Who we are

"We work to unleash the product and services that customers will love"

From market opportunity evaluation to strategic sales support, we deliver a full range of joint go-to-market advice, assistance and methods, combining proven, international experience with a first-hand understanding of the latest consumer and business technology trends.

Our Team

Passionate about technology yet sensitive to local differences, we are a team of curious yet practical professionals who have seen and done a lot. We always look for new and refreshing ways to exceed our customers’ expectations when helping deliver the next set of great products and services.

Juan Carlos Sanchez

Juan Carlos brings 14 years of practical strategy, marketing and sales expertise, and is the founder and managing director of Merkado. During this time he has focused on helping international technology companies develop and bring new consumer and business offers to market, profitably.

Juan Carlos has worked extensively with clients in more than 30 markets, on 5 continents, and has successfully delivered on countless engagements, including characterizing new market opportunities, developing market strategies, business case development and sales enablement for new consumer and business propositions.

Previously, Juan Carlos held various consulting, product marketing and sales roles at leading ICT companies, Alcatel, Alcatel-Lucent and BroadSoft.

Juan Carlos holds an Honours Bachelor’s in Physics from McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada), and an International MBA from the Schulich School of Business (Toronto, Canada). He is fluent in English, French and Spanish, and has lived in France, Canada and Spain.

Marty Huisman

Marty brings more than 20 years of high-tech marketing and sales experience. During this time she has focused on market programs like improving customer intimacy and maximizing customer lifetime value for her clients. She is also founder of Markety, an independent international marketing consultancy.

Company’s such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cartesis, SQL / DataStream, Converteam and Axway have relied on her practical yet innovative customer-driven approach. She has successfully delivered numerous market and customer loyalty programs including marketing performance improvement, customer account management, CRM strategies, customer reference programs, lead generation events and marketing transformation programs.

Previously, she held international marketing and channel sales roles at Netscape, Datastream and Symantec.  As an international professional, Marty works across various business cultures and speaks 6 languages: Fluently Dutch, English, French and German, as well as basic Spanish and Italian. She holds a Master of Arts.

Etienne Racine

Etienne Racine brings 15 years experience helping companies understand new market opportunities in order to effectively innovate and differentiate their offerings.

Etienne’s recent work focuses on understanding consumer end-user motivations for a wide range of products and services offerings by exploring, analyzing, and developing new service concepts to help mobile and Internet service providers develop the right offers. Specific focus areas include end-user devices, home networking, media tablets and other connected devices and services.

As a research director Etienne has lead over 700 1-on-1 interviews, 200+ focus groups, and has written more than 150 client research studies for over 50 established companies. His clients have included Orange, Bouygues Telecom, Tiscali, Nokia, IBM, Panasonic and Condé Nast, as well as global consumer brands like Renault, Nestlé, Carlsburg , L’Oreal, Sephora, and Club Med.

Etienne holds Masters Degree in Ethnology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, France), and has published a book on ‘Techno Culture’. He is fluent in French and English, having lived in France and Canada.

Justin Smith brings rigorous product management consulting experience and a deep knowledge of strategic subscriber data and policy management issues.

As a consultant, Justin has provided product strategy and sales readiness assistance to C-Level executives, sales directors and product managers from Fortune 500 companies such as Hewlett Packard and Rogers Communications, as well as in start-up environments. 

He has worked with ICT service providers to develop market intelligence, define market segments and analyze product development and intellectual property. His focus areas include subscriber policy management and customer-responsive services such as advanced call control, converged media offers, advertising enablement and unified communications.

Justin holds a Product Marketing Management Certification from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada).

Michel Lai

Michel has a 17-year ICT track record of delivering concrete, business results across distinct markets. He most recently set-up and launched a communication-as-a-service business unit at Comverse, creating a $3M VoIP-based business from the ground up from 2008-2010, despite a challenging global economy. He designed and implemented the organization and its business strategy, and then led teams in Product Marketing, Business Development, Innovation, Operations and Finance.

Previously, as Director of Operations for Asia Pacific, Michel was responsible for the complete customer satisfaction of service providers during the integration of complex, multi-million dollar, voice and data application-driven projects. He successfully led client deployments in markets like India, Japan and Philippines, delivering services such as messaging, Centrex and hosted Microsoft applications. He has held management and operational roles in sales and R&D, at NetCentrex and Nortel Networks.

Michel holds a Ms. in E.E. from ICPI (CPE) (Lyon, France) and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris Business School (Paris, France). As an intercultural manager he has worked extensively across many European and Asian markets, he is fluent in English, French and Vietnamese and has lived in France and Vietnam.