Experience
Over the past decade I've honed skills across all facets of product development. Sitting between business and technology in multiple industries and verticals, here are the areas where I have been a leader and strategist for the innovation projects, growth of new products, and optimization of mature product offerings.
I am available for consulting work on a project by project basis reliant on availability. Contact me for a rate sheet and current availability.
Strategy
Blockchain
Two years ago when the term blockchain started to be disaggregated from bitcoin, conversations started to take place outside of the financial services industry. We were on the frontline of brining blockchain technology to healthcare as one of the most egregious examples of an industry ripe for disintermediation due to siloing of data and a lack of transparency which ultimately had a material impact on an individual's health. Those conversations often started with "have you heard about blockchain"? No. "Have you heard about Bitcoin"? A lot has changed from those early meetings over the course of the last 18 months as Blockchain has now reached household name status.
Beyond Health, I've consulted numerous fortune 500 and fortune 100 companies on innovative technology and go to market opportunities. We built enterprise blockchain strategies and products for Philips, Capital One, and Tieto to take to market in the health sector. Created the first sustainable natural gas asset token using a blockchain network in Energy. Built a cross channel profile management solution for Mercer, the largest human capital management firm in the US to manage over 100M identities across 1500 applications. Build out the growth strategy and initial MVP for AIOI Nissay Dowa, a division of Toyota Motor Corporation to take to market a usage based insurance mobile product for dynamic risk premiums based on driving behavior and telematic data streams.
There are key foundational rubrics you need to apply to validate the need of a blockchain network, to validate a successful implementation and use of a blockchain network you must walk through a rubric to not only validate a project but create a strategy to make the most out of this innovative landscape.
GDPR (Global Data Protection Rights)
It seems that every other month, another company is either is hacked or has employed sub standard security measures causing sensitive data for millions of individuals to leak out to the public or into the hands of those looking to profit illegally on the data. With stringent individual data protection rights becoming law in May 2018, the GDPR (Global Data Protection Rights) sets precent and introduces massive penalties for companies who manage data for European individuals. This has global impact and those not compliant with privacy by design and adherence to explicit consent to an individual's data will be subject to a penalty of between 4 to 6 percent of their annual revenue. This legislation puts unprecedented controls in the hands of individuals to control who has access to their data, where they can share it, and rights to delete all data around that individual. Companies need to formulate strategies and implementation steps to cover the following critical components of the legislation:
- Rights of the Data Subject
- Controller and Processor Relationships
- Breach mitigation and security controls
- Transfers of personal data to third countries or international organizations
- Privacy by Design certification and advisory
The key here is to get ahead of the legislation to quickly assess and implement data sharing and storage standards along with ongoing controls to ensure the detection and management of European citizens and their data in your products and service offerings.
Market Analysis
I've been a part of companies that range from institutional organizations that have been around for over 150 years with thousands of employees, mid level bootstrapped startups with mature products, and early stage seed / series A organizations looking for product market fit. What I've found constant is regardless of size or industry you always need to be analyzing markets you are in or those that you are looking to gain a foothold. What is your unique value proposition? Who are your users and what problems are they solving? What are you attack vectors for customer acquisition. All of these questions and many more tied to market sizing and competitive analysis create a strategy to enter, expand, or move away from a market.
Investment
Pitch decks / presentations
Capturing the value of your business into 10-12 slides is an art form all to it's own. You have to build a concise narrative tailor fit to your target audience and anticipate lines of questions and feedback.
Product Development
Whiteboard Brainstorming
It all starts with an idea. I feel the most comfortable in front of a whiteboard hashing out and beating up ideas. Breaking down conceptual ideas in dedicated whiteboard ideation sessions help to derive conclusions to open and ongoing hypothesis. Effective sessions derive visual diagrams of product topology and next action items for further development and exploration.
USER JOURNEY MAPPING
How do your users move through your product? What decision paths must they take while engaging and what features are valuable to different persona types? Here mapping out UML diagram flows to capture user value is critical to make sure that your product serves the needs of it's users in a crisp and simple manner.
WIREFRAMING / PROTOTYPING
Moving from idea to visual design involves exercises of building low fidelity paper prototypes up to high fidelity mockups and design comps. Wireframing exercises help to force simplicity and adherence to value passed along to the user in the simplest fashion.
UI/UX
I've built and designed high scale web and mobile first applications across B2B and B2C solutions.You always need to be conscious of best practices and considerations for UI/UX on both Apple and Android platforms and web to drive user behavior. Ultimately all decisions are focused on the user and pushing behavior towards optimal internal metrics and goals.
Roadmap Definition and Prioritization
Prioritization is no easy task and it seems that everything is always on fire. Priority is often derived by the opinions of the highest paid employee or the loudest voice in the room. This is the art of removing the value from the noise and effectively communicating the why and the how of directional focus.
Goals
Every business has a directional path they want to achieve. Whether this is an increase in revenue by X, improvement in LTV by Y, or a boost in a Net Promoter Score, you need a clear and aligned path to go from wish to reality. Creating clear and measurable goals tied to performance metrics, KPIs, and including a stack ranked methodology of prioritization removes the questions of what is the most important to achieve and exceed a goal that rolls down from a business to an individual contributor.
Product Review and Iteration
Analyzing and breaking down the current state of a product and it's UI/UX, retention and monetization metrics for consideration of future roadmap planning and optimization.
Analytics
Up and to the right! Building out a analytics strategy as it aligns with core product KPIs and implementation or modification needed to support clean and actionable reporting.
A/B Testing
Brainstorming and executing hypothesis driven A/B testing for continued core KPI metric growth. Getting deep into user intent and sentiment drives the best learning and product enhancements.