Darren Jhagroo
Chief Operations Officer / Co-Founder
Born: July 28, 1982 in Trinidad & Tobago
College: Florida Atlantic University
Experience: 7 years
Background
In 1998 Darren moved from Guyana, South America to the U.S, before that he lived in Grand Turks & Caicos Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. He graduated High School in Vero Beach Florida and then moved on to Graduate from Florida Atlantic University. Darren’s plan was to embark on a career as a Lawyer but right before entering Law School he started working for a transportation firm.
Quick Start
In 2008 Darren was put in charge of staffing for a nationwide transportation firm. The goal was to hire a better quality employee. After staffing a well-equipped online marketing department he was then promoted to Business Development Manager and was put in charge of all new business development and online marketing for the company.
As business development manager, He constructed the companies’ first online Marketing Team. He hired a team that consisted of software developers, website designers, content writers, social media experts and online marketing analysts. He managed the team of 20 employees. The department started with no pay per click campaigns and 1 website. Throughout the next 3 years the department grew to managing over $60,000 a month in Google AdWords, developed over 2500 websites, and ranked 2500 websites organically throughout the country using Search Engine Optimization techniques. The department managed to get thousands of leads monthly and at the same time managed all social media interaction. The department launched online press releases with events, company events, charities and activities. The department yielded gross revenues of upwards of 2 million in the first year alone.
Business Development
In 2011 Darren was promoted to Vice President of Business Development and worked with a team to develop a well-known local brand in the transportation industry. He managed the acquisition of a Houston based Transportation Company and developed the new brand. The new location went from 3 trucks to 10 with 40 employees and with the new addition of long distance transportation quickly saw revenues from 300k to upwards of 1 Million in the first year. At the same time he worked with software programmers to develop a new CRM system to work as a Multi user and Multi departmental functional CRM supporting the local brand.
The new CRM was equipped to support a sales team, Dispatching Team, Accounting and Payroll Department. In this role Darren simultaneously started and managed a new add on to the existing relocation business. This new company was designed to upsell customers’ products that were needed when relocating. He developed all training materials, hiring criteria for all sales and management staff. He set up all pay structures, job responsibilities, operational process and procedures; he also negotiated all deals and payouts with ADT, Comcast and Direct TV other resellers. He developed from scratch, another new CRM system; a full service robust CRM with the ability to manage multiple users and departments with different programs. The CRM had 40 sales users equipped with scripts and lead import capabilities, reporting capabilities, accounting/payroll, managing all campaigns.
As the Vice President of Business Development, He spearheaded the relocation company’s efforts to develop a National Transportation Company. He acquired a small transport company and with a team developed it into a 60 truck operation with 60 drivers operating nationwide.
He set up a classroom school setting for long distance drivers to be trained on all aspects of becoming a certified mover and DOT certified driver. He developed training manuals, job responsibilities, and managed the initial stages of the training school project.
Darren opened brick and mortar locations across the country including Chicago, Nashville and Houston. Developing each location with responsibilities including staffing, process and procedures, training all employees and managing each location including P&L’s and productivity.
Vice President
In 2012 Darren was promoted to Vice President of Operations, managing over 200 employees with 10 different departments, conducting over 10,000 moves a year. He initiated a complete rebranding effort on the entire transportation firm by hiring new management staff, developing more transparent business systems, and creating an organizational structure with roles and responsibilities for each department. He developed the company’s first Compliance Department who was responsible for monitoring all non-conformities in the federal regulated industry by creating corrective actions plans and developing a training system for all service providers.
He rebranded the service provider network by eliminating poor service providers and instilling new requirements that weighed heavily on customer reaction to the service providers. Some of these implementations and developments are as follows:
- A survey/feedback department and scoring criteria grading the service provider based on customer feedback and interactions
- A score card system among the network
- An account management support system assigning an account manager to each customer to give customers more interaction and constant contact
In addition, He worked closely with software developers to develop a CRM with a checklist to be completed by the account manager for each customer. This created uniformity and consistency with all customers and led to better service. The first year the account management system was in place it yielded a drop in customer complaints by 40% in comparison with years past.
Charity
In 2014 Darren Founded the Monica’s Kids foundation to help the children of Guyana, South America.
He started the foundation after his aunt, Monica Pereira, passed away in 2014.
Darren Says:
I was one of these children many years ago having grown up and gone to grade school in Guyana. Several years later after going back to visit Guyana, it was very sad to see the less fortunate children struggling to find their next meal.
Monica’s Kids Foundation has since teamed up with the Changing of Life Ministries and Pastor Kevin Pereira in Guyana to create a Children’s Feeding Program. So far through January 2015, happy to announce that 1000 children in over 8 different schools have benefited from the program. The goal for 2015 is to feed over 6000 children. Our next project is to donate computers to some of the local schools so that the teachers and students have access to the internet and educational resources.
Throughout the years Darren has gained years of extensive business management experience having managing multiple companies, employees and projects simultaneously. He has proven to work in high paced, high stressed environments, always being in positions that have to produce major results consistently.
Partner
In 2015 Darren decided to venture out on his own and team up with his longtime friend and colleague Alejandro Perez to start their very own firm, Edge Media. This Duo managed many online marketing projects together over the last 7 years yielding unprecedented results.
