Growth for publishers and events, tracked to revenue.
Fractional Head of Growth for newsletters, publishers and conferences.
I turn readers into subscribers, members and ticket buyers, with targets agreed before we start.
Based in Johannesburg. Working with teams in the UK, Europe and the Gulf.
62M+
organic impressions in five months
2x
newsletter open rates, to 50%+
Six figures
in event ticket sales driven by the newsletter
<$1
cost per acquired subscriber
Who I work with
Publishers and newsletters
Free-to-paid conversion, retention, audience growth.
Conferences and events
Delegate and ticket sales.
Think tanks and membership organisations
Member acquisition and renewals.
Fintechs and brands
Content and newsletter-led acquisition for brands building an audience.
What I do
Subscriber and membership growth
Welcome sequences, paywall and offer tests, referral programmes, churn reduction.
Event and ticket sales
Email nurture, retargeting and newsletter-led campaigns timed to the event calendar.
Paid acquisition with proper attribution
Meta ads with the Conversions API, so every conversion is tracked, and LTV/CAC modelling to decide where the money goes.
Ways to work together
Fixed-fee experiment
4–6 weeks. One channel, one target, a clear stop-or-scale decision at the end.
Scoped on a call
90-day growth sprint
Audit, plan and execution across two or three channels, with targets agreed up front.
Scoped on a call
Fractional retainer
An ongoing part-time Head of Growth, reporting against agreed numbers every month.
Scoped on a call
Case study: BizNews
The brief
Grow audience for a leading South African business publisher as search referrals declined across the news industry.
What I did
Rebuilt the newsletter with AI workflows, built the company's first Meta ads + Conversions API pipeline, scaled short-form social video, and modelled LTV, CAC and churn in Python to decide where to spend.
Results in five months, with a small team
14–19x audience growth (62M+ organic impressions)
Social became the largest source of site traffic
Newsletter open rates doubled, to 50%+
Six-figure (ZAR) conference ticket sales driven by the newsletter
Premium subscriber growth from paid social, at under $1 per acquired subscriber
How it works
1
Audit
I review your funnel, data and channels.
2
Targets
We agree the numbers that define success before any work starts.
3
Build and launch
Campaigns, sequences and tracking go live.
4
Attribute and scale
We keep what pays back and cut what doesn't.
About
I'm Irakli Rekhviashvili. I was Head of Growth at BizNews in South Africa. Before that I spent nearly 5 years as a Data Scientist at Discovery Bank and Health. I also write Ika Reports, a geopolitics and markets newsletter. I speak English, Russian and Georgian.
Read Ika Reports →
FAQ
Do you work remotely?
Yes. I'm in Johannesburg, one to two hours ahead of London and two hours behind the Gulf, so I work UK, European and Gulf hours.
How do you price?
Every engagement is scoped on a call: a fixed fee for experiments and sprints, a monthly fee for retainers.
What's the minimum commitment?
A single fixed-fee experiment. You decide whether to continue once you've seen the results.
What do you need from us?
Access to your email platform, analytics and ad accounts, plus one point of contact.
Which tools do you use?
beehiiv and other email platforms, Meta Ads and the Conversions API, Google Analytics, and Python for modelling.