About Me
Strategic Marketing Leader | Digital Transformation, Customer Growth & Marketing Strategy
Professional Summary
Makoma Manyama is a strategic marketing leader with 13+ years of experience spanning brand, digital transformation, customer growth and commercial strategy across BMW Group South Africa and MTN Group.
Her work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and digital execution. At BMW, she designed a bottom-up commercial demand model that translated annual sales targets into channel-level forecasts across 30+ vehicle models, then engineered the full-funnel measurement framework to prove it, work recognised with BMW's C3-region Leading Change Award for Best Digital Transformation. At MTN, she leads the group's first structured, group-wide performance marketing and digital governance framework, standardising practice across multiple African markets with very different levels of digital maturity.
Makoma specialises in taking marketing functions from tactical execution to structured, commercially accountable capability, building the governance, data foundations and stakeholder alignment that let growth scale beyond any single campaign or market. Her experience spans digital transformation, customer growth, marketing strategy, customer experience and data-driven marketing.
“I believe marketing is one of an organisation's most powerful strategic capabilities. When customer insight, brand, technology and commercial strategy work together, marketing becomes more than a function - it becomes a driver of business transformation and sustainable growth.”
Published Work
Co-authored article with IAB members on the future of digital marketing transformation.
Read: “Embracing Digital Transformation in Marketing” - Business DayAreas of Specialisation
Digital Transformation
Leading enterprise-wide digital and marketing transformation programmes across resource-constrained, multi-market environments.
Customer Growth
Designing full-funnel demand models and performance frameworks that connect marketing activity to measurable revenue outcomes.
Marketing Strategy
Building commercial marketing strategy and governance frameworks that scale across markets and business units.
Customer Experience
Owning end-to-end customer journey and lifecycle optimisation, from acquisition through to retention and value management.
Data-Driven Marketing
Architecting first-party data, MarTech and AdTech strategy to drive precision targeting and measurable ROI.
What I Do
I help organisations transform marketing into measurable, scalable growth engines.
Digital Marketing Transformation
Evolving marketing from siloed execution into integrated, full-funnel ecosystems powered by data, technology, and customer insight.
Demand Generation & Growth Strategy
Designing marketing systems that translate commercial targets into acquisition, engagement, and revenue outcomes.
Customer Value Management (CVM)
Building structured Get-Keep-Grow lifecycle frameworks to maximise customer value across acquisition, retention, and monetisation.
MTN Ads & Digital Monetisation
Supporting the development and go-to-market of telco-led advertising platforms, enabling new revenue streams through first-party data and subscriber-based targeting.
MarTech & Data Enablement
Embedding platforms, tracking, and first-party data strategies to enable precision targeting, measurement, and optimisation.
Go-to-Market Strategy
Developing and executing launch strategies for digital products and services across multiple markets.
Career Journey
My career spans telecommunications, automotive, and media, with a consistent focus on transforming marketing into a driver of commercial growth.
At BMW Group South Africa, I led digital marketing transformation, building a full-funnel performance ecosystem across 30+ products and 9+ channels. This included launching the market's first fully online vehicle sales capability, delivering a 70% month-on-month conversion increase and earning the BMW C3 Leading Change Award for Best Digital Transformation.
During my time at BMW, I consistently received “Exceeds Requirements” ratings across all performance dimensions. My manager noted: “Makoma has consistently overachieved on campaign objectives and targets in a role with a high level of responsibility and high technical complexity.”
I was also a founding member of the BMW Associates Volunteer Committee, contributing to community initiatives alongside my professional responsibilities.
At MTN Group, I operate across multiple African markets, leading digital marketing, CVM strategy, MTN Ads, and go-to-market execution for digital services including Showmax, Disney+, and MTN One TV. My focus is on building scalable frameworks, improving marketing maturity, and driving commercially aligned performance in complex environments.
My educational foundation includes a Telecoms Mini MBA (2024), an Advanced Diploma in Digital Marketing from Red & Yellow Creative Business School, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Johannesburg.