Sonja Laser
Digital communication strategist · systems builder
Story, strategy and practical systems for organisations whose real value is hard to see online. Four languages. Several industries. One recurring problem: good work hidden behind beige communication.
01 · Selected evidence
Now
Late 2025 idea · 2026–now
The idea emerged in late 2025 while building the hotel concierge email app and testing how a hotel’s voice could be detected and analysed. That question grew into AI-assisted systems that help people preserve a recognisable voice instead of producing the same polished beige paragraph as everyone else.
Jan 2023–now
Helping independent hotels become easier to find, turn first-time guests into returning ones and win more direct bookings, so they keep more revenue and depend less on OTAs. Their unfair advantage is localised content: the inside information that makes an outsider feel inside. That thread began with Good Morning Paris and now shapes the personalised digital concierge.
Applied
Dec 2022–Oct 2025
Worked directly with entrepreneurs who came to the association for help, advising on their digital presence, content strategy and positioning, and identifying a practical digital solution when useful. This was volunteer work, not responsibility for the association’s own digital presence.
2019–2025
Ran the digital side of a specialist artisanal food brand across website, SEO, email, social content and campaigns. Identified and set up GloriaFood for direct online ordering of breads, meals and seasonal or themed packages. It also taught a useful limit: better communication cannot repair a logistics problem.
2004–2006
Supported the move of the German Eurocopter/EADS service desks to Toulouse. Interviewed technical specialists and wrote the German knowledge base and operating manual entirely from scratch for this use case, then trained support agents and handled VIP users.
Pioneered
2000–May 2012
Built tailored digital-marketing strategies for independent four- and five-star hotels across France and Europe when Netscape still mattered. Created multilingual content in English, French, Dutch and German, with cultural adaptation, SEO, email marketing and community engagement. The commercial purpose was clear: visibility, returning guests, more direct bookings and greater independence from OTAs.
1998–2000
Helped turn an English-language Paris magazine concept into a disciplined weekly online publication. Wrote the business plan, made weekly delivery non-negotiable once Havas began placing banner ads, and watched subscriber signals, web trends and emerging technology for what the magazine should do next. Experimented with web video and imagined near-live reader contributions before YouTube. Later adapted the plan for Good Morning Madrid and a proposed European city-magazine network. The promise throughout: ‘Make the Outsider feel Inside.’
Mar 1997–Dec 1998
Prepared the business in the Netherlands in 1996 and launched it in Paris in March 1997. Built a mail-order lingerie and erotic-lifestyle brand curated by women for women: suppliers, product selection, catalogue, branding, packaging and early e-commerce. Closed in December 1998 and focused on Good Morning Paris. The lesson was blunt: being early means educating the market, and that requires enough capital to wait for demand. The business did not have that cushion.
02 · How I work
Spot what is genuinely valuable beneath vague positioning, complicated histories and sentences such as ‘we provide innovative solutions.’ Then name it properly.
Turn expertise into words people understand, remember and act on. That may be a hotel email, a founder’s position, an editorial concept or the sentence everyone else kept circling around.
Turn good intentions into something people can actually use: a weekly publishing rhythm, a hotel email programme, a German support manual or a direct-ordering setup. The system has to survive the people, time and constraints that really exist.
From workplace PCs and hotels’ first websites to AI-assisted content systems, the useful question has stayed the same: how will a real person understand, trust and use this?
Native bilingual Dutch-German, near-native English and French. This is not word-for-word translation. It is preserving the idea, then rebuilding the message so it feels natural in another language and culture.
When there is no brief, template or obvious expert, work out what matters and keep moving. A missing horse, a container of pharmaceuticals, an online magazine before blogs and a restaurant: different settings, same reflex. Understand the objective, build the route, get the work over the line.
04 · Honest fit
Bring me in when
This is probably not the fit when
05 · Ask AI
Ask about Sonja’s experience, working style, strengths, gaps or suitability for a role. The answer is limited to the approved evidence on this page and says when the evidence is not there.