Pernod Ricard

Ramona Furter applies for Senior Business Development Manager, Pernod Ricard Gulf, Dubai. Req JR-054438.

Quantify where the growth lives. Then defend the number.

FY26 is a transition year: the group funds growth through discipline while Dubai breaks tourism records and Diageo doubles its MENA base up the road. Every dirham of Gulf commercial investment now needs evidence behind it. I have built that kind of evidence for 20 years, from accounting to FMCG trade marketing to a CHF 100M+ e‑commerce P&L, and today I ship the analysis at AI speed. Below is your week-one work product, worked.

Portrait of Ramona Furter
20+ yearscommercial experience, FMCG to AI
CHF 100M+e-commerce business owned at Ifolor
−30%time spent on sales through AI, Swiss Post

One Dubai decision, sized, segmented and stress-tested

Your ad asks for one thing above all: identify and quantify market opportunities, then turn them into strategies leadership can act on. So instead of telling you I can, here is the week-one work product in miniature, on a real question in your market.

Worked example · illustrative figures

To: Head of Commercial Finance

Should FY27 commercial investment fund a premiumisation push in Dubai’s five-star on‑trade?

  • The 30% Dubai municipality tax on alcohol returned on 1 January 2025, and MMI absorbed it on 200+ brands. Channel margins are under new pressure.
  • Dubai closed 2025 at 19.59 million international visitors, a third record year in a row. On‑trade demand is tourist-led.
  • Diageo has doubled its new MENA headquarters at One Za’abeel, with its luxury portfolio in the window. The premium backbar is contested.
AED 15.8M incremental sell-out, FY27–29 cumulative

Funding hurdle, set with Finance before any modelling: AED 10M over the plan period. Illustrative.

The three assumptions that make the number

1

Outlet universe, segmented

Around 1,150 licensed on-trade outlets in Dubai. This case scopes the 140 five-star hotel bars and beach clubs, the segment where premium-plus mix and tourist traffic meet.

Source: outlet census from distributor lists and municipality licensing · confidence high
140 outlets
2

Premium-plus throughput

Average premium-plus spirits sell-out of AED 900K per outlet per year gives a segment pool of AED 126M.

Source: distributor sell-out sample, topped up by field audit · confidence medium
AED 126M pool
3

Share shift from the push (the weakest assumption, test this first)

Pernod Ricard share of the segment’s premium-plus mix moves +5 points (28% to 33%), carried by Jameson, Chivas, Absolut and The Glenlivet on menus, backbars and brand experiences.

Source: assumption, benchmarked against comparable pushes · confidence low
+5 pts

Decision rule, committed before the stress test: fund at full scale only if the cautious world still clears the AED 10M hurdle. Otherwise the pilot comes first. Assumption 3 is the one I would stress, so stress it:

AED 15.8M clears the hurdle. The cautious world does not. So the call stays disciplined:

Fund a 25-outlet pilot now. Scale to the full 140 only when one quarter of sell-out data moves the cautious case above AED 10M. The headline moves with the assumption; the recommendation should not.

Refused: building this case on sell-in

Shipments to MMI and African + Eastern tell me what the trade bought, not what Dubai drank, and the tax reinstatement year showed how fast the two can diverge. This case runs on sell-out data or it does not run.

In the role, this sheet is page one of the deck to the Head of Commercial Finance, with the workbook behind every rung and the pilot design on page two.

I researched, designed and built this application with the AI toolchain I work with every day, the same way I would build your dashboards and stress-test your business cases. Your commercial teams already run on D‑Star and Vista Rev‑Up; I bring the habit of turning what such tools surface into funded decisions, and of building the small missing tools myself.

Why me, for this desk

1

Sizing markets and building the case is the job I keep doing

At Swiss Post I size AI opportunities into a prioritised roadmap with KPIs and make the build-vs-buy and cost-vs-benefit calls. At Sparrow Ventures and WePractice I validated new business models from first hypothesis to scale, closing two funding rounds on the numbers. At Ifolor I owned the e-commerce ecosystem of a CHF 100M+ business and moved conversion +9% through research, testing and analytics.

Swiss Post · Sparrow Ventures · WePractice · Ifolor
2

The honest read

I am not a career spirits commercial-finance analyst, and Power BI is not my tool. What I bring instead: accounting roots with margin control and plausibility checks at Kuoni and AMAG, FMCG years negotiating with international brand manufacturers at Promena, Cruspi and Domaco, and the habit of building the analysis myself, with AI, in days rather than quarters. Your ad says Power BI or similar BI tools. My similar is building the tool. I can learn the spirits category; the discipline behind the numbers I already have.

Kuoni/AMAG accounting · Promena trade marketing · own AI tooling daily
3

Leadership presentations they can click

Your ad asks for commercial insights presented to senior leadership. I reported to C-level at Ifolor, and at Swiss Post I build the interactive mockups used in C-level presentations, so a recommendation can be explored instead of only described. The pitch-check avatar I built cut feedback time on proposals by 90%. This page is the same method applied to your ad.

Ifolor C-level reporting · Swiss Post C-level prototypes · −90% feedback time

Twenty years, from ledgers to AI

AI Project Lead, Business Development · Swiss Post, Advertising, Zurich

Jan 2026 – now

Sizes AI-driven business opportunities into a prioritised roadmap with KPIs; go-to-market plans and new revenue. −30% time spent on sales through automation, −90% feedback time on proposals via a pitch-check avatar she built.

In between jobs and own ventures · smedium, Pedal Peak

Aug 2025 – Dec 2025

Cycling in Togo and Benin, then deep AI work: built the smedium studio to first clients, grew the Pedal Peak platform, daily LLM tooling and automation.

Senior Product Manager, Lead E-Commerce · Ifolor Group, Zurich

Oct 2024 – Jul 2025

Owned e-commerce ecosystem and strategy for a CHF 100M+ business, reporting to C-level. +9% conversion, +15% checkout step rate; led cross-functional team, agencies, budget and KPIs.

Lead Project Manager · Brixel, Zurich

Jun 2023 – Sep 2024

Owned the partnerships with financial institutions (UBS, Baloise) that drove growth; bridge between senior client stakeholders and product.

Marketing & Growth Lead, Founding Team · WePractice (Sparrow Ventures / Migros Group)

Mar 2020 – May 2023

Founding team of a health venture: 2 funding rounds, grown to 10 locations, 23 people, 170+ customers; full go-to-market, 1000+ client matches in year one.

Growth & Venture Builder · Sparrow Ventures, Zurich

Sep 2019 – Sep 2022

Built growth and go-to-market for several internal startups, validation to scale-up; experimentation to lift conversion and cut acquisition cost.

Intrapreneur, Innovation · Die Mobiliar, Bern

Jan 2017 – Aug 2019

Market pilots from MVP to launch: Smide (now BOND Mobility), XpertCheck, Lizzy. Market-entry strategies, experiments, agency steering.

The commercial foundation

Junior Trade Marketing Manager · Promena, Pratteln

2016

Own-brand portfolio end to end: promotions, procurement steering, budgets; negotiated with international brand manufacturers.

Junior Product Manager · Cruspi, Dällikon

2014 – 2015

Consumer and trade promotions for distribution brands; monthly sales reporting for management.

Assistant Product Manager · Domaco, Lengnau

2010 – 2014

Projects from idea to market launch; statistics, evaluations, budget and forecast inputs.

Accountant · Kuoni, AMAG

2008 – 2010

Reconciliation, margin control and plausibility checks; contributed to monthly, quarterly and annual statements.

Commercial apprenticeship (Kauffrau E-Profil) · Bridgestone Switzerland

2005 – 2008

Federal VET Diploma, Wirtschaftsschule KV Baden.

About me

I am Swiss, based in Zurich, and planning the move to Dubai with my partner: a decided plan, not a maybe. I build things people can use rather than slides about them. Pedal Peak, my own cycling platform, runs live with 331 hand-ridden routes across 12 countries, built end to end with the same AI tooling I bring to work.

And conviviality is not an abstract value to me. Ask anyone who has sat at my table: I cook, people stay late, and the conversation is the point.