• by Larissa Faw , April 27, 2016

After 16 years at DDB, Andrea Arnau has jumped to Rokk3r Labs to become its Chief Growth Hacker, a new position with a unique responsibility. In the role, Arnau’s performance is measured by the effectiveness of her job helping portfolio companies grow as opposed to how much revenue she generates for Rokk3r. 

Arnau held a number of roles at the Omnicom agency including account services before moving on to roles that added responsibilities for brand strategy, digital strategy and new business development.

Rokk3r Labs is designed to be a company that focuses on building and launching companies with entrepreneurs and also helping corporations develop cutting-edge innovation. "My role here is to complement those practices by designing growth strategies and tactics that will generate growth for products created by those companies," she says. 

Being involved with startups is a unique opportunity to witness innovation close up. At Rokk3r Labs, Arnau will still work with DDB and similar firms. In fact, she notes, Rokk3r and DDB have an existing business relationship.

"We are working on an experiment in which [DDB] will work with our portfolio companies to achieve growth for them through creativity," she says. 

Arnau also believes her position is likely to be adapted by other agencies as they recognize the role's growing importance.

"The origin of it is that growth today, specially with startups and specially with products built with technology, is achieved by hacking traditional ways of marketing,” says Arnau. “It requires an agile strategy that is designed with an open mind for experimentation and uses tactics that are measurable, scalable and aim to achieve exponential growth. “

Adds Arnau: “A growth hacker is like a marketing person that is obsessed with achieving results. The main tools of a growth hacker are technology, creativity and marketing."