Alexei Orlov believed that he was going to be a priest. He always felt called to be a leader, but he was first called to take a leadership role in the church. It was a calling that Alexei was equipped to pursue. His role would have been to help people navigate their way through their spiritual journeys. Although forced to leave seminary, the time spent on his spiritual training was not wasted. The priesthood gives a man the tools to deal with elevated leadership situations. The global marketing specialist believes this education was the perfect primer for the career he was meant to seek.

Alexei Orlov Learns to Build a Brand

Since he parted with the priesthood, Alexei Orlov believes that he found his true calling in the business world. The first job he had after leaving seminary was in  the field of merchandising. This job allowed him to develop and exercise his creative side while simultaneously gaining valuable business skills. Along with packaging and sizing, Alexei also had the opportunity to learn all about color and working within a team. In the merchandising world, Alexei was also allowed to engage in the operational side of the business as much as he was involved in the creative movement. 

From the onset of his business world adventures, Alexei Orlov chose to retain job titles that developed mature thinking around all aspects of the business landscape. Engaging in creative and operational business moments early on, allowed Orlov to grow as a business leader in all pursuits and made for more easily traversed stepping stones up the ladder of success. Orlov deciphered and maneuvered up those stones quickly. Soon, he found himself firmly planted in global leadership positions; owning every aspect of the businesses he led just as he learned to do as a merchandiser fresh on the business scene. Alexei Orlov quickly turned those business leadership roles into a more entrepreneurial pursuit by challenging himself to build a business of his own.

Alexei Orlov and the Art of the Acquisition

You can count ROCQM and MCW as the first of the businesses Alexei Orlov built from the ground up. This company specialized in commercial recovery and brand strategy. It was such a tremendous success that Orlov quickly sold it to WPP at an enormous profit. 

In the short-term and beyond WPP's acquisition of his first entrepreneurial endeavor, Alexei concentrated on leadership roles with Wunderman and WPP. 

The WPP acquisition must have made a big impact on Orlov in those first years as this type of business model began to find him. One thing that is undeniable is that Alexei Orlov pursued many adventures from that moment in time that hinged on the business acquisition model. Later in his career, however, Orlov would quickly find himself on the other side of the acquisition with the capital doing the buying.  

Alexei Orlov held numerous global leadership positions namely with Omnicom Group and worked with brands ranging from Volkswagen to Avon. Through his years of success, acquiring top notch businesses for another's portfolio and taking already-acquired brands on the brink of disaster and turning them into highly-functioning money-making machines, Alexei Orlov never lost sight of his true desire. 

Orlov knew from the moment he sold his first company and was, again, reminded every time he acquired a new business under another corporation's umbrella, that one day he would take these two skills, the building and the acquiring, and mold them into the entrepreneurial business adventure of a lifetime. 

This was the moment MTM Choice first received legs. 

MTM Choice Becomes

With his acquired expertise in global brand strategy, operational change management, and marketing deployment, i n 2016 Alexei Orlov founded MTM Choice, an independent global network of marketing and brand activation  agencies. MTM is built through the acquisition of non-competing, promising young companies, each living in their own identifiable corner of the branding and marketing space. Through the acquisition of its first four agencies, MTM and Alexei Orlov play a role in assisting 120 brands across the globe in finding and investing in what Orlov refers to as and coined "moments that matter."

Alexei Orlov Highlights the Moments that Matter

Derived directly from his professional marketing beliefs acquired over the years,  inspiration for his company came from his belief in the necessity for a brand to appeal to its audience by actively and consistently demonstrating why the brand and/or its product is needed. When a brand can tap into 'moments that matter' with their audience from a digital perspective, then the brand's success is relatively eminent. Alexei Orlov believes that by not defining a need within their audience-base, a brand and the product it sells will not have the activation or the appeal necessary and will eventually fail. Those brands simply never truly tapped into the 'moments that mattered' to their people.

From this belief in the "moments that matter", Alexei Orlov created MTM. He kept that philosophy central in its growth. Ultimately, he wanted to give new brands true purpose by teaching them to find, cradle, and sometimes exploit the moments that mattered to their audiences. Orlov attributes much of MTM's success today on the ability to remain true to the marketing principles he learned over the years.

Orlov learned that he had a passion and a talent for global marketing. He knew that he had to grab every advertising opportunity that he could. He also learned that he could improve upon these opportunities when it was warranted. When he saw the power of his philosophy on new brands relocating underneath the MTM umbrella, he knew that he had the best plan in place for his global efforts to succeed. Under the watch of a strategic, global-attuned thinker like Alexei Orlov, expect MTM to continue improving and developing innovative techniques that activate and reactivate its client's brands, making each that much more relevant and tapped into the moments that matter in the future.

Learning to Prosper Through Failure

MTM's Alexei Orlov is well aware of his strengths, but he doesn't deny that he also has his areas of weakness. Orlov will not deny his great love for impatience, a trait which has set him on a path toward some of his greatest failures. He is aware that he is impatient, warns people of it up front, and doesn't even try to deny it at this stage in his career. He may even use his impatience to his advantage. He will regale you of times throughout his professional years where he seized on an idea before the optimal time, and from the failure that eventually came in not cultivating the idea completely, Orlov has learned some of his greatest lessons from which he has grown.

The MTM CEO will also tell you that business leaders can avoid their greatest moments of failure by understanding where their greatest professional weaknesses lie. Surrounding themselves with others that excel professionally in the areas of skill in which they lack is Orlov's best antidote failure. Covering all your talent bases would fill in any moments of weakness that could possibly be amassed and avoid possible hiccups in growth trajectory from day one. 

For Alexei Orlov, being CEO is not a one-man-band kind of job. A successful business is the sum of its parts and in order to thrive, all parts must be highly functioning and should not be left on the shoulders of one human, in most cases. Alexei Orlov knows that MTM can only reach its maximum success if he relies on those leaders he has strategically stationed within the business to take up arms where he might not be at his best. 

MTM Creates the Brands to Watch

Alexei Orlov has been an entrepreneurial leader for more than 30 years, and his love for brand activation has taken him to more than 40 countries across the globe. His professional journey has given him the opportunity to help more than 50 different brands develop their marketing and global brand strategies. From the beginning of his career until today and into the future, the brand activation specialist relies on the art of building businesses through the acquisition of brands. With so much practice, Alexei Orlov is truly an expert at 'the building' and 'the acquiring' aspects of his job.

MTM has grown significantly in the first years of doing business. Although very young, it is quickly making its mark on some of the most notable brands in the world. MTM's work is leaving a very noticeable footprint all over the global branding and marketing landscape, and telling the world that Alexei Orlov, MTM, and the brands they represent are the ones to watch as we trek into the future.