Professional Services (8.5 years), Retail (6 years), Food and Beverage (1.5 years), Information Technology (1 year), Education (1 year), and Tourism (1 year).
Business Areas Experience
The graph below provides a cumulative view of the freelancer's experience across multiple business areas, calculated from completed and active engagements. It highlights the areas where the freelancer has most frequently contributed to planning, execution, and delivery of business outcomes.
Experienced in Operations (12 years), Marketing (9 years), Information Technology (8.5 years), Finance (3.5 years), Sales (3.5 years), and Product Development (1 year).
Summary
Most growth problems aren't about tactics. They're about disconnected systems, unclear ownership, and a founder still stuck in every decision. Leads sit too long. Pipeline stages mean different things to different people. Marketing and sales blame each other. You've hired people but growth still feels like pushing a boulder uphill.
I'm a Fractional Head of Growth who helps founder-led companies scale from $1M to $10M without the chaos. I don't run your ads or write your emails. I build the strategic foundation and revenue systems that let your team actually execute.
Here's how I work: → Diagnose your GTM end-to-end: acquisition, conversion, retention. Find where deals decay and growth stalls. → Fix the fundamentals first: ownership, handoffs, pipeline definitions, data hygiene, reporting that reflects reality. → Design systems that scale: playbooks, processes, and automation so growth doesn't depend on heroics or your constant involvement. → Use AI as leverage, not gimmick: I deploy AI where it actually saves time and money, with humans in the loop and clear guardrails. → Ship in weeks, not quarters: tight scope, fast iterations, measurable outcomes, and documentation so your team owns it.
If you're a founder who's found traction but knows the current setup won't get you to $10M, let's talk.
Skills
- Automation
- Artificial Intelligence (Ai)
- Affiliate Marketing
Languages
Education
ThePowerMBA
MBA, Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Innovation & Digital Transformation · Madrid, Spain
Certifications & licenses
Certified Content Marketing Specialist Fundamentals
Certified Ecommerce Marketing Specialist
Foundations Of Project Management
Freelancer Course
The Foundations Of Conversion
Profile
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