Tamás Varga

Tamás Varga in a tuxedo, fastening a cufflink

Marketing leader and Sales advisor with 18 years across Real Estate, FMCG, Energy, Telco, and Financial Services, including international business development in 80 countries for a studio commissioned on €30M–€1B+ premium real estate projects.

About Tamas
Tamás Varga
Seven Years
Building International Demand

ZOA Studio. Building the engine that took the company from a regional supplier to international reputation.

Six Years
Agency-Side

Cluso. Managing nationwide, award-winning campaigns, from concept to creative production, for small to enterprise B2C and B2B brands and products.

Five Years
of Industry Lobbying

Hungarian Advertising Association & IAB. Five years of industry lobbying.

I can help with

How to take your business to the next level. Taking your firm from a local player to an international one, innovating your products and services, and doubling your revenue year over year. It starts with an audit, positioning, market entry, and runs through your business development and sales process.

How to structure your communication. Building a connected communication system for B2C and B2B markets by bringing messaging, content, AI workflows, and marketing automation together. From the initial planning to execution, it connects every stage of your marketing, from email and search to social media, paid campaigns, and events.

How to build a brand that lasts. Making your company look and sound like the one it wants to become. Setting your visual style, design and messaging to the standard international clients expect. It starts with your brand identity and art direction, and runs through your copy, print and website.

My Story

  1. Childhood birthday with family around the cake
    1984

    Born

    Siófok, Hungary

    Born into a working-class Hungarian family. My father laid bricks, then founded a logistics company and a cement plant. My mom worked in a shop. They were the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. I’ve come such a long way since then.

  2. Reading room of the University of Szeged library
    2006

    Engineering Degree

    University of Szeged

    Engineering taught me to measure things; economics taught me what to measure. School pointed me toward management and marketing. Months later, I was in Budapest, studying media at CEU and then advertising at METU, and I never looked back.

  3. Television control room
    2007

    Moves to Budapest

    Budapest, Hungary

    No money, no contacts. A degree and an empty room. Editing at national television, then five years at the Hungarian Advertising Association.

  4. Arany Penge 2014 award trophies
    2012

    The Agency Years

    Cluso, Budapest

    Joined a design-led, award-winning agency as a project manager, then account director, to run accounts from small to enterprise, such as Shell, Generali, Pfizer, FrieslandCampina, Liberty Global, and MKB Bank, from concept to creative production. My mentors were among the most respected names in Hungarian advertising, who held our work to an international standard. I learned design and how large companies decide.

  5. Forbes feature on ZOA Studio
    2019

    ZOA Studio in Forbes

    Budapest/Valencia

    Hired at the Budapest-based studio as its first commercial lead. There was no sales team, no marketing strategy, and the clients were mostly from Europe. I built both functions, designed the international demand generation engine, and repositioned the business, including a full rebrand.

  6. Wedding embrace on Via dei Fori Imperiali, Colosseum behind
    2022

    Married in Rome

    Santa Maria della Pace, Rome

    On 21 June 2022, our closest friends, our parents on their first trip to Rome, and a Hungarian priest studying in the city joined us for our wedding in the Eternal City. We still go back every year to Poldo e Gianna for the rigatoni and the tiramisù, and for the memories of those days.

  7. In front of the Burj Khalifa at night, Dubai
    2025

    The Gulf, from Zero

    Dubai, UAE

    ZOA Studio opened the Gulf market from zero in two years, without a local office: Emaar, Arada, Reportage, and Brabus joined as clients for building international and HNW buyer demand for off-plan residential and branded residence projects like Marassi Red Sea, Brabus Island, Sea Breeze Azerbaijan, and Inaura Dubai.

News & Stories

From Local to Global

Being Outdated Is Costing You Millions

ZOA Studio Wins at the 2025 Architizer Vision Awards

We Celebrate Two Years in Valencia

Grand Prix and Two Category Prizes

MSI picks ZOA Studio as its Partner In Their Master Series

Teamed up with the Budapest Design Week

The Budapest Southgate will be Europe’s coolest project

Forbes out now, includes our story!

After working as an editor at Hungarian National Television (MTV) on the creative development of TV programs and live broadcasts, from daily news to political and cultural shows, Tamás spent five years at the Hungarian Advertising Association and IAB Hungary, the industry’s professional body and its digital advertising bureau, representing creative agencies, media owners, brands and regulators.

From 2012 to 2017, Tamás worked at Cluso, one of Hungary’s most prominent award-winning, full-service creative agencies at that time, where he ran accounts from small to enterprise scale, with budgets of up to €1.6M+, across five industries, for clients such as Pfizer, Cofidis, Generali, MKB Bank, Budapest Stock Exchange, Richter Gedeon, FrieslandCampina, Jacobs, and Liberty Global.

During his five years at Cluso, the team won a Grand Prix, 3 Golds, 4 Silvers and 2 Bronzes at Hungary’s top national creative awards for brand relaunches, films, indoor and outdoor ads, and integrated campaigns.

In 2017, Tamás became Account Director, running the Shell and ECE Group portfolios for Hungary and leading the creative team on nationwide campaigns and the ‘Deli by Shell’ brand launch.

After joining in 2019, Tamás spent seven years building the commercial side of a Budapest-based studio that now serves the global real estate industry from Hungary and Spain, with a client base across 80 countries, from the United States through Western Europe to the Middle East and Australia, and partners in India, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.

At ZOA Studio, Tamás helped take the business from a local supplier into an international one, winning clients including Emaar, Arada, Brabus, JLL, Zaha Hadid, Gensler, and Luštica Bay, leading to commissions on €30M–€1B+ off-plan luxury schemes and a sixfold increase in revenue.

ZOA Studio’s work has been recognized internationally. It was named Property CGI Company Winner at the European Property Awards 2026, won at the Architizer Awards twice, in 2025 and 2026, as Rendering Studio of the Year, as well as being a finalist for Architectural Videographer of the Year. It also took the Grand Prix and two category prizes at the CAD’oro Architectural Animation Awards.

Other achievements include repositioning the company as a top-tier international brand and building a content engine across SEO, editorial and social that made inbound its primary acquisition channel and securing the #1 Google global ranking in its category.

Tamás built acquisition and content production as AI-operated pipelines, cutting prospecting from 15 hours a week to 1.5 and per-project content costs by around 90%, with an agentic team handling day-to-day operating tasks.

Other work included event-led acquisition at conferences like MIPIM in Cannes and Expo Real in Munich, and new-business meetings from Amsterdam to Dubai.

He designs and systemizes entire demand generation engines, international business development, and event-driven client acquisition.

Tamás has watched hundreds of developers sell residential projects and branded residences internationally, from Emaar and Arada to Triple Living and Orascom, on campaigns for Inaura Dubai, Sea Breeze Azerbaijan, Nieuw Zuid Antwerp and Luštica Bay Montenegro.

Outside of work, Tamás mentors start-ups at Rockstart in Amsterdam and Egg by Eurobank in Athens, and he has been a self-directed investor for more than ten years.

Working session around a table, sketching ideas in a notebook

Q&A

How can we work together?

I build the marketing and sales functions that win international buyers: the positioning, the demand generation, an AI-enabled sales process, and the team that runs it. For the last seven years, that meant taking a Budapest studio from a regional supplier to a company commissioned by industry leaders on €30M–€1B+ projects across 80 countries. Before that, I ran nationwide campaigns for premium B2C and B2B brands at an award-winning agency. In short, I find who should be buying from you internationally, build the machine that reaches them, and run it until it multiplies your revenue and profit. Along the way, your work rises from local benchmarks to international standards, and your client base moves from small and mid-sized accounts to market leaders.

Which markets and sectors do you know best?

Residential real estate, especially off-plan, luxury and branded residences sold to international and high-net-worth buyers. Projects such as Inaura Dubai, Sea Breeze Azerbaijan, Nieuw Zuid Antwerp, Luštica Bay Montenegro and Marassi Red Sea. I helped to expand into the Gulf market from zero in two years without a local office. Beyond real estate, I spent six years in FMCG (FrieslandCampina, Jacobs, Jägermeister, Sió, Hohes C, Hendrick’s, Pöttyös, Herz), energy (Shell), pharma (Pfizer, Richter Gedeon, Centrum), banking (Cofidis, Generali, MKB Bank, Budapest Stock Exchange), telecommunications (Liberty Global, UPC, Magyar Telekom, T-Systems, Sport TV, Spektrum), ecommerce (Vatera), commercial real estate (ECE Group), and tech (ZOA Studio) accounts, so I know how large companies decide and how a B2C brand launches nationwide. Geographically: the Gulf, Western Europe, the US and Australia as buyer and client markets; Central Europe as home.

How does AI-operated sales and marketing work today?

It means the repetitive parts of acquisition and content run on systems I design, with an agentic team doing the operating and people making the judgment calls. For example, it cut prospecting from 15 hours a week to 1.5 and per-project content costs by around 90%, while inbound became the primary acquisition channel and the company reached the #1 global Google ranking in its category. It also means the brand itself is built to be found easily and understood by AI, because that’s increasingly where buyers and partners ask their first question. This isn’t a tool I bolt on. It’s how I build a commercial function now.

Budapest Dubai London New York Munich Seoul Paris Baku Los Angeles Zurich Antwerp Melbourne Riyadh Amsterdam Vienna San Francisco Cannes Istanbul Berlin Austin Valencia Copenhagen Hong Kong Brussels Dublin
Cleveland Limassol Verona Marbella Dallas Innsbruck Ho Chi Minh City Basel Birmingham Palma de Mallorca Phoenix Jerusalem Ljubljana Bolzano Helsinki Cincinnati Alicante Brno Zermatt Rennes Trondheim Klagenfurt Duisburg Liège Brighton

I’d love to hear from you.