Given a nowhere vanishing continuous map $f:\mathbb{C}^*\to \mathbb{C}^*$, how do I show that there exist an integer $m\in \mathbb{Z}$ and a continuous map $g:\mathbb{C}^*\to \mathbb{C}$ such that $f$ is of the form $$f(z)=z^me^{g(z)}, ~~~~~ \forall z\in \mathbb{C}^*.$$ Where $\mathbb{C}^*= \mathbb{C}\setminus\{0\}.$
I come across this problem while trying to show that the cokernel of the exponential map in the following sequence $$0\to \mathbb{Z}\stackrel{2\pi i}{\rightarrow} \mathcal{O}(\mathbb{C}^*)\stackrel{exp} {\rightarrow}\mathcal{O}^*(\mathbb{C^*})\to 1$$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}=H^1(\mathbb{C}^*, \mathbb{Z}).$ Where $\mathcal{O}(\mathbb{C^*})$ denotes the group of all continuous maps from $\mathbb{C}^*$ to $\mathbb{C}$ and $\mathcal{O}^*(\mathbb{C^*})$ denotes the group of all continuous maps from $\mathbb{C}^*$ to $\mathbb{C}^*$.
I have proved that for all integers $m\in \mathbb{Z}$, the function sending $z\mapsto z^m$ belongs to distinct classes of the quotient group $\frac{\mathcal{O}^*(\mathbb{C^*})}{exp\left(\mathcal{O}(\mathbb{C^*})\right)}$ and I want to show that these are the only classes in the quotient. For that I have to solve the above problem.
Is there an elementary proof for this problem where I dont have to use cohomology of the punctured complex plane. Thanks in advance.