Felix LaHaye
- Programme studied: BSc Management and MSc International Management
- Year of Graduation: 2009, 2010
- LinkedIn profile
We picked Felix as our Alum of the Month for July after he was placed on the Forbes list of the 30 best entrepreneurs under 30. Felix has founded a successful influencer marketing company and has used his LSE Management experiences to help build his career. Find out more about him:
What’s your current job?
I am one of the Co-Founders of InstaBrand, a 60 employees international company, who is a pioneer in the field of Influencer marketing, and influencer marketing technology. I actively work devising the company’s development strategies, the internal operations, influencer develop processes, campaign execution and growth strategies, and work closely with our international offices and licensees.
Where have you worked previously?
Before InstaBrand I was working on other start up projects with my current co-founders Eric and Alex. I was previously Director of Strategy at Group CHCR, an independent radio group in my hometown of Montreal.
What is influencer marketing and what drove you to work in this field?
Influencer Marketing is the newest and trendiest field of Marketing. It is a form of naïve sponsored content on social platforms, based around harnessing the trust factor from various recognisable online celebrities (Influencers) in order to help promote brands. Indeed, it has been shown that peer recommendation is the key driver in most purchasing decisions as well as the development of Brand Equity. Influencers are a new kind of celebrities arising from the new social platforms (Instagram, Snatchat, Musical.ly, Vine, etc.). They achieve prominence by creating content – mostly videos and photos – and broadcasting it directly to their audience (followers). These Influencers are not seen as corporate entities, and their audience reacts well to well picked endorsements.
InstaBrand is a tech-enabled marketing agency, specialising in large scale activations for big advertisers (Disney, Coca Cola, Toyota, GSK, amongst over 800 others) having developed a series of tools, allowing it to best pick and manage influencers, as well as the campaigns that they are a part of.
We were the first company to do influencer marketing on Instagram (we have since evolved to doing all types of digital platforms 4 years ago). My current co-founders Eric, Alex and I were working on other projects, and we were looking for innovative ways to market our products and software. We tried a few proven techniques, and also decided to try a few new ones. Alex happened to know a couple early adopters of Instagram. When they started talking about our products, downloads and sales skyrocketed. Mobile influencer marketing was born. Soon a few of the major Los Angeles brands were asking us to help them market on social media with the help of our newly established influencer network; mobile influencer marketing was born.
How has the programme you studied helped your career since you graduated?
I believe that the understanding of Managerial Economics and Game Theory, that I achieved whilst completing both my undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, is the cornerstone of my current mental processes. A clear understanding of drivers, utility, and logical action is what helped me the most on the daily strategising and execution of company activities. Further, a significant amount of algorithms that we use on pricing and analytics is based on econometrics – which was a field that I started studying at the School.
I have also developed very strong personal connections whilst at LSE, although none of them work in my field or are clients, the conversations that I am regularly able to conduct with some of closest friends is essential to my mental growth and my abilities.
What is your proudest achievement to date?
My proudest achievements are receiving the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 award as well as Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 2016, running the Campaign of the Year 2016 for Fiat, having been able to create sustainable jobs in three different countries, and my 2009 LSE rugby clubmen of the year award.
If you had to give one piece of advice to someone who is thinking of founding a company, what would it be?
Ideas without a unique ability to execute aren’t worth neither your time nor someone’s else money.