Jan 2026 – Present · 2 mos · Miami, Florida, United States

Jul 2021 – Jan 2025 · 3 yrs 6 mos

• Herb's mission is to change the way the world views cannabis. We've built the largest cannabis community in the world with over 14 million passionate people.
• We help successfully connect the best brands with customers and provide a trackable and measurable end-to-end marketing solution.
• I work closely with the Founder, Matt Gray, and the Chief Revenue Officer, Robert Cornell while leading the product, data, and marketing team to take the brand to the next level.

Jan 2021 – Feb 2022 · 1 yr 1 mo · Miami, Florida, United States

• Grata is a free-engagement software committed to enhancing a resident’s living experience.
• I have been involved in the very early days of the business, working closely with the Founder Ken Crema, after his $2 M raise, to help him restructure the technology team, in order to allow him and the rest of the team to take the product to market. Now Grata is ready to scale the product across thousands of multi-family doors across USA and Canada.

Mar 2019 – Dec 2023 · 4 yrs 9 mos · Los Angeles, California, United States

• Partially acquired by Planet Hollywood (Earl Enterprises). Funded in 2019 (6 LOCATIONS) in Los Angeles, Burrata House is the first and only burrata-centric QSR concept in the world. With locations in Los Angeles and Austin, the group has turned A traditional Italian cheese - Burrata - into a novelty culinary experience through social gamification and influencer marketing. With 6 physical locations (& counting), and a community of over 35k hungry followers, the company aims to grow nationally and internationally to bring Burrata to the world. #Getemburratnotflowers

Mar 2017 – Mar 2022 · 5 yrs · United States

• Voltn is a growth marketing agency focused on high-growth Shopify brands. Our expert team of marketing strategists will help you find, nurture, acquire, and retain your future customers. The outcome: profitable customer growth & remarkable LTV.
• Our entire focus is to expand your reach with new prospects, to nurture and convert them through a multi-touchpoint conversion funnel. Running campaigns without a rock-solid conversion funnel won't generate scalable & replicable results. This is where we can add instant value, knowing the things that need to be done in order to scale businesses rapidly through digital exposure.

Aug 2015 – Dec 2017 · 2 yrs 4 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• ReadWrite is currently the leading media platform dedicated to IoT (internet of things) and Connected World (by Forbes). The publication was launched in 2003 by Richard MacManus and it was originally called ReadWriteWeb or RWW and it was covering Web 2.0 and Web technology in general, providing industry news, reviews, and analysis.
• Hired and managed the tech team to move the CMS over from SayMedia to a custom WordPress platform;
• Restructured the existing operational structure and the media products (from scratch) alongside Redg Snodgrass (CEO);
• Created a database that today counts over 5 Million users with rich data, and hired the Chief Information Officer to manage the data piece of the business;
• Started a new business line, affiliate event promotion, generating over $7 Million in ticket sales and closing contracts with major conferences such as Informa, CES, SXSW, IDG, Mobile World Congress, TechCrunch Disrupt, Microsoft, and more;
• Manage and license overseas properties like ReadWrite.jp (the Japanese version of ReaWrite.com);
• Organized and promoted major hackathons for smart cities, bots, virtual reality, and more showcasing major sponsors such as Samsung, IBM, Honeywell, HPE, Comcast, Avegant, Accenture, ARM, Amazon Alexa, Twillio, Alcatel Lucent, Uber, Nokia, and many more.
• On the investment side, Francesco has worked back to back with the CEO to close a major round of investment of over $4 Million from Tsinghua University (its venture arm Leaguer) and Radiant VC in order to expand the business in Asia, establishing multiple accelerator facilities between Hong Kong and Shenzhen where to date hundreds of startups have been incubated.

Aug 2015 – Nov 2017 · 2 yrs 3 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• Mediated key relationships between Shenzhen and San Francisco to help hardware/IOT startups find the right manufacturing partners.

Jan 2012 – Jan 2015 · 3 yrs · London, United Kingdom

• EXIT - Unbits was acquired by ReadWrite.com, mid-2015 & subsequently integrated.
• Unbits is a curated marketplace where you can discover, review, and buy beautifully designed lifestyle tech products, made by the most innovative brands in the world. Francesco has co-founded Unbits at 22 in London UK.
• As a CEO he has been constantly working on Unbits growth strategy. He has designed the product and scaled the company both in terms of market valuation and company size. Having been fully responsible for investor relationship management, Francesco have had the unique opportunity to work with Investors, business leaders and technology innovators from all around the world.

Jan 2011 – Jan 2012 · 1 yr · Barcelona Area, Spain

• Rottapharm Madaus PT is one of the leading players in the global healthcare landscape with $1 BN in revenues 2014. They are currently one the most important pharmaceutical companies in Europe and are present in over 85 countries worldwide.
• Alongside with the marketing team, Francesco drove customer acquisition marketing strategy with a $3M budget to launch the Saugella brand in the Spanish market. Francesco ran marketing campaigns around SEO, Social, Display, SEM, Affiliate / Partnerships, and Landing Page Optimizations -- growing a thriving community at the forefront of the industry.

Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 · 1 yr · London Area, United Kingdom

• Stemcor is one of the world’s largest independent steel traders. With turnover exceeding £5 BN in 2013, Stemcor trades around 20 million tonnes of steel and steelmaking raw materials and employs 2,000 people in a network of offices in 45 countries across the globe.
• Francesco focused on working with the commodity transactions as well as creating contracts -- including negotiating the terms and conditions of 7-figure deals -- and researching the market environment & trends.
• He also worked on all aspects of order administration on a transaction basis, coordinated with other departments to ensure successful completion of transactions, and generated competitive offers with optimal price and delivery time from different locations around the globe while meeting strict deadlines.

Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 · 1 yr · Milan, Lombardy, Italy

• Sales Associate at the department of Foreign Trading Activities, involving mostly iron and steel commodities.