CH Robinson

Senior Manager Enterprise Product Management, March 2024-present

Enterprise Principle Product Manager, September 2023–March 2024

• Led strategy and consolidation of 8 Customer-facing applications supporting more than $150M AGP a month in brokerage, SaaS, and consulting business
• Managed executive level stakeholders across 5 disconnected business units representing 4 distinct sales models that all shared the same set of applications but sold them to serve different needs and personas into the same customers
• Led discovery and definition of our 2026 AI strategy for customer facing interactions, customer platform, and externalizing internal projects
• Restructured team based on team topology and domain ownership including creating a common strategic direction for the first time for $15M in product, engineering and UXR resources
• Successfully pitched and gained executive approval and completed implementation of 2 major initiatives including ramp of funding, full organizational change management, and decommissioning of legacy systems
• Implemented a simplification and modernization program that improved customer CX by 13% while saving $2M annually in unnecessary application costs

Forem

Head of Product, August 2022–July 2023

• Managed and improved the Forem platform for the DEV.to site with 14M average monthly views and 860K registered users, strategized and implemented improvements to increase membership and engagement growth
• Identified ideal customer profile and iterated the product to meet that market’s needs, found product market fit with adoption of 18 enterprise level clients and projected $500k ARR for 2022
• Established and scaled a product management and design team working tightly with Engineering.
• Defined and initiated product leveling guide to provide team members with clear career progression and achievement against expectations.
• Created product roadmap and product marketing process.
• Led collaborative workshops and strategy sessions across marketing, sales, product, community success, and leadership to define strategic goals, establish product market fit, and track progress.
• Broke down silos and started full company collaboration process across sales, community success, engineering, and product to align with company strategy and create department level goals for the first time in the company history

Hy-Vee HST

Sr. Product Owner, Catalog Management, August 2021-July 2022

Retail Operations Product Management

• Led a specially selected team of the highest performing engineers to rearchitect legacy systems, improve scalability, and demonstrate cross-organization application improvement within the most technically difficult and interdependent legacy applications in our existing systems.
• Built quality and predictability into existing systems without wholesale rewrite while maintaining system usability.
• Defined a long term product roadmap that marries business needs with tech debt pay down efforts.
• Redesigned end-to-end business critical process to reduce setup time from 22 weeks across 15 teams to 4 weeks across 3 teams.

Team Building and Mentorship

• Built and lead a series of educational seminaries to improve product management, team building, interpersonal and technical skills across the organization.
• Mentored fellow product owners and software developers interested in expanding their influence on business-driven decision making.
• Maintained and supported team morale within a team facing the hardest problems and largest technical debt while being leaders and an example to the rest of the organization.
• Aided business continuity discovery efforts, master data management evaluation, and systems level data mapping efforts.

Geonetric

Software Product Director, May 2018-August 2021

Technical Product Owner, January 2016-May 2018

Technical Product Strategist, September 2014-January 2016

Client-Facing Product Management

• Owned a product portfolio of B2B SaaS Enterprise grade HIPAA compliant CMS and digital marketing applications representing $2.5m in direct top line revenue and foundational software to support $9m of organizational revenue.
• Strategic roadmap development using a combination of user empathy tools such as problem interviews, business value mapping, long term technical architectural visioning, and competitive landscape analysis.
• Presented at webinars, in person seminars, and one-on-one with client to showcase new products, clarify the long-term vision of the products, and promote the company.
• Analyzed product opportunity costs, developed business cases, and collaborated with marketing and sales to define and test new market opportunities.
• Designed an iterative direct feedback process that increased client collaboration and improved client satisfaction with the product suite by 20%.
• Delivered enterprise grade product releases on time, in scope, and in budget within both single tenant and multi-tenant applications.
• Reduced tech debt backlog by over 70% while introducing new products and features, balancing business value, client need, and team constraints.
• Bridged the gap between technical and non-technical audiences by establishing common objectives, language, and understanding of problem statements.

Team Building and Management

• Rehired and managed four high performing teams totaling 21 IT, software development, and business analyst professionals including a complete replacement of the IT team.
• Retained key employees through proactive one-on-ones, team assignment, and flexible work arrangement.
• Established and mentored technical team leads for each team.  Defined a framework for separating business objectives from technical requirements.
• Spearheaded organization wide goals by working across departments to ensure company goal alignment.  Identified common goals with other department heads, mentored other product owners, and aided in the flow of communications.

Internal Process Improvement and DevOps

• Managed department financials including a $0.75m non-personnel IT budget.  Saved $1m in expenses annually by maintaining Microsoft Gold partnership.
• Oversaw complete redesign of our CI/CD pipeline.  Provided long term vision for other DevOps and efficiency tools.
• Trained customer-facing staff from other departments on troubleshooting, process management, and technology basics.
• Rebuilt failing relationship between Engineering and IT to identify and collaborate on shared goals.
• Oversaw HIPAA and PCI compliance efforts.

AdTrack

Director, Product Management, March 2010-September 2014

Marketing Project Coordinator, August 2008-March 2010

Marketing & Sales Support Coordinator, December 2006-August 2008

Client-Facing Product Management

• Drove the creation of customer acquisition and relationship management software solutions across all aspects of the business including finance, operations management, marketing, sales, vendor management, and customer service and through all phases of the software product lifecycle.
• Turned around product management efforts resulting in a 20% reduction in project lifecycle time and increased client satisfaction through clearer project budgets and goals upfront
• Established processes for developing business cases, detailed requirements, and prototypes.
• Deep market research into competitive landscape resulting in a business plan for a complete overhaul of our pricing strategy and product suite that was approved by the executive committee and resulted in retention of at risk clients
• Provided matrix management of software development staff including testing, development and training on all product offerings
• Established a new bulk email service with immediate client adoption of 6% of the client base in the first 120 days.

Internal Process Improvement and Project Management

• Reduced client onboarding time by 60% through new client implementation process.
• Improved inside sales efficiency through process improvement in request management statement of work procedures.

Marketing and Sales Enablement

• Provided product support to sales including product demonstration, custom solution pricing, client business problem mapping, and business analysis for sales prospects each representing $250,000 to $500,000 in annual revenue.
• Analyzed competitive offerings and pricing, recommended changes to product suite, developed vendor relationships, and coordinated work to drive projects forward.
• Designed and implemented solution-focused flat rate product pricing strategy that moved the organization from an ala carte cost-based model while maintaining gross margin.
• Created marketing communication pieces including company brochure, solution slicks, blog posts, white papers and case studies both as part of a communication strategy and on-demand for a specific prospect or business scenario including direct management of creative-based employees.

The Workplace Learning Connection

Special Projects Coordinator, September 2004-December 2006

• Implemented the organizations first marketing plan including a complete website redesign, bi-monthly e-newsletter of over 1600 subscribers, and introduced KPIs for tracking program success
• Grew volunteer engagement with programs and number of special projects we provided by over 150% through simple process improvements

Product Management

• Certified Scrum Product Owner
• Software product development lifecycle management (SDLC)
• Business analysis, customer and business needs assessment, and market research
• Client feedback and problem interviewing
• User stories and acceptance criteria
• Technical discussion facilitation
• Domain Driven Design (DDD)
• Product roadmaps and release schedules
• Documentation and user testing
• Product presentations and thought leadership
• OKRs, KPIs

Team Leadership

• Matrix and direct personnel management
• Team building and leadership
• Budgeting and departmental finances
• Hiring and performance improvement
• Executive team leadership

Technical Skills and Software

• Microsoft Excel, Word, Power Point, Publisher, Project, and Visio
• Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, In Design
• Axure wireframing and prototyping
• Figma
• Figjam, Miro online whiteboard and workshop space
• Deep non-developer understanding of SQL, C#, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Mysql, Git, SVN, and TeamCity
• Software troubleshooting and Test Driven Design (TDD)
• Azure DevOps, Jira, and Confluence
• Copilot, ChatGPT, AI strategy

• Transportation Management System (TMS)
• Real-time Transportation Visibility Platform (RTTVP)
• Community engagement platform
• Retail ERP support
• Retail Catalog integrated with Master Data Management system (MDM)
• Location creation tool for retail operations (component of an ERP)
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Form Building Application
• Website hosting as a product
• Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)
• Time Tracking and Billing system
• Data visualization and analytics
• B2B and B2C customer acquisition and relationship management (CRM)
• Single Sign on (SSO)
• Literature fulfillment and bulk warehouse ordering system

University of Iowa, Tippie School of Business

MBA, Iowa City, IA, 2012

Beta Gamma Sigma

Knox College

BA, Galesburg, IL, 2004

Creative Writing, Theatre Double Major

• Cedar Valley Montessori School Board, August 2022-2024
• Cedar Rapids Public Library, April 2013-present
• IAAF, Treasurer, January 2012-2015
• Corridor Business Journal Forty Under Forty, 2010
• Long Term Planning Commission, City of Cedar Rapids, 2010