Shubham S.

Brand Manager at Dole Singapore-Malaysia | Consumer Goods Marketing | Helping new marketers grow in their careers

A believer in the power of brands to influence sustainable lifestyle choices, I love scaling brands from 1 to 10 rapidly. 

-------- Current Role:----------

At Grab, to grow key QSR brands’ reach and revenue in SEA. I am handling end to end enterprise services on Grab for them. 

-------- Past Roles:----------


I was building Kind Kones, a plant based ice cream brand with no palm oil or negative additives. 

Whether it's door to door selling to presenting in board rooms, I donned every hat with humility. 

I helped a team of 40+ people to expand the business in SG/MY/Middle East. 

Before that,  I expanded Dole's business through in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Mongolia and Brunei. 

I also led Dole juices launch in Jollibee, Fairprice and 2600 7-Eleven stores, apart from regular retail listings and marketing.

Previously, I was leading marketing and BD for India business where I helped Dole reach $1M + revenue in Year 1, including co-branded partnership with McDonald’s in 150 stores.
 
I also love to distill interesting marketing and startup concepts to help young folks grow.  

Hence, I write on LinkedIn. 

-------- Japan experience:----------

Previously, I was the youngest Project Lead in Japan in Energy sector but soon realised my heart was in marketing. 

To confirm that my heart's voice isn't a quarter life crisis, I conducted food tours in Tokyo, dabbled in own sandwich business and consulted in food industry. 

The love for marketing was confirmed!  

The issue of sustainability is also close to my heart. 

-------- Student life:----------

So, prior to FMCG life, I published research papers in the field of Sustainable resources and technologies like Bio-fuels, Bio-Lubricants, Gas Emission control and also filed a patent related to Fuel Oil Storage. 

I have also developed a sub-$100 Solar Dryer for rural community which can work beyond sunset.

My outdoor interests range from Copy Writing, Geo-politics, Snowboarding, Mountain Trekking.  Food-trotting in groups and other times I can be found writing and creating food recipes.

Chief Operating Officer

2016. Japan. Age 23.

Got a call from my manager:  

“Fly to Malaysia. The boiler we shipped to a power plant site is leaking.”

🍍A leaking boiler is a potential blast hazard.

I had zero experience fixing one.  

Never been to Malaysia.  

Never seen a construction site.

Yet I packed my bags and flew out — no plan, no backup.

Day 1 — 9 AM.  

🍍The site manager looks at me, goes hysterical, and throws a pen in frustration.  

Not because I was late or rude but because my manager had sent a rookie.

Stunned but focused, I rushed to inspect the damage.  

By end of the day, I had a 15-day plan to fix the mess — weekends and nights included.

We worked quietly, keeping it off the client’s radar.  

Formed a team, found local fabricators, poached workers, and used Google Translate to communicate.  

It was messy, scrappy, and relentless.

16–17 hours a day.  

40°C heat.  

Rain, mud, and welding sparks.

🍍We finished the job in 13 days. 

I stayed another 18 months.  

The “rookie” who showed up clueless earned respect through hustle, despite abuse. 


Get your hands dirty when you’re young.  

Future corporate struggles will aww cute! 


#shubhamspeaks

Shubham Sharma 🍍

Grab | ex-COO Kind Kones | Bain Advisory | P&L Management | QSR

No alternative text description for this image

Boomerang! 

A few years ago I was working on scaling Dole banana plantations in Vietnam, 

Away from the Philippines as climate change was bringing plant diseases rampaging miles and miles of plantations. 

Today, the alternative Dole Vietnam farms are up and running and supplying my current office at Grab. 

That’s what I love about tangible consumer businesses, 

you can see sustained visible impact. 

Banana Boomerang! 


#shubhamspeaks

I was the only judge with no banking-lending background 

in a shark-tank like pitch sessions by Grab’s fin-tech folks. 

I felt a little out of place initially but soon caught up. Thanks to my struggles being an SME operator previously. 

And boy! the passion to serve the underserved individual businesses such as a food stall owner was palpable. 

🍍The aggregators with who the small operators interact daily do have a better chance of serving the short term cash or even cheaper ingredient needs. 

Using the whole Grab ecosystem of mart, mobility, payments gives us a better chance to help than traditional ways. 

Kudos to the winners for creating a win-win product for food stall guys and us. 

Thanks for organizing Yesh Gunewardena. 


#shubhamspeaks

Hilarious consumer insight from my Vietnam trip,

'We don't want to smell like fried chicken in the day', 

So, we order delivery. 

Certain fried chicken brands have really old stores with limited seating and bad ventilation. 

It has repulsed the consumers, especially women, from dining in and opting for delivery instead. 

Hence, the lunch segment is very strong in Vietnam.

The future is delivery-focused, sleeker & cleaner stores in VN. 

HVAC guys? that's your cue. 

#shubhamspeaks

As I wrap up my trip to Jakarta, I’m leaving with 2 powerful takeaways that speak volumes about Indonesia’s dynamic trajectory.


🇮🇩 The Rise of Homegrown Champions

I couldn't help but notice the palpable sense of national pride in domestic food and beverage brands.

From the iconic flavors of Pagi Sore and Sari Ratu to the modern coffee culture of Fore Coffee and Kopi Kenangan, my Indonesian friends vehemently insisted I try them all.

This push signifies more than just great taste; it reflects a nation's growing economic self-esteem and the success of local entrepreneurs. 



🍍Leading with Heart

The team, particularly under the leadership of Roy Nugroho, is one of the best I have encountered in the region. 

Their true north star is fostering genuine relationships and authentic care for our clients. 


Especially amid the intense platform and merchants competition, it is hard for brands to tread solo and this team becomes their partner towards growth. 


A huge thank you to the team for the valuable insights and partnership this week. 


Sampai jumpa lagi, Jakarta!

Everyone's raging over fried chicken. 

Yet the QSR industry is ignoring a monumental, profitable opportunity: 

🍍 Sauce forward-Healthier Chicken (rotisserie/grilled).

This is a massive strategic error because it misses the fastest-growing consumer segments:

The Health-Conscious Mover (40% are looking to cut fried)

The Gen-Z protein person (75% are looking for natural proteins)

People who are purchasing from non-QSR local brands. 

These are customers willing to pay a premium for quality.

🍍Here's something I would love to see: 

🍍 Introduce a high-margin Rotisserie/Grilled Protein Bowl or "Guilt-Free Wrap." 

This uses the new protein as a premium add-on to existing menus, appealing to the customization trend.

🍍 Operations: Zero cooking oil, Batch cooking , combi-oven and high humidity heaters to keep the chicken moist. 

🍍 Flavor & Transparency: Use bold, global sauces (Soy Garlic, Chili-Lime) to make the roasted chicken exciting. Market it based on wellness attributes like "Lean Protein" and "Clean Prep."

The first major QSR brand to successfully scale a premium, non-fried chicken menu will win future consumers. 

What do you think? 


#shubhamspeaks

Unpopular opinion: 

Brands who let Marketing lead the relationship with food aggregators win long term, 

Brands that let operation/delivery folks run the show find it hard to grow the user base and overindulge in promos. 

This is very true for franchisees who see food aggregators as solely a delivery channel 

and not as a marketing channel. 

I have seen QSR/Coffee/dessert brands triple their business in 18-21 months once they switch to marketing happens. 

If you are a franchisor or franchisee, time to audit this relationship. 



#shubhamspeaks

The narrative that QSRs thrive just because consumers are broke is fundamentally flawed. 

In 2025, flat pricing guarantees margin compression.

The winning strategy is the Barbell Playbook:

🍍 The Barbell Menu: Drive essential traffic with low-margin value items, but secure profitability with high-margin LTOs (the 'heavy' end). This is crucial for boosting the average check size.

🍍Margin Amplification: Integrate cultural merchandise or character collaborations (like Labubu) with premium LTOs. This delivers vastly superior margins beyond food cost alone.

🍍Digital Segmentation: Use food aggregators (30-50% of sales) strategically. Push high-margin LTOs through these channels to reach the ready-to-spend customer, while handling low-margin volume in-store.

This strategy executed by leaders optimizes for both traffic and profit across the polarized income spectrum.

What's your observation on this? 

#shubhamspeaks

Matteo Lombardi

Stratega

Stratega is a company that provides Digital Marketing Solutions for SMB's and Start-ups.
Within such a competitive environment in the Digital World, our Mission is to help our Clients Succeeding with a Strategic approach that involves a Deep Examination of all the relevant aspect involved Digital Marketing related to Your Company.
Our analytical approach starts with a detailed Company Assessment followed by an extensive Data Analysis phase that would design the right path towards your Business Goals.

Founder & Digital Strategist

PickEat

Responsible for defining the company's strategic sales and marketing 'vision' and for guiding the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

it's campus | startup accelerator

Start-up mentorship on Facebook Ads & Digital Strategy. My role is to support the Start-ups involved in the acceleration program by providing them recommendations on "how to implement a fast and scalable digital strategy" according to the KPIs set for the Demo Day.

Start-up Mentor

Italia's Growth Talent

The first Italian conference on the company's growth, 100% online.

More info at www.italiasgrowthtalent.it

Marketing Manager

Accenture

Italian Market - October 2018 - February 2019
UKI Market - February 2019- currently employed

Job Description:

•	Manage a portfolio of SMB clients with responsibility for growing revenue
•	Uplift revenue by providing consultative advice to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to help them grow their businesses across multiple channels - chat, email and phone
•	Demonstrate the value of our SMB advertising solutions 
•	Provide pre and post-sales support for all self-service products
•	Take responsibility for helping SMB clients drive results via their marketing campaigns through consultation, education, and support
•	Provide vital product insights and feedback from our customers to engineering.

Social Media Account Executive

Centre of English Studies (CES)

An Activity Leader works with students on guided tours, sports, afternoon/evening activities and parties. 

Job Description:

- This figure is responsible for looking after the students and ensuring they have a fun and interesting time.
- It’s a varied role: in the mornings the Activity Leaders are responsible for helping students get to class on time, testing and explaining new students about their new academic life; managing relationships with previously present students and helping to promote the social activities by making informational material and going around to classrooms making announcements. 
- Every afternoon and during the weekend the students have tours to various attractions around Dublin, guided by an Activity Leader.

Activity Leader

Move Your Inspiration srl

Development of my dissertation project: Strategic analysis of the company
Main points:
Resources and competences analysis
Competitive environment and competition analysis

Internship Student

Zamira Fashion Limited

Coordinator of the project for the development of a female collection (20 pieces).
The job was related to the team management and customer relationship. 
Also detailed translations of the fashion schedules from Italian to English

Team Coordinator

Founder @Stratega | CSO @Pickeat | B2B Tech Growth Marketer - sharing all my knowledge for free 🚀

Pickeat.it 👉 signed 4 partnerships with 10k+ companies in 2 months with NO BUDGET

Klondike.ai 👉 13 sales meetings worth 150.000€ booked in 2 months with NO BUDGET

vtenext.com 👉 37 MQL generated and positive ROI in 2 months with NO BUDGET

Redrays.io 👉 prototyped their app and saved 60% of the development costs

Duomodesign.it 👉 generated positive ROI with Facebook ads for 3 years straight

Would you like to achieve the same results for your business?
Email me: matteo@stratega.co

At Stratega our passion is your growth and we achieve it by partnering with you on digital marketing activities.
We do it as your business would be our business, following step by step your path towards your goal.

My academic career

☣︎2014 BSc in Management & Economics at the University of Florence

☣︎2014 PAL-INT Entrepreneurship course at the University of Florence

☣︎2017 MSc in Strategic Management at the University of Pisa

☣︎2018 Italia - USA foundation prize winner for Academic achievements (top 1000 in Italy)

☣︎2019 Scholarship & Master in Global Marketing & Communication at Centro Studi per l'impresa

& extra CV

☣︎ 2019 - Partner with The Start-up Training through Stratega for Digital Strategy

☣︎ 2020 - Moderator and Host for Growth Hacking Italia

☣︎ 2020 - Marketing Manager @ Italia's Growth Talent the biggest online marketing event in italy

☣︎ 2020 to date - Start-up Mentor for It's campus for Facebook ads & Digital Strategy

☣︎ 2020 Growth Hacking graduate at Growth Tribe

Running a startup could be overwhelming

That's why I built Basilio!

Basilio is my new AI assistant, trained on our data (Drive, Hubspot, Notion), so he can help me be more efficient for PickEat. He manages 5 employees:

- Sales manager
- Operations manager
- Report manager
- Project Manager
- Archivista (archive manager)

And he's about to hire 3 more!

All I did was follow this video:  https://lnkd.in/ebr5c4iH

How it works
It will help you run AI on your terminal with access to your tools via api or MCP servers. This way can generate agents able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously (Claude's agent function).
Best of all? It's so smart that it builds itself.

For the past couple of days, it produced reports, prepared a CRM list of prospects, prepared my meetings, created an updated task list, and  documented each step (it also updates itself if you make it smart with documentation)

I am mindblown.

All you need is a Claude subscription (but you can also use Gemini for free to begin with or add more AIs with smaller models for heavy lifting)

I have no coding experience and was able to build it. 

Chuck Keith you are a hero, sir

PS: worried about company permissions and sensitive data? Can be handled ;)

Gemini 3?

Wait until you take a look at Antigravity.

Released by Google, it’s like if Lovable had a baby with Cursor’s code view. The feature set is wild:

• Distinct Plan / Code / Review modes.
• Generates and edits images internally with "nano banana" (yes, really).
• Runs multiple AI agents on different tasks simultaneously (like editing w/ comments à la Notion).
• Has a built-in browser agent debugger that actually tests the platform.

I can’t wait to test this over the weekend.

What about you?

Gemini 3, OpenAI 5.1, improved Claude, new Deepseek (OCR), but also KIMI thinking… It’s going lightning fast. No wonder talent is moving around.

Meanwhile, the LinkedIn post scheduler deleted my post ....

[pic generated with Nanobanana - just gave my post as reference :) ]

PS: Do we call this a tool Friday Alex Roggero⚡️?

What if you could give your AI superpowers?

In 2 minutes. No code.

I connected Claude to HackerNews, YouTube, and my notes with Docker, Inc MCP.

Now I can ask:
→ "What's trending on HackerNews about AI?"
→ "Save this analysis to my vault"

And Claude does it. Live.

Since I started with terminal + MCP:
- Better outputs
- More accuracy
- NO MORE COPY/PASTE
- NO MORE CONTEXT LOSS

The future isn't AI that answers.
It's AI that acts - based on your guardrails, your tools, your databases

Want to see a competitive analysis or article generated this way? Drop me a message

PS: Back to building in public. Maybe not on LinkedIn, but I got some pushes here and there :)

All the credits and thanks to Chuck Keith 💚

Last week I risked it with animal protection.

I pushed a Llama into my Mac. The result? Free AI.

Ollama is a tool that lets you run AI models directly on your computer. No cloud, no subscriptions, no data leaving your laptop.

🦙 Why do I care?

 → Test and iterate with no limits
 → Works offline
 → My data stays mine
 → Completely free and open source

🤖  It won't replace ChatGPT or Claude for complex tasks.

But for everyday work—drafts, data cleaning, quick research—it gets the job done 🦙

And it makes you realize: AI isn't magic. It's software. You can run it wherever you want.

Want to try? brew install ollama — you're live in 5 minutes.
🦙 Anyone here running local models except for Lorenzo?


Alex I am writing this only because you made me feel guilty.. so ye, it’s a TOOL FRIDAY! 


No Llamas were hurt while creating that image with Nanobanana pro

FOMO is everything on LinkedIn nowadays

I already see people seeking for templates for Gemini 3

The model came out 6 days ago.

Unless is your only job I doubt you’d be fine tuned a model in 5 days.

YouTubers are only coming out now and that is their job.

I wonder… how is this possible?


Going back to my Reddit hole

Reddit, Inc.  is outstanding

I always used it but now I am active and my life changed for the better

I’m trying to build and improve agents while sharpening my automation skills and everything I need is there.

Really deep tech answers (documented), reliable sources, friendly people and lots of free stuff.

I got outstanding n8n templates out there which I’m playing with right now..

Have a deep question you always wanted an answer to?

Try “site: Reddit-yourquestion”

You can also find amusing stuff like the guy that makes incredible headphones (see pic in comment)

I switched from Notion to Obsidian, and my life got better

Am I crazy?

As much as I love Notion, I needed my place. A calm and peaceful place to organise myself and my ''brain''.

I tried Obsidian before, but didn't like the UI.. There's a bit of a learning curve, while Notion is a playground.

But here's the thing: I'm getting the best of both worlds.

Obsidian is connected with my agents that document everything I need ➡️ then I push all relevant company updates on Notion for team management

That cuts the noise for me, and I think I only scratched the surface.

And you, have you ever tried Obsidian?


#fridaytoolfriday

taplio

The Battle

Shubham S.

Matteo Lombardi

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreShubham S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMatteo Lombardi's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Shubham S.

Matteo Lombardi

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Shubham S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMatteo Lombardi's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreShubham S.'s LinkedIn Performance