Digital advertising firm bolsters management team for regional expansion

Building on the momentum of robust regional expansion and recent client wins, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading digital advertising firm Squad Digital has today announced the appointment of Manish Sardana as the Managing Director for Kenya and Tanzania.

Mr. Sardana was the immediate General Manager for Squad Digital Kenya and he now takes up the mandate to lead the growth of Squad Digital and will now elevate the quality of service and business results that firm offers to its clients.

A digital entrepreneur with over 10 years spread experience across E-commerce, digital and traditional advertising, Mr. Sardana will combine his deep understanding of the Advertising sector with the skills and expertise demonstrated in storytelling, a strong business network and acumen to expand Squad Digital’s regional footprint.

His appointment comes during a period of significant new business growth in the Kenyan office and award winning exploits including being recognized by Global Website Awards, Awwwards, for ‘great talent and creativity’ of the website (www.squaddigital.com), becoming the first Kenyan company to be recognized by the global awards system.

“We are thrilled to have Manish leading our Kenya and Tanzania offices,” said Gaurav Singh, WPP-Scangroup Chief Digital Officer. “Our focus has been to provide business solutions beyond digital marketing services for our clients. Manish’s experience in driving business value through digital channels that go beyond social media campaign management is critical for us in our bid to offer higher value services to our clients”, Gaurav added.

Manish holds an MBA degree in Marketing/Finance with a graduate degree in Economics. He has authored Economics textbooks, is a keen amateur photographer, a half-marathon man and an avid reader.

Squad Digital is Sub Saharan Africa’s leading digital advertising firm providing digital marketing services. With offices in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Dubai, Squad provides businesses with the tools, knowledge and trends to leverage internet technologies to deliver communication and engage with audiences.

Digital advertising firm launches innovation lab to support tech-preneurs

Squad Digital General Manager Manish Sardana addresses developers at the first Squad Labs Hackathon

Squad Digital, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading digital advertising firm, has today launched an innovation lab that is aimed at spurring technological growth through incubation and research in Kenya. 

Dubbed Squad Labs, the lab will have dedicated research and development teams responsible for creating innovative products and is currently working with over 30 developers in in Kenya.

 “We want to drive cutting-edge innovation in the digital marketing space in Kenya and Africa and we will be investing heavily in this sector to incubate products in Customer Relationship Marketing, social media, Wearable Technologies and Content Marketing areas,” noted Squad Digital General Manager, Manish Sardana.

Mr. Sardana: “Squad Labs will seek to leverage Kenya’s creative minds and resources in new innovative ways and will provide a platform to source, develop, evaluate, test and eventually launch new digital offerings and technologies to the market.” 

The flagship product from Squad Labs is a Social Banking Platform that allows consumers to open bank accounts online on social media platform - Facebook with phase two of the Social banking innovation allowing the bank’s customers to view their bank statements and even make transfer funds. 

“Social Banking revolutionizes the way the Kenyan youth interact with the Banking system. The over 5 million Facebook users will now be able to manage their banking needs from the convenience of their Facebook pages”, said Mr. Sardana.

“Squad Labs is expected to impact the country by developing practical and cost effective solutions that focus on consumer trends and we will work with techprenuers to generate new ideas that will move quickly from concept to reality.

This comes at a time when the digital advertising firm  recently organized a Hackathon , a challenge for its technology team to develop an online Influencer Management Platform using  Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) from Twitter to rate influencers based on their followers and subject matter expertise. The product called “Twitulence” will be rolled out soon in the market.

Squad Labs is also working to roll out a Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) solution, called the Lead Management System that will help sales organizations optimize their campaign spends and manage leads from various campaigns. 

Squad Labs will look at teaming up with Kenya’s and indeed global technology giants to evaluate additional strategic alliances in the future, through the Squad Lab program.