Introducing Mark Mullinix, fractional head of strategy and growth.

Today, in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 💳️ Mark’s career journey from American Express to founder of a loyalty consultancy (acquired) to fractional executive

• 🇸🇬 How Mark started his fractional business in Singapore and found his first clients

• 📆 Mark’s engagement models, pricing, and time management approach

• 🫶 Biggest mistakes Mark made along the way and his advice to aspiring fractional workers

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🙋‍♂️ Becoming a fractional executive | Mark Mullinix

Mark Mullinix is a fractional head of strategy and growth working with startups and early stage companies.

He’s passionate about getting deep into businesses and retooling them for greater success, whether that means strategy, prioritisation, or establishing a more effective working culture.

He’s also a loyalty and consumer psychology expert, having spent almost 20 years working on designing, developing, and implementing great loyalty programs for airlines, hotels, banks, and retailers.

Born and raised in the United States, he’s made Asia his home since 2006 and is based in Singapore with his wife and 3 kids.

Tell us about your career journey.

I’ve always been interested in how things work behind the scenes. I decided to do an MBA to get a more formal exposure to business theory and tried out a more traditional career path, joining American Express as my first post-MBA job.

After seven years at Amex, I decided to set out on my own and in 2013 I founded a loyalty consultancy, Loyalty Advantage, to help companies quickly execute on their loyalty strategies. We built or revamped programs across the region including launching a program for a low cost carrier in Hong Kong.

Loyalty Advantage was eventually acquired by Ascenda Loyalty, a SaaS loyalty platform provider, and over the course of the next 3 years we grew the company from about 40 to nearly 200. I expanded my role from consultancy to take on responsibility for all partners globally, leading a team of 15.

I left Ascenda in 2021 when I had the chance to join the founding team of yuu Rewards Singapore, a multi-partner coalition loyalty program being launched by Singapore’s government linked investment fund and the market’s second largest retail conglomerate.

After launch, I once again decided to go solo and leverage my startup and growth experience in a new way.

How did you decide on your first fractional or consulting offering? How did you find your first few clients?

For me, thinking about fractional was a bit of an evolution. I took some time at the beginning of 2023 to engage in a bit of “life design,” reverse-engineering the way I wanted to work from the way I wanted to live.

In Singapore with its high costs, families often make sacrifices when it comes to children and home life, because income has to be the priority. My wife and I decided that for us, the kids came first, and that ruled out traditional full time jobs at my level fairly quickly.

I realised that in smaller companies, my experience was disproportionately valuable because I’ve been through so many of the challenges they are facing, and that in a few hours a week, I could accelerate their problem solving process substantially. This became the basis of my fractional and advisory offering.

My first fractional clients came through my existing network. I bumped into a former classmate at an event and started talking with him about what I was doing, which turned into an engagement, and I also checked back in with some startups I’d partnered with in the past in my various roles, which turned into another.

What’s your current engagement model and pricing? How did you arrive at this pricing?