Guest · The future of agencies
Miguel Machado
CEO, Keenfolks
Eleven years in consumer goods and eight years building an AI native marketing company, Machado is about connecting marketing to business outcomes and owning the data that guarantees an edge.
About
Miguel Machado is the CEO of Keenfolks, the AI native marketing company he co-founded in 2018 on the belief that the agency model was broken. He is known for connecting marketing directly to business outcomes and for arguing, publicly, that data rather than AI is the real source of competitive advantage.
Machado spent 11 years in consumer goods marketing, moving through sales, trade marketing, marketing and business roles. At 26, in Mexico, he ran what he describes as Henkel's first overseas acquisition, the detergent brand VIVA, bought through Colgate-Palmolive, working under a marketing director, Oriol Bonacota, who by his account is now president of Heineken for LATAM. That period gave him a lasting discipline about business cases, return on investment and the gap between what marketing spends and what the business gains.
In 2018 Machado co-founded Keenfolks with Xavi, a co-founder from a product background, to build a model that connects business problems to marketing systems rather than billable hours. Alongside the agency he built OG.AI, a modular system designed to trace a dollar of marketing investment to its output across the whole ecosystem. The company has grown through acquisition into a global business, and by his account is now weighing a capital raise of around 50 million, taken step by step, with Machado increasingly visible on keynote stages arguing his case.
Career16 years
- 2022 to now Og.ai CEO & Founder Og.ai
- 2018 to now Keenfolks CEO
- 2015 to 2018 Coonic Managing Director-Coonic Digital
- 2013 to 2015 beQbe Director of Product Marketing
Show earlier roles: Eurofrozen
- 2010 to 2012 Eurofrozen Business Unit Director
How Miguel thinks3 convictions
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Vision beyond the brand
Machado approaches every problem from the business first, not from a brand limiting vision. He argues that a narrow view closes off options that only appear when you widen the frame. It is why he starts from a consultancy ground and works out what answer the business truly needs.
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Outcome based partnership
For clients genuinely committed to transformation, Machado does not sell effort, he shares risk. He builds scenarios, works to reduce his clients' exposure, and ties his own reward to the outcome. It is the sharpest expression of his belief that marketing should be measured against the business, not against activity.
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AI solves business problems
Machado resists the tool obsession he sees across the market. He treats AI as a way to build solutions to defined business problems, not as a product to be bought and pointed at a vague brief. That is why he insists any conversation starts with the business challenge of the next three months.
