Freddie Allen Laker is a British-American entrepreneur and the founder of the hybrid consulting and marketing services firm Chameleon Collective. Laker has also launched the

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

Laker.net and the

digital agency The is an agency of the Japanese government established on September 1, 2021, aimed at strengthening digitalization in Japan. The slogan is “Government as a Startup”. Overview Even before the Digital Agency establishment bill was passed, th ...

iChameleon Group, and worked at

SapientNitro Publicis Sapient is an American digital consulting company, founded as Sapient in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990 by Jerry Greenberg and J. Stuart Moore. On February 6, 2015, Sapient became a fully owned division of French advertising giant Pub ...

as the company's vice president of global marketing strategy. He is the son of Freddie Laker, the founder of British airline

Laker Airways Laker Airways was a private British airline founded by Sir Freddie Laker in 1966. It was originally a charter airline flying passengers and cargo worldwide. Its head office was located at Gatwick Airport in Crawley, England. It became the seco ...

Early career

Freddie Laker began his career after dropping out of college and joining his father's company,

. The same year, he became a DJ for ''The Womb'', a Miami-based pirate radio station. After being shut down by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC), the radio station used the Internet to transfer the signal between two antennas, making it the world's first 24-hour Internet radio station. Laker has credited the media attention surrounding this event with launching his career. Following his time at ''The Womb'', Laker founded Laker.Net, an

(ISP) and web design company, which was the fifth ISP in the state of Florida. After seven years, he sold Laker.Net to another ISP, WebUnited (acquired by Host.net), where he worked for a short period as the director of sales before leaving to found iChameleon Group. Laker's company iChameleon Group was a

with clients including

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

Guinness Guinness () is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is one of the most successful alcohol brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in ove ...

Taco Bell Taco Bell is an American-based chain of fast food restaurants founded in 1962 by Glen Bell (1923–2010) in Downey, California. Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. The restaurants serve a variety of Mexican-inspired foods, includi ...

and

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

, for whom Laker developed

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development duri ...

campaigns. In 2008, iChameleon Group was acquired by

. Following the acquisition, Laker worked on marketing and strategy for digital campaigns for SapientNitro. He worked out of SapientNitro's Miami office as the director of digital strategy, then moved to Shanghai as the company's executive director of digital strategy for Asia. He later returned to Miami, where he became the company's vice president of global marketing strategy. In 2012, after four years with the company, Laker left to launch Guide.

Guide

In 2012, Laker founded the software company Guide. He was the company's chief executive officer. The company has developed a visual newsreader app that uses

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

and

avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

technologies to convert written news and blog sources into video. The idea behind the company came to Laker after attending a

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

in 2011. Unimpressed by the user experience of current Smart TVs, he was motivated to develop an app that provided a TV experience. In March 2013, Laker attended

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

(SXSW), where Guide was selected as a finalist in the 2013 Accelerator competition. The next month, Laker was selected to present at The Next Web Conference Europe in Amsterdam, where Guide won the second round of the

Microsoft BizSpark Microsoft for Startups, formerly known as Microsoft BizSpark, is a Microsoft program that provides support, Azure credits and free licenses to selected Microsoft products to software Software is a set of computer programs and associated sof ...

Startup Rally competition.

Chameleon Collective

In 2015, Laker founded the consulting and executive recruiting firm Chameleon Collective. The company specializes in providing interim executive leadership to

Private Equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

backed businesses.

Other roles

Laker is a contributor to the online publication PSFK and is also a co-founder of the Society of Digital Agencies, which promotes thought leadership and industry change among

agencies.

Personal life

Laker is the son of the late Freddie Laker, the founder of

, a budget airline company.

References

External links

Chameleon Collective Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laker, Freddie A. American people of British descent Businesspeople from Miami Year of birth missing (living people) Living people