Achille Traore, former professional footballer and CEO of White Label Loyalty, explains why he made a pivot from football to the tech world and how the Leeds-based B2B marketing technology company plans to scale.
As the “engine” and technology behind Burger King’s loyalty scheme in Europe, the White Label Loyalty platform is seeking to transform how brands build loyalty with customers.
“From my background in sport, there’s no bigger loyalty than the passion of a football club,” Traore told Prolific North.
Originally from Sweden, the footballer moved to Leeds after his career was cut short by an injury. Opting for a new career path, he decided to make the transition into the lucrative tech world.
“The pivot from sport to tech was made through a transition into the tech world where we took a product from zero to hero quite quickly.”
He initially joined Leeds-based translation tech company thebigword and within 18 months saw how the company was turning over millions.
“I thought, that’s amazing. That’s so easy compared to playing football!,” he said.
Inspired by this, in 2009 he set out to launch digital advertising solutions company Top Screen Media, one of his first businesses which now works with clients including The World Trade Center.
Increasingly receiving acknowledgment as a tech entrepreneur and innovator, he was appointed as an Enterprise Ambassador at the University of Leeds.
As an ambassador, he has since mentored a number of entrepreneurial students – including the co-founders who went on to establish LADBible.
Utilising his network at the university, he worked with a number of students on a project delving into the issues he pondered surrounding loyalty rewards programmes.
“From there we started creating the first version of the loyalty solution,” he said.
Launching White Label Loyalty in 2015, the company now counts large brands from PepsiCo Europe to Burger King Europe as clients.
“The reason we started White Label Loyalty is because fundamentally loyalty is broken.
“It doesn’t really work and I’ve been consulting and delivering digital products to businesses for many years since 2009 when I founded Top Screen Media,” he said.
