Marketing leadership
Lead a team, set priorities across brands and connect the work to commercial decisions.
- Team leadership
- Budget planning
- Board reporting
- Stakeholder communication
- Agency collaboration
Harley-DavidsonSenior Marketing Leader · Canada
Strategy that ships.
Creative that sells.
Growth that shows.
Strategy · Budget · Team · Execution
I lead marketing for five fitness and lifestyle brands, and I still build the work myself: strategy, campaigns, websites and creative, backed by 10+ years across B2B and e-commerce.
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111 brands · 20 businesses · 6 industries · 5 markets
See all brands ↓
10+
Years leading marketing functions
5
Brands in my current portfolio
3.5x
Return on ad spend · Porter Group
60%
Organic traffic growth through SEO & content
Taj WaliaMarketing Lead · 5-brand portfolio · Canada
About
The experience
The experience
behind the work.
At North 49 Brands Inc. & Rymar Group, I lead the marketing team across five fitness and lifestyle brands, staying hands-on with strategy, campaigns, content and budget.
I started in journalism and design: a journalism degree, film and photography awards and years of freelance design came before marketing. Since then I have run marketing across B2B equipment, industrial safety, legal services, D2C e-commerce and automotive retail, bringing commercial planning and creative execution together, from the first brief to the results review.
More about my background
For over a decade, I have been trusted to direct and execute entire marketing functions, from setting portfolio-wide strategy and budgets to leading teams, building the creative campaigns, writing copy, and editing code myself.
My experience spans six industries, from an official Harley-Davidson franchise to heavy machinery groups, industrial safety, legal professional services, and D2C e-commerce. At Porter Group, that meant directing marketing across nine brands and five divisions in NZ, Australia, the US and the Pacific. At Active Safety, fourteen safety and workwear brands. Today, it means overseeing five fitness and lifestyle brands for North 49 Brands and the Rymar Group in Canada.
I use a changing mix of current AI tools, including Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Codex and NotebookLM, among others, for research, pressure-testing strategy, developing options, and refining content. Combined with hands-on skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Shopify, and WordPress, this helps the team work with stronger context and make better decisions. Here's exactly how that workflow works →
ScopeFull-function ownership: strategy, budget, brand, digital, content, events, reporting, team leadership.
IndustriesMotorcycles, heavy equipment, industrial safety, legal, D2C gifting, fitness & e-bikes.
MarketsCampaigns run across Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the US and the Pacific.
MethodData-led decisions, AI-assisted thinking, hand-built execution. Every claim on this site traces to a specific role.
Selected results
Proof, not promises.
Results and work samples from across my career, plus how I run marketing today. Filter by the kind of work you need.
Automotive retail · Official franchise
Dealership of the Year with Harley-Davidson
1 of 52
Dealership of the Year, AU/NZ · key contributor
Read the case study →
Heavy equipment · 9 brands · 4 markets
Paid search across four markets
3.5x
Return on ad spend · Google Ads · four markets
Read the case study →CASE
Construction equipment · Integrated campaign
Building a Strong Case: CASE excavators
250 leads
Qualified leads against a target of 100 · stock-led campaign
Read the case study →
Construction equipment · 3 companies
Organic growth at AdvanceQuip
60%
Organic traffic growth · content and technical SEO
Read the case study →
D2C e-commerce · 3 brands
Email and Shopify for three D2C brands
25%
Year-over-year sales growth · Klaviyo, paid media & Shopify
Read the case study →
Industrial safety · 14 brands
Retention across a 14-brand safety portfolio
20%
Retention improvement · 45% more online visits
Read the case study →
Legal · Board reporting
Making legal expertise clear and accessible
Strategy, comms and reporting straight to the partnership
Read the case study →Working method · Current role
Leading marketing across five brands
5 brands
Team priorities, campaigns and AI-assisted thinking
See the workflow →Browse all projects with the arrows or swipe the cards.
Experience
A decade of stepping up in scope.
Marketing leadership across six industries: heavy equipment, industrial safety, legal services, D2C gifting, automotive retail and fitness.
Jan 2026 – PresentCanada
Marketing Lead | 5-Brand Portfolio
North 49 Brands Inc. & Rymar Group
Lead marketing strategy and execution across five fitness and lifestyle brands, heading the marketing team and owning content, campaigns and budget end-to-end. The work spans Shopify and WordPress optimization, SEO, in-store promotions, corporate events and product launches.
Brands: Spartan Fitness Equipment · Vintage Iron Cycles · Synergy Bikes · VO3 Fitness · The Rymar Group
07
Jan 2025 – Jan 2026
Marketing Manager
Giftbox Boutique · The Gift Group Ltd
Led digital strategy for three D2C e-commerce brands: Meta and Google campaigns, Klaviyo email marketing, and hands-on Shopify UX, website development and conversion work in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, contributing to 25% year-over-year sales growth.
Brands: Gift Box Boutique · Little & Luxe · Gather and Graze
06
Sep 2022 – Oct 2024
Marketing Manager
AdvanceQuip
Led marketing strategy across three companies: 60% growth in organic traffic through content and technical SEO, a 40% increase in brand engagement, and campaigns spanning print, online, trade shows and social. Managed marketing staff and media contracts.
Brands: ASV · CASE Construction · ASTRA · Hyundai CE · Log Max · Gore Machine Hire
05
Jul 2021 – Sep 2022
Marketing Manager
Active Safety
Ran all marketing across physical stores, e-commerce and a B2B rep network for fourteen safety and workwear brands. Email automation and segmentation lifted retention 20% and online visits 45%.
Brands: Steel Blue · Blundstone · 3M Safety · FXD Workwear · Bollé Safety · Stoney Creek + 8 more
04
Jan 2020 – Jul 2021
Marketing & Communications Manager
AWS Legal
Owned the firm's marketing strategy and all internal and external communications, presenting data-driven reports directly to the partnership board and delivering in-house marketing training for staff and partners.
03
Jun 2018 – Jan 2020
Digital Marketing Manager
Porter Group
Led digital marketing for nine equipment brands and five divisions across NZ, Australia, the US and the Pacific: a 3.5x return on ad spend from focused, audience-targeted Google Ads, 8 social profiles, 50+ Google Business locations, and Porter Press, a quarterly magazine mailed to 9,000+ recipients.
Brands: Hyundai CE · Sandvik · BOMAG · Madill · Airman · Ammann · ROKBAK · Terex · Furukawa + Porter divisions
02
Jan 2016 – Jun 2018
Marketing Consultant
Road & Sport Harley-Davidson
Owned marketing at an official Harley-Davidson franchise: key contributor to winning Dealership of the Year out of 52 AU/NZ locations, with social and influencer engagement up 75%.
01
Two books on how good marketing decisions get made, and kept.
Both came out of the same frustration: the work is rarely the problem. The decisions around it — what to fund, what to stop, what gets lost between the meeting and the report — are.
Published · Kindle
The Business Command Center
What it shows: how I structure business context so a team — and the AI it uses — works from the same brief.
For owners and marketers tired of re-explaining the business to AI.
It turns scattered brand, customer, offer, results and operating knowledge into a portable system you control. The Kindle edition is on Amazon.ca, with eight free working Blueprints.
In production · 2026
Marketing, Reforged
What it shows: how I think about decisions surviving the handoffs between meeting, brief and report.
Make better decisions — and choose what to fund next.
A decision loses its meaning between the meeting, the brief, the sales conversation and the report. Everyone does competent work with the piece they receive, and the business forgets why it approved the work at all. This book is about keeping that reasoning intact as work changes hands.
How I work
The method behind the numbers.
How I understand a business, lead a team and turn commercial priorities into marketing work. Six perspectives on what it is like to work with me.
01Understanding
Understand the business before planning the campaign
Start with the customer, the commercial priorities and the experience the business can actually deliver.
→02LeadingClear priorities. Useful feedback. Shared responsibility.
How I support a team while staying involved in strategy and delivery.
→03OperatingLeading marketing across five brands
Strategy, team priorities and hands-on delivery, with AI supporting research and creative development.
→04Commercial thinkingReporting that helps the business decide
Connect the result, its limitations and the next decision.
→05Brand disciplineCreative work within strong brand standards
Adapt the message to the audience while protecting the brand and the facts.
→06DevelopmentLearn, apply and share what is useful
Turn new knowledge into better work and clearer guidance for the team.
→Sample campaign brief
View campaign brief (PDF)
From commercial objective to campaign plan.
A three-page example covering the audience, offer, creative direction, team responsibilities, budget and measurement. Written for a fictional commercial fitness supplier.
Insights
Thinking you can check my work against.
11
essays, written from daily practice rather than the sidelines — on AI, strategy, retention, search and running portfolios.
AI & automation 3Strategy & fundamentals 4Retention & data 2Search & SEO 1Leadership 1
01AI · Future of Work
Agentic AI in marketing: give it a job, not the keys
AI agents can run multi-step tasks. Which jobs to hand them, what they must check and where a person still approves.
Read →02AI Search · SEOGEO: what AI search changes, and what it doesn’t
AI answers don’t need a new bag of tricks. The fundamentals still apply, and they’ve become less forgiving.
Read →03AI · JudgmentWhat AI still can’t do in marketing
I use AI every day. Four marketing jobs it still can’t do: read the room, make the call, earn trust and know when to stop.
Read →04B2B MarketingB2B equipment marketing is a long game. Play it like one.
Win the research months, show the machine working and stay present between purchases.
Read →05Brand StrategyBrand vs. activation when the budget is small
Forget the fixed split. Ask whether each line moves something now, and whether it keeps working after the campaign ends.
Read →06Portfolio StrategyHow to market a multi-brand portfolio without the brands eating each other
Lessons from portfolios of five, nine and fourteen brands: distinct positioning, shared infrastructure and budget that follows evidence.
Read →07Marketing LeadershipIn-house, agency or AI: decide by the work, not the trend
AI made the in-house vs. agency debate louder, not simpler. Start with the work, then decide who should do it.
Read →08Retention · CLVRetention is the quiet profit engine. Here’s the machinery.
Acquisition gets the applause; retention pays the bills. Lifetime value, the flows that matter and honest measurement.
Read →09Technology · AI ArchitectureYour AI is only as good as the brief it can actually read
Generic AI output is a context problem, not a prompt problem. Build the reference library, then check what the tool can read.
Read →10Email · First-Party DataFirst-party data is a relationship, not a list
Whatever happens to cookies, own the relationship. Collect data people are happy to give, and use it to serve them better.
Read →11Strategy FundamentalsSegmentation, targeting and positioning still come before the prompt
AI can write a campaign in seconds. It can’t decide who the campaign is for.
Read →Brand experience
20 businesses. 91 brands.
111 brands, two kinds of relationship. Twenty businesses whose marketing I ran, and ninety-one manufacturer and supplier brands marketed through them.
Harley-DavidsonPorter GroupPorter HireGore Machine HireAdvanceQuipActive SafetyAWS LegalThe Gift Group3MCASE ConstructionSandvikTerexBOMAGXCMGBlundstoneSteel BlueBollé SafetyPelotonPrecorLife FitnessTRXConcept2KeiserHyundai Heavy IndustriesHarley-DavidsonPorter GroupPorter HireGore Machine HireAdvanceQuipActive SafetyAWS LegalThe Gift Group
Giftbox Boutique
Little & Luxe
Gather & Graze
The Rymar Group
Rymar Rubber
Rymar Synthetic Grass
Rymar Brands
360 Courts
Spartan Fitness Equipment
Vintage Iron Cycles
Synergy Bikes
VO3 Fitness3MCASE ConstructionSandvikTerexBOMAGHyundai Heavy Industries
MackXCMGBlundstoneSteel BlueBollé Safety
Howard LeightPeloton
NordicTrackPrecorLife FitnessTRXConcept2
ProForm
Rad Power BikesKeiser
WaterRower
Echelon
HOIST Fitness
Octane Fitness
Assault Fitness
TRUE Fitness
Aviron
BodyCraft
LifeSpan
VersaClimber
OxeFit
STEPR
Altas
Batca
GluteBuilder
Grizzly Fitness
GoFit
NÜO Fitness
Ultimate Fitness
Apollo Scooters
Rayvolt
ZOOZ
Ruff Cycles
Michael Blast
ASV Posi-Track
Madill
Airman
Ammann
ROKBAK
ASTRA
Log Max
FRD Furukawa
Auger Torque
Earthworm Attachments
MBI
ICM
DEMCO
NC Engineering
Rotadairon
Gyru-Star
MultaVEX
Mantovani Benne
Peiner Smag
FXD Workwear
Bisley Workwear
JB's Wear
Syzmik
Stoney Creek
ProChoice Safety Gear
Bison Safety
Esko
Thorzt
John Bull
Grisport
TEBCO
Apex
Biz Collection
Edge
Vosch
Pratt Systems
Help-It
The Candy Collective
Better Bites
The Cookie Co.
T+Me
Uptown Coffee
Bailey & Gray
Veya
Three Little Birds
Artificial GreeneryHarley-DavidsonPorter GroupPorter HireGore Machine HireAdvanceQuipActive SafetyAWS LegalThe Gift GroupGiftbox BoutiqueLittle & LuxeGather & GrazeThe Rymar GroupRymar RubberRymar Synthetic GrassRymar Brands360 CourtsSpartan Fitness EquipmentVintage Iron CyclesSynergy BikesVO3 Fitness3MCASE ConstructionSandvikTerexBOMAGHyundai Heavy IndustriesMackXCMGBlundstoneSteel BlueBollé SafetyHoward LeightPelotonNordicTrackPrecorLife FitnessTRXConcept2ProFormRad Power BikesKeiserWaterRowerEchelonHOIST FitnessOctane FitnessAssault FitnessTRUE FitnessAvironBodyCraftLifeSpanVersaClimberOxeFitSTEPRAltasBatcaGluteBuilderGrizzly FitnessGoFitNÜO FitnessUltimate FitnessApollo ScootersRayvoltZOOZRuff CyclesMichael BlastASV Posi-TrackMadillAirmanAmmannROKBAKASTRALog MaxFRD FurukawaAuger TorqueEarthworm AttachmentsMBIICMDEMCONC EngineeringRotadaironGyru-StarMultaVEXMantovani BennePeiner SmagFXD WorkwearBisley WorkwearJB's WearSyzmikStoney CreekProChoice Safety GearBison SafetyEskoThorztJohn BullGrisportTEBCOApexBiz CollectionEdgeVoschPratt SystemsHelp-ItThe Candy CollectiveBetter BitesThe Cookie Co.T+MeUptown CoffeeBailey & GrayVeyaThree Little BirdsArtificial GreeneryBusinesses whose marketing I owned 20
Brands marketed through them 91
Industries 6
Markets 5
Two different relationships, kept separate on purpose. Twenty are businesses and house brands whose marketing function I owned outright — strategy, budget and execution. The other ninety-one are manufacturer and supplier brands I marketed through those businesses, in campaigns, content, launches and retail programs.
Platforms & capabilities
What I bring to the team.
Leadership, commercial thinking and hands-on delivery, developed across multi-brand marketing roles. Explore the capabilities and the work behind them.
Strategy and growth
Build a marketing plan around the customer, the market and the business's commercial priorities.
- Market research
- Audience segmentation
- Brand positioning
- Go-to-market planning
- Multi-brand strategy
Campaigns and lifecycle
Plan acquisition campaigns and build customer journeys across paid media, email and e-commerce.
- Paid search
- Paid social
- Email automation
- Customer retention
- Performance reporting
Tools I use
Explore the lifecycle case study - Klaviyo
- HubSpot
- Mailchimp
- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- GA4
Websites and conversion
Improve how customers discover a website, understand the offer and move towards an inquiry or purchase.
- Website development
- Landing pages
- UX/UI
- Conversion optimization
- Technical SEO
Tools I use
Explore the organic growth case study - Shopify
- WordPress
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- GA4
- Semrush
AI-assisted research and development
Use AI to explore ideas, pressure-test a plan and refine the work, with human judgment and source checks throughout.
- Research synthesis
- Campaign concepts
- Strategy review
- Content refinement
- Analysis support
Tools I use
See AI in my current workflow - ChatGPT
- Claude
- Google Gemini
- Codex
- NotebookLM
Creative and communications
Develop written and visual campaign material that fits the brand, the audience and the channel.
- Content strategy
- Copywriting
- Brand storytelling
- Photography
- Video & editing
- Print publications
Tools I use
Explore my approach to brand standards - Photoshop
- InDesign
- Illustrator
- Premiere Pro
- After Effects
Education & recognition
Credentials behind the craft.
Master's
Master of Applied Management
Southern Institute of Technology2024
Grad
Diploma
Diploma
Graduate Diploma in Communication, PR & Advertising
Wintec2015
Bachelor's
Bachelor of Journalism & Mass Communication
Manipal University2014
Where the craft started — student work, 2012–2014
2014
Lead Designer, Exceptional ContributionManipal University
2013
Best Mobile VideoDadasaheb Phalke Award
2013
Best Short Film · 2nd PlaceKarnatak University
2012
Best Print AdArticle 19, India Level Media Fest
2012
Best Student Designer, PhotographyManipal University
Beyond the work
The person behind the portfolio.
In the mountainsI enjoy hiking and making time for the Rockies.
On the roadI like travelling, exploring unfamiliar places and seeing how other people live.
At the controlsGaming is another way I like to unwind, particularly games built around systems and resource management.
On the shelfMy reading ranges from marketing and personal development to graphic novels, including Atomic Habits and Maus.
Let's talk about your next marketing hire.
Open to the right marketing role anywhere in Canada, on-site, hybrid or remote.