Maria Alcantara Martinez

• • Owned product strategy for large-scale algorithmic platforms measuring, steering, and optimising marketing investments across all Zalando markets

• • Led Product Management, Applied Science, and Analytics teams with direct reporting lines; partnered closely with Engineering to deliver reliable, scalable production systems, stabilised the organisation after a major strategic reset, and rebuilt trust and leadership credibility to create a high-performing, outcome-driven team

• • Initiated and led a company-wide full-funnel measurement and optimisation programme, aligning Product, Marketing, Finance, and Executive Leadership, enabling full-funnel experimentation and unlocking €50m+ in quarterly savings

• • Transformed ROI-based automated budget steering into a multi-objective steering system, aligning algorithmic decision-making with business objectives and unlocking value-based optimisation across Google and Meta, increasing profitability by 25%

• • Shifted marketing budget allocation from campaign-led decision-making to algorithm-driven, experimentation-based allocation, improving ROI accuracy by 10pp

• • Acted as senior stakeholder for executives, translating complex algorithmic behaviour into clear, decision-relevant insights, increasing executive trust in algorithmic decisions and accelerating experimentation and product iteration

• • Built and led the Marketing Finance function as a strategic partner to Finance and Marketing leadership, shaping investment decision-making and budget allocation frameworks

• • Owned marketing budget and investment decisions at VP level, delivering €50m+ in cost savings

• • Designed and implemented a marketing budgeting and investment framework contributing €20m+ in incremental profit, replacing spreadsheet-based decision-making with a centralised, data-driven investment platform and decision interface

• • Led pricing and forecasting strategy for Fashion Store, designing and implementing algorithmic forecasting and optimisation models that informed discounting and commercial decisions and delivered €15m+ in incremental profit

• • Automated Supply's strategic discount-rate forecasting process, improving process efficiency by 80% and forecast accuracy by 40%