Competencies

• Requirements definition
• Interaction Design
• Web presentation layer tools & tech
• Social Marketing & Media
• Business case preparation & presentation
• Blogging
• Leadership (focus on technical teams)

Employment History

Partner – Chief Technology Officer, Product and Business Development

LOCUS (20 employees) – Los Angeles, CA – April 2011 to Present

Currently overseeing product, technology and business development.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Product Management and customer success
• Chief Technology Officer
• Business Development
• Strategic Partnerships
• Interaction Design

Senior Product Manager – Application Platform, Tools & Widgets

Ebay, Inc – San Jose, CA – 2010 to March 2011

Currently working on Application Platform (SOA) projects.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Social Media platforms
• Internal publishing platforms
• Cloud computing & management platforms
• Site widgets (on/off eBay)

Senior Product Manager, Verticals: Clothing, Shoes & Accessories

Ebay, Inc – San Jose, CA – August 2008 to 2010

As a Senior Product Manager on the Verticals, Clothing, Shoes & Accessories team, I was responsible for helping build a best-in-class tailored shopping experience for our Fashion buyers & sellers.  In this role, I planned and executed key tracks under the fashion category on eBay.  I managed the product throughout the product lifecycle, including defining the product vision, building the business case based on financial cost benefit projections, gathering and prioritizing product features, documenting detailed product requirements (in the form of user stories), coordinating with engineering teams to deliver the product within multiple release cycles (Agile), and managing the success of the product in production.

Director of Product Management and Development – Studios and Entertainment

GMG Entertainment – Santa Monica, CA – August 2007 – July 2008

Defined and managed the development and launch of http://alpha.thenetWorks.com – part news site, part on demand video, and part social network, thenetWorks is a vertical job site for people working in the film, television and music industries. It utilizes the latest in Open Source technologies and is written in Ruby on Rails.

Primary responsibilities:

• Recruited, hired and manage our existing engineering team and about 7 outside vendors (10-12 total)
• Wrote specifications, created all interaction designs, and managed all aspects of product delivery
• Researched and selected a Content Delivery Network (CDN) partner for the site’s video content
• Implemented and enforced an agile development process with 1 week release cycles
• Manage all ongoing day to day aspects of development scheduling and resourcing
• Designed and launched thenetworks CareerHigh application for Facebook – a viral component and traffic driver for the parent site

Other projects:

• Wrote specifications and created interaction designs for GMG’s analytics and reporting system
• Designed and launched an online pop-culture trivial game for Facebook
• Designed and wrote specifications for the CMS portion of the trivia game – allows producers to create dynamic game content on the fly with little or no technical expertise

Senior Product Manager – Product Placement

NextMedium, Inc. – Mountain View, CA – March 2007 – July 2007

Helped to define and launch the leading brand integration platform, Embed, consisting of on-demand web applications for measuring, managing and marketing more than $5 billion per year in product placement opportunities across the TV, film, music and video game industries.

Primary responsibilities:

• Routinely meet with existing and potential customers (ranging from brand marketers and advertising agencies to production companies and television networks) to gather high-level business requirements and translate into detailed market requirements and product definition documents
• Help develop and drive the end-to-end product roadmap for three succinct applications covering both the buying and selling components of product placement as well as NextMedium’s internal tool for managing inventory, transactions, and accounts
• Continually research and study the overall product placement space and television advertising industry, including technology landscape, leading tools (such as IAG, iTVX, Place*Views), business models, competition, and user roles and behaviors
• Using SCRUM agile development process, work side-by-side with executive and engineering teams to steer development resources and scheduling
• Define and execute corporate and product blog strategy – primary goal to position NextMedium as the thought-leaders in brand/product integration and placement

Senior Product Manager – Search Front-End

Ebay, Inc – San Jose, CA – November 2005 to March 2007

Primary Responsibilities:

• Partner with cross-functional team to create and execute new Tickets vertical search experience on eBay Core
• Own key business and product metrics and drive major improvement through eBay Stores and Tickets verticals
• Work closely with fellow product managers in defining eBay’s next generation search product roadmap
• Constantly serve as both an internal and external advocate for eBay search technologies
• Work closely with product managers, designers, developers, and analysts to document product requirements
• Understand and evangelize the needs of the eBay Tickets user community – apply these lessons to next generation search experience

Product Manager – Online Classifieds

Knight Ridder Digital – San Jose, CA – April 2004 to November 2005

Product Responsibilities:

• Project Catalyst (Phase I, II) – Knight Ridder’s core classified ad application for all 28 national markets. Manage classified ad mappings for reverse print (web to print) publication. Own business requirements around user submitted photos and workflow.
• Responsible for key vendor relationship for payment processing,and image uploading/hosting.
• Coordinating and authorizing payment and refund reconciliation via our call-center
• Determine purpose, goals, and constraints of projects and establish detailed product specifications
• Continuous Process Improvement – includes facilitation of a post-mortem immediately after a project is complete, aggregating input and communicating the results back to working team, operating team and executive sponsor(s)
• Manage usability testing sessions including setup, moderation and observation

Project Highlights:

• Driving mission-critical product initiatives around print-to-web classified category mappings across Knight Ridder’s 28 national markets
• HitBox – Project Managed the implementation and rollout of HitBox reporting and analytics for all markets – launched on time and on budget
• RSS Deployment – coordinated the implementation and rollout of RSS technology across Knight Ridder’s 28 national news sites – launched on time and on budget
• Have received numerous above and beyond awards

Technical Account Manager – Product Analyst – Product Manager

Travidia, Inc. – Chico, CA – April 2002 to April 2004

• Create all Interaction Designs / Schematics for Travidia’s next generation product line
• Write detailed Functional Requirements Documents
• Manage deployments of newly signed partners on Travidia’s Integrated Marketplace as well as post-deployment technical contact for these partners
• Conduct requirements and business process analysis as directed – coordinate with development team
• Create Market Requirements Documents and “mini-specs” for site deployments and redesigns
• Work closely with the CTO to prioritize and manage work load for the entire development department – project manage when appropriate
• Product Analyst and Technical Account Manager for all partner-related product development issues – accounts included Lowe’s, Petco and Fry’s

Interaction Designer – Usability Research

Propel Software Corporation – San Jose, CA – August 2000 to June 2001

• Managed usability testing and evaluation sessions – including moderating, observing, and authoring reports
• Experience with low-fi paper prototyping, working prototypes, task-based usability, and eye-tracking studies
• Tested and produced user interaction wire frames for Propel Human Resources workflow processes
• Edited and produced usability highlights reel showing actual users interacting with a variety of high profile e-commerce websites
• Created web graphics for Marketing, Product Management and Product Education groups
• Created detailed UI design schematics for Product Education and Propel Sales CDROMs
• Wrote scripts for and co-produced approximately 1.5 hours of video skits for Marketing, Sales and User-Centered Design groups

Technical Account Manager

Pandesic LLC – Folsom, CA – January 2000 to August 2000

• Internet lead and primary technical consultant during e-commerce system implementation and business process review meetings
• Advised and assisted Project Managers and Pandesic Account Managers to help identify and resolve complex business process related issues from a web applications perspective
• Provided technical support to partners implementing sites with the Pandesic E-Commerce Platform
• UI Design consultant for Pandesic corporate and e-business client business to consumer (B to C) sites
• Authored Knowledge Base articles and essays posted on the Pandesic Developer Support extranet
• Received numerous above and beyond awards

Front-End Web Developer

Matson and Isom Technology Consulting – Chico, CA – February 1999 to December 1999

• Designed, developed and implemented new web graphics and interaction designs
• Created, managed and maintained several client web sites
• Provided technical and consulting support to clients

Help Desk Support

The Lindeman Company – Chico, CA – January 1994 to January 1999

• Telephone technical support representative guiding end users through various software configuration problems, network problems and hardware problems
• Responsible for all aspects of The Lindeman Company’s web presence
• Designed, developed and implemented new web graphics and interaction designs for various clients

Conferences and Affiliations

• Pragmatic Marketing – Practical Product Management (PPM), Requirements That Work (RTW) – (April ‘05)
• Web Sites That Work – Designing With Your Eyes Wide Open – UIE, Jared Spool
• What is Design? – Users and Tasks, Conceptual Design, Interaction Design – Kevin Mullet
• Interviewed by – Candis Callison of ZDtv regarding a CSUC Internet project: Feed Alanna
• Member – Silicon Valley Product Management Association (SVPMA)

Education

Bachelor of Science, California State University, Chico – Chico, CA. – Fall 1999 Business Administration, Management Information Systems

Technical Skills

• Project / Issue Management – Lighthouseapp, Trac, Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, PVCS, Test Track Pro, MS Project, ClearQuest
• Source Control – Subversion
• Content Delivery Networks – Brightcove and Brightcove CMS
• Design & Development – Omnigraffle, Adobe Creative Suite, Visio, Dreamweaver MX, TextMate, Eclipse (w/ Radrails plugin), Adobe Lightroom
• Languages & Frameworks – XHTML, CSS – some SQL, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, script.aculo.us, YUI, Zend
• Analytics – Omniture, HitBox, OpenAds (formally PHPadsnew), Awstats, Google Analytics
• Operating Systems / Services – Mac OS X, Windows 3.x – Windows XP, DOS, IIS, some Linux
• Content Management Systems – WordPress, Drupal, TypePad/Moveable Type, ATG Publishing
• Office Productivity – Mac Office, MS Office Suite, Open Office 2, Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Social Media – Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Brightkite
• E-Commerce Platforms – Magento (both theming, and catalog management)