Neda Kitanovska — Marketing Consultant & Strategist
After 15+ years diagnosing growth gaps and turning ambiguity into structured, KPI-driven executions, the crucial thing one should know is that marketing campaigns that start with a strategy, maxxing* it one decision at a time, create less noise, more structure, better activation and greater results.
*Maxxing — where ambition meets iteration.
About
As your outsourced marketing lead, I bring senior-level strategy without the full-time overhead — stepping in to diagnose what's broken, set direction, and own the results. Fifteen-plus years navigating complex, regulated, fiercely competitive markets across Europe.
A strategist who executes. A leader who delivers.
Need a fractional marketing director? I can step in as your outsourced marketing leadership — setting strategy, managing teams, owning P&L accountability and aligning marketing with your commercial goals. All the benefits of a CMO without the full-time cost.
I'm Neda — a strategic marketeer with 15+ years of experience navigating complex, regulated, and fiercely competitive markets across Europe and beyond.
My career spans roles from Trade Marketing Executive Director at TKP, to CEO of a local company working with brands like Zippo, Victorinox and Mont Blanc, to Multi-Category Deployment & Activation Manager for British American Tobacco's Adria region. I've lived and worked in Prague, Bucharest, Skopje, and Zagreb — understanding markets not just from spreadsheets, but from the ground up.
I've worked across regulated markets in Central and Eastern Europe, with exposure to regional strategy at Area and Global level. I understand how local nuance and global direction intersect.
Now I bring that corporate-grade expertise to ambitious brands and businesses — as a consultant who can plug in at the strategic level, diagnose what's broken, and build what's missing.
Services
Finding the idea before making the campaign.
I'll dig into your category, competitors, and customers to uncover the one idea worth building a campaign around, then pressure-test it before a single asset gets made. You get creative that's built to perform, not just look good, with far less guesswork and rework along the way.
Owning a space that competitors can't touch.
I'll help you carve out a category position competitors can't easily copy, then translate it into guidelines your whole team can use consistently. Whether you're premium or value-for-money, the goal is a brand people recognize and trust at a glance.
Ideas built to survive contact with the market.
I'll take your idea from brief to execution — messaging, channels, timing, and measurement — built to hold up once it meets the real market. You get a launch plan designed around your KPIs, not just a pretty concept deck.
Performance without losing the plot.
I'll find where your growth is actually stalling — acquisition, retention, or mix — and build a performance plan to fix it without diluting your brand. Expect clear targets, tighter budgets, and campaigns judged on results, not activity.
Infrastructure that scales with intent.
I can audit, build, and advise on your SEO, social, paid media, and AI tooling. For CRM specifically, I can also step in with outsourced support if needed, so it keeps running without you having to staff it yourself.
Launching into new regions without losing the brand.
I'll map out how to launch your brand into a new market or category without losing what makes it recognizable. From positioning to local activation, you get a plan that respects the brand while adapting to the terrain.
Grounding decisions in evidence, not assumption.
I'll turn raw consumer and market data into sharp, decision-ready insight — the kind that shapes a brief instead of just decorating one. You go into every launch grounded in evidence, not assumption.
Bringing strategy into the room, on the ground.
I'll plan and run your events end-to-end — partnerships, fairs, exhibitions, launches — across both B2B and B2C. You get an event that lands on-strategy, not just on-brand.
Getting the message in front of the right audience, at the right price.
I'll get your message in front of the right audience at the right price, coordinating PR and media buying so they work together instead of in silos. You get reach that's both cost-efficient and on-brand.
Turning strategy into words people actually read.
I'll turn your strategy into words people actually stop and read — across ads, web, and long-form content. You get copy that sounds like your brand and moves people to act, not just fill space.
Purpose-built systems and automations that fit your business, not the other way around.
I'll design and build custom tools and automations shaped around how your business actually works, not a generic template. You get systems your team will actually use, saving hours every week.
Keeping the everyday running so strategy doesn't stall.
I'll take the day-to-day off your plate — deploying and supporting your everyday marketing activities, backing your team, and keeping budgets planned and on track. You get an operation that runs smoothly without you having to chase it.
Approach
Think
Before a single asset is made, the work is understanding what's actually stopping people from choosing you.
Create
Ideas that survive contact with the market are simple enough to repeat and specific enough to matter.
Measure
Vanity metrics get replaced with the handful of numbers that tell you whether the idea is working.
Selected Thinking
The scenarios below are hypothetical — illustrations of how I'd approach common challenges, not real client engagements.
Challenge
A brand with no documented strategy and no dedicated marketing budget, running on ad-hoc decisions and whatever spend could be justified month to month.
Approach
I'd start by mapping the business goals to a 12-month marketing plan, then build a budget from scratch — prioritizing the few activities most likely to move the needle before scaling up.
Outcome
A documented strategy and budget to plan around · Spend tied to clear priorities instead of guesswork
Challenge
A new product ready to launch, but no positioning, no go-to-market plan, and a category already crowded with established players.
Approach
I'd define the product's one true point of difference, build the go-to-market plan around it, and pressure-test the messaging before a single asset goes live.
Outcome
A launch built around a clear point of difference · Messaging tested before spend commits
Challenge
A brand ready to expand into a new country or region, with no local insight and a real risk of diluting what makes it recognizable.
Approach
I'd research the local market and regulatory landscape first, then adapt positioning and activation to local realities while keeping the brand consistent.
Outcome
An entry plan that respects the brand while adapting locally · Local risks understood before committing budget
Challenge
A marketing team running multiple activities with no shared reporting, no visibility into what was working, and decisions made on instinct alone.
Approach
I'd set up simple, shared reporting across every activity, so the team could see what was working in near real-time and make the case for what to keep, cut, or scale.
Outcome
A team working from the same numbers for the first time · Decisions grounded in data instead of instinct
Numbers don't lie
Before I say yes
Experience
At British American Tobacco, orchestrating multi-market, multi-category deployment strategies, owning P&L across markets and building the region's full digital infrastructure.
At British American Tobacco in Zagreb, Croatia, leading brand deployment strategy and campaign activation across the Adria region. Also held Campaign Planning Manager, SCEA (Bucharest, Romania) during this tenure, overseeing regional campaign planning and coordination.
At British American Tobacco, Bucharest, focused on strategic planning and premium brand positioning for the portfolio's most premium brand. Also held Brand Executive, Rothmans, Abel Team (Prague, Czech Republic) earlier in her BAT career, devising deployment frameworks that fortified brand equity.
At Prima MK, Official JTI importer & distributor for Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, crafting targeted activation campaigns and POSM solutions that delivered insights and unlocked new growth.
At Evroprogres Trade, Skopje, Macedonia, leading organizational strategy and expansion, diversifying revenue streams and implementing governance frameworks for sustainable growth.
At Tobacco Company JSC Prilep (PMI), driving trade marketing initiatives, distribution strategy and product launches that reinforced market leadership.
An early marketing leadership role at Evroprogres Trade, Macedonia, ahead of the CEO appointment.
A Swiss company, owner of the VAYO brand for THP, where I led online campaigns, new product development and new product portfolios.
Resume
Founded and led a charitable organization in Skopje, Macedonia, fulfilling the wishes of terminally ill children through strategic partnerships and fundraising initiatives.
Organized and marketed the International Tobacco Tasting Association's flagship 3-day event for 150+ participants; edited the association's yearly journal, three years running.
Journal
Playing it safe feels cheaper. It isn't. I've watched multi-market share stagnation happen slowly, then all at once — not because a team lacked budget, but because every decision was optimized to avoid risk instead of to win. Averaging out a message so it offends no one also means it moves no one.
When we redesigned deployment and activation frameworks across Adria, the hardest part wasn't the analysis. It was convincing stakeholders that the safe version of the plan was the actual risk — because "safe" was what had produced the stagnation in the first place. Bold isn't reckless. Bold is specific enough to be wrong, which is the only way it can also be right.
The markets that recovered fastest weren't the ones that spent more. They were the ones that closed portfolio gaps with a clear point of view and backed it with pricing and activation discipline. Average marketing spends its way around a weak idea. Bold marketing spends less because the idea is doing the work.
By the time a brief lands on a creative team's desk, most of the important decisions have already been made — usually implicitly, usually by whoever wrote the brief under time pressure. The real work of marketing happens earlier: in the diagnosis of what's actually stopping someone from choosing you.
Leading end-to-end product launches and recovery plans taught me that the initiatives which exceeded KPI and ROI benchmarks weren't the ones with the cleverest execution. They were the ones where someone had done the unglamorous work of translating consumer insight into a commercially precise problem statement before a single asset existed.
A brief should be the record of a decision already made with conviction, not the starting gun for a debate that should have happened weeks earlier. If the brief is where the thinking begins, you're already behind the market you're trying to win.
Working on Dunhill — the most premium brand in a competitive portfolio — made one thing unambiguous: premium positioning isn't purchased with media weight, it's earned through consistency long before and long after the campaign runs. Turn the budget off, and what's left is either a brand or it's just an ad that used to run.
Reinforcing a #1 category position across Adria came down to protecting the handful of things that were true about the brand in every market, every channel, every year — not chasing whatever performed best that quarter. Consistency is unglamorous. It is also the entire job.
The question I ask before any campaign goes live: if we pulled all paid media tomorrow, would people still recognize what we stand for? If the honest answer is no, the campaign was never building a brand — it was renting attention.
Let's Connect
Have a challenge worth solving? Tell me where growth is stalling and let's talk strategy.
Book a strategy call