Arif Esmail

About Arif Esmail

I\'m a Digital & Ecommerce seasoned leader who spent over a decade driving results and building capabilities in Marketing, Digital, Tech and Ecommerce.I spent over a decade at Nestle, leading Digital and Ecommerce transformation, and now I’m fully immersed in the world of AI and how it will transform marketing, as a domain and as a profession.What can I say about AI… It’s exciting, mind-blowing, worrisome… All at the same time. It reminds me of the same journey I went through when leading digital transformation: the world around is changing drastically, but in many marketing teams only incrementally.Marketing leaders and executives want their teams to use AI as much as possible… but adoption is slow, because for most every-day marketers, using AI means “asking something on ChatGPT”.We are facing the same problem as we did when Digital and Ecommerce came out: it’s a problem of FLUENCY.Closing that gap between ADOPTION and FLUENCY… that’s what I am working on :)I’m a marketer at heart, but also a tech junkie: I self-taught coding in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP (Laravel), MySQL, Postgres, VBA, Python, Django, FastAPI, React, Next.js, AWS… Programming is still one of my favorite hobbies. Some people paint, others write… I build web applications and crazy excel files for fun.Finally, the one thing you should also know about me is that I\'m a melting pot of cultures. I am Portuguese, from a Mozambican family and Indian ancestry, who lived 6 years in Switzerland and now lives in the US since 2018. I am also a first-generation college graduate, immigrant for the last 12 years and minority for the last 35. So yes, I am the result of the generosity, kindness and patience that many people invested in me. Now, it’s my turn to paying it back by paying forward to others.

Experience

1. Digital Transformation Consultant

   Keenlift

   Oct 2024 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Consulted several SMBs in the CPG, wellness, and healthcare space seeking to accelerate AI adoption in their Marketing, E-Commerce and Sales teams. Key achievements were- Developed AI adoption roadmaps for 4+ clients, defining strategy, priorities, and implementation frameworks- Implemented 12+ custom AI agents into marketing workflows, delivering 30%+ time savings while improving creative and copy quality. Technologies used: Claude Code, PydanticAI, LangGraph, N8N, Chainlit and Composio- Designed and delivered 6 AI literacy workshops to marketing teams, building practical fluency and confident adoption of AI tools

Education

• Escola Secundária de Amora

  Ensino Secundário, Socioeconomic sciences

  2005 — 2008

• ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics & Management

  Bachelor Degree, Business Studies

  2008 — 2011