Independent marketing & growth advisory · Europe & North America
Caph Group was founded to bring an owner’s accountability for results to the companies that spend on marketing, the investors who fund them, and the partners who sell to them. The work runs through advisory, consulting, and fractional engagements, and all three rest on the same foundation, over twenty years of leadership across the Navy, strategy consulting, and brand and media roles at Procter & Gamble and Coty. Most recently that meant the governance and return of a mid-nine-figure media budget across forty-plus markets.
Clients are beauty and CPG brands and the investors behind them, scale-ups spending real money on marketing without anyone senior enough to govern it, and ad tech, martech and marketing analytics companies selling into global brands.
Ongoing strategic input for companies selling into global brand marketers. The value is knowing what happens on the other side of the pitch, including why a successful pilot still dies in procurement, how a category review or joint business plan actually gets decided, and what a global CMO can and cannot sign without three other functions in the room.
Board seat and advisory retainer · cash or equity
Scoped projects for brand owners and the funds that hold them. Media investment diagnostics, agency and platform contract renegotiation, in-housing decisions, and measurement that survives a CFO reading it. Typical output is a ranked list of what to fix and what each fix is worth.
6–10 weeks · fixed fee
Part-time embedded marketing leadership for companies past product-market fit and ahead of their own function. Set days, a standing operating cadence, and a defined term. Enough seniority to run the investment properly without carrying a full executive salary before the business can support one.
Defined term · set days per month
Figures reflect remits held at Coty and at Procter & Gamble. Named references available in conversation.
Rafael Lopez de Azua has over twenty years of leadership experience, from service as a US Naval officer and strategy consulting at Booz Allen Hamilton to running prestige fragrance brands at Procter & Gamble and ten years leading media at Coty. Along the way he has built teams, launched brands, planned integrated marketing communications, and partnered with the largest platforms in media, including Google, Meta, TikTok and Amazon. His most recent role, Global Director of Media Effectiveness & Operations at Coty, made him accountable for how one of the largest media budgets in beauty and luxury was spent and what it returned across forty-plus markets.
The through-line is ownership of results. He has built media functions from nothing, negotiated enterprise partnerships, and then defended the results to P&L owners who cared about the number rather than the craft. He founded Caph Group to bring that work to companies that need it but are not ready to hire for it.
He also invests in and advises early-stage AI and marketing technology companies, and works across Europe and North America with regular time on the ground in both. He is a native English and Spanish speaker, with working Portuguese, Italian, French and Dutch.
Send the problem, not a meeting request. If it is not a fit, you will hear that directly, along with the name of someone who can help.