Ronald Yatco — 15+ years building CRM programs, automated journeys, and high-performing teams that turn data into lasting loyalty.
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I've spent 15+ years at the intersection of data, creativity, and human behaviour. I believe retention isn't a metric — it's a signal of whether you've built something worth coming back to.
"A children's hospital foundation doesn't need to be boring. It needs to be worthy of the families it serves."
When I joined BC Children's Hospital Foundation, the monthly giving program — the lifeblood of sustainable fundraising — was underperforming. Donor acquisition was stagnating. Churn was quietly eroding the base. And the communications felt more like administrative updates than a relationship worth keeping.
The infrastructure was functional. But it wasn't inspiring. And in the nonprofit world, inspiration is the product.
The first thing I did was reframe the monthly giving program entirely — not as a donation mechanism, but as a loyalty experience. We rebuilt it from the ground up with a new identity, a new value proposition for donors, and a communications cadence designed around the psychology of belonging.
Then we built the infrastructure to sustain it. I architected the Foundation's first automated donor journey: onboarding, re-engagement, and lapse recovery flows that delivered the right message at the right moment — at scale, without feeling automated.
Alongside that, I rebuilt the team — bringing CRM, analytics, digital, and direct response under one roof. We built a culture of experimentation: small tests, clear hypotheses, and the confidence to act on what we learned.
"The best donor communications don't feel like fundraising. They feel like belonging."
On the philosophy behind the program rebrandNonprofit CRM is underrated. The constraints force genuine precision that commercial marketing doesn't always demand.
And leading a team through real transformation taught me that the hardest part is never the strategy. It's building shared belief that the new way is worth the effort.
"Aritzia was mid-transformation — shifting from brick-and-mortar into a genuinely digital-first brand. Joining felt like jumping onto something mid-flight."
By the time I joined Aritzia, the eCommerce business was growing fast. But the direct-to-client marketing function was still nascent. The data was there. The technology was there. What was missing was a team, a strategy, and someone willing to build both from scratch.
I started by building the team — people who understood both the art and science of lifecycle marketing. We developed a segmentation framework covering the full customer arc: acquisition, onboarding, retention, and win-back. Every email had a reason to exist beyond "it's Tuesday."
One of the most significant projects I led was the enterprise-wide evaluation and implementation of a new CRM and marketing automation platform — managing budget, timelines, data migration, and cross-functional alignment.
Alongside lifecycle, I ran a structured CRO program. Website conversion improved from 12% to 22% as traffic grew dramatically. Email revenue grew 35% YoY — without resorting to discount-first tactics.
"The best lifecycle programs make customers feel like the brand knows them — not like the brand is targeting them."
On the philosophy behind Aritzia's CRM approachAritzia taught me what it looks like when CRM is genuinely central to a business — not a support function, but a growth driver. The best retention strategy is just being genuinely relevant.
"Seven years at one company is a long time. I stayed because I kept finding new problems worth solving."
Best Buy Canada was where I grew up professionally. Seven years building, testing, failing, learning, and eventually leading programs that reached millions of customers across Canada. The scale forced precision — a win-back email and an onboarding sequence require completely different logic, tone, and timing.
I led lifecycle, acquisition, and retention strategies across email, web, and digital. I built personalization frameworks that improved repeat engagement at scale. And I managed and mentored a team of direct reports — which is where I first discovered how much I genuinely love developing people.
"Scale doesn't excuse irrelevance. The bigger the database, the more important precision becomes."
On lifecycle marketing at a national retailerBest Buy gave me the reps. The discipline of running programs touching millions of relationships, iterating constantly, and building the mental models I'd carry into every role after. It's where I became genuinely fluent in lifecycle marketing — not just as a skill, but as a way of thinking about relationships between brands and people.
"Gaming communities in 2006 were raw and real. There was no playbook. You had to earn your place in them."
I started my career at Electronic Arts during a genuinely interesting moment — the early era of online gaming communities, before social media made brand-community relationships standard. The communities I managed were self-organized, passionate, and deeply skeptical of corporate voices.
I was the authentic human bridge between EA's globally recognized franchises and the fans who cared about them most — managing reputation, facilitating dialogue, building influencer relationships, and collaborating with international teams on localized strategies.
The core lesson: people don't want to be marketed to. They want to feel heard, valued, and part of something. Every CRM strategy I've built since has been shaped by that insight.
"If you want loyalty, earn it. You can't automate belonging — but you can design for it."
The idea that has followed me through every role since EA