Director of Product Management

• Sep 2019 - Present

Senior Product Manager

• Aug 2017 - Aug 2019

Product Lead for innovative digital experiences for our key users - students, teachers and parents. Responsible for managing the digital product portfolio for Scholastic International Education business with an annual revenue of US $9.2M.Managed digital product development in a fast-paced, agile environment, working closely with developers, designers and stakeholders to ensure successful product and feature launches. Successfully created and launched a smartboard-based application and a supplementary mobile app (both iOS and Android) for teachers and young students – adopted by 89 private schools and over 45k students in just 3 months of launch. Identified and executed ways to enhance user experience and engagement, created wireframes and workflows, defining user stories and acceptance criteria, conducted experiments, scheduled deployments and orchestrated user training. Guided, managed and communicated product priorities, product plans, roadmap, and overall product strategy to all stakeholders. Owned and managed feature backlog, user research and design, requirements elaboration and day-to-day product ownership.Captured customer needs, product scenarios, user stories, stakeholder feedback and made data-informed decisions to create new and improved existing products and features. Conducted innovation strategy sessions with the customer using design thinking methodology and toolsets.Interface with the rest of the technology organization to understand opportunities, requirements and priorities to ensure the right focus of the teamManaged a global product team consisting of junior product managers, technology/engineering, UX and visual designers, animators, content writers, editors and audio-visual production teams.

Product Manager

• Aug 2014 - Jul 2017

Drove digital transformation of all web properties from legacy CMS (Drupal) to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) globally, directly supporting the Australia, Asia and EMEA LA businesses, resulting in reduction of the annual maintenance costs by almost 32%.Launched an online tool for educators to allow them to curate their own booklists and send them straight to order for the EMEA/LA market, resulting in 65% increase in online transactions, and 132% increase in average session time on site.Defined business objectives, documented requirements, managed priorities and product roadmap, tracked risks & issues, and managed communications on all project updates.Built global content / commerce platforms with internationalization and localization features that connect to other digital applications and ERP systems.Effectively monitored KPIs and improved funnels by using tools like Google Analytics and Omniture, optimizing product features to improve conversion rates.Responsible for all aspects of Scholastic International's digital products and innovation - including requirement gathering, defining the customer experience (UX), defining scope and prioritising features and user stories, managing product development and delivery, and analysing and monitoring product performance based on analytics. Deployed various highly localized initiatives to promote product launches, build communities, to engage with visitors through multi-channel touch points with a consistent brand experience. Created clear and attainable product objectives, defined, developed and executed product vision, roadmap and features, managing time and quality issues successfully.Defined and built analytics dashboards that provide visibility on how the various products are faring with the customers to the top management.Research and constantly innovate new ways to provide customer delight through breakthrough features that address the user needs and makes their lives better.

Digital Strategist

• Nov 2012 - Jul 2014

Launched and managed the digital presence of all Scholastic Asia markets, including Malaysia, India and China, resulting in 160% increase in online users, and 214% increase in online transactions in one year.Drove business requirements across regions, defining core online customer segments and proposed and executed recommendations.Created, prioritized and executed comprehensive project plans defining goals, deliverables, resource plans, and schedules and regularly communicated them to the business stakeholders.Defined requirements and collaborated with design resources to create interactive wireframes and visual designs in order to guide engineering effort. Collaborated with the engineering team by clearly documenting user stories and acceptance criteria to execute and develop features that maximize customer usability and goals.Analysed customer patterns and provided recommendations for improvements and optimization.

Team Lead / Senior System Analyst

• Sep 2008 - Oct 2011

Led the Research and Development process for a for a windows based application using WPF and ASP.NET with C#. Designed and developed merchandizing and space optimiazation modules for the retail space. Collaborated with other members of the software team to define user flows and journey, and execute them by developing and integrating modules. Developed software solutions by studying information needs; conferring with users; investigating problem areas; and following the software development lifecycle. Defined and documented functional and non-functional requirements and coordinating with the business as well as the software teams. Instrumental in all phases of the product development from its inception to its pilot release. Identified key differentiators and USP for the product, and arranged and presented product pilots and demos for clients like Wal-Mart, Boots, single-handedly. Extensively worked with the marketing team and the product management team to develop collaterals such as brochures, client presentations and white papers. Spearheaded the mentoring and training process for the new members joining the team, and assumed responsibility of an interface between the senior management and the team. Professional Achievements: • Awarded the “Excellence Award” for the year 2010-2011 for invaluable contribution to the team and the product “OPTISPACE”. • Awarded “Employee of the Quarter” for designing the module “Merchandizing Matrix” for the quarter Jul’10 – Sep’10