U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
Vice President, Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Washington, DC
2015-Present
Primarily responsible for the launch of the new Real Estate vertical, including the flagship Best Places to Live product. Post-launch, focus was on rapid testing of new product concepts and ideas, including an automated platform to assemble auto incentives and deals in realtime, a single-view of all car reviews across the Internet, a NLP-based analysis of Twitter feeds, data visualization in realtime leveraging relationships between arbitrary datasets, automatic generation of infographics based on user-created templates, an overhaul of the search infrastructure (to Elastic) and about 200 gigabytes of other data products.
GANNETT
Senior Director, Product Development
Tysons Corner, VA
2013-2015
Ran product development and engineering for a flash-sale and realtime deals site at Gannett, and launched a test of a full subscription-based publication called NowU, going from plan to live, public launch in four months.
PITNEY BOWES
Senior Director, Product Development - Volly
Stamford, CT
2012-2013
Focused on a new consumer service called Volly. Volly will be a secure digital mailbox for all bills, statements and notices.
LIQUIDITY SERVICES, INC.
Senior Director, Product Development/B2C
Washington, DC
2009-2012
$400M international company (US, UK, and Canada) providing reverse logistics and asset recovery services, involving selling end-of-life, scrap, and salvage for government and commercial entities to B2B and B2C clients.
Following LSI's acquisition of Dyscern (to add B2C functionality), tasked with integrating both companies' systems, tools, and processes. Consolidated systems and directed operations for B2C side of the eCommerce business for the ARD Division. In January 2011, handpicked to drive product strategy and development (front and backend) company-wide, across four divisions and eight brands. Oversaw the design and implementation of an indexed corporate-wide product catalog for all business units.
- Generated 10% increase in sell-through for fixed-price business by specifying and building an automated pricing feature that correctly prices items according to current market conditions.
- Grew business post-acquisition to $15M run rate at an average 40% gross margin.
- Hired and expanded internal product team to grow B2C sales to exceed $1M per month
- Currently supervise six product and project managers in the execution of product development company-wide.
- Created first mobile applications for GovDeals Division, with 2011 deployment to other divisions.
- Led implementation of SalesForce integration across multiple instances, producing a joint CRM system.
DYSCERN LLC
Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder
Sterling, VA
2004-2009
$9.3M B2C eCommerce company, repairing and selling refurbished customer-returned electronics on own website and through partnerships with eBay, Amazon, Buy.com, uBid, and Overstock.com. Acquired by Liquidity Services, Inc..
Strategized, initiated, and built Dyscern from a basement reverse logistics and eCommerce startup to a warehouse-based multichannel retailing organization. Oversaw day-to-day operation of the company and product development. Created and implemented sourcing strategy, working with major electronics retailers in the US and Europe to bring in post-sale goods for refurbishment and resale. Defined requirements and implemented systems to monitor and measure sales, average prices, and pricing trends. Developed predictive model for high-risk customers to enable business to target customers needing less support. Earned ranking among Inc. 500 companies in 2007 and 2008.
- Implemented multichannel eCommerce strategy that grew annual sales from $500K to $9M in four years.
- Directed transition from home-based operation to 10,000 sq. ft. facility employing 25 people; built remote customer service operation from scratch, with employees in Jackson, MI and Lahore, Pakistan.
- Established strategies that enabled Dyscern to maintain a 15% pricing premium within its verticals.
- Launched Tradeups as a 50/50 joint venture with Marketvelocity to recycle consumer electronics.
- Led spinoff (Cagic LLC) to build a premium digital frame, with English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese versions, working daily with teams in China and Taiwan on design, manufacturing, and packaging, including onsite work in Asia.
AMERICA ONLINE (AOL)
Dulles, VA
1998-2004
Fast-tracked with AOL, earning three promotions in six years. Demonstrated versatility by excelling in manager and director positions within community, search, product, news, and member services areas.
Executive Director, Personalization (December 2002 - March 2004)
Led research project to conceptualize and develop a platform to intuitively personalize each member's experience based on individual interests and profile.
- Deployed test systems which could classify and analyze multiple-terabyte log files daily to glean usage patterns and interests across more than 20M subscribers, worldwide.
Director, Organizer Products (April 2002 - November 2002)
Handpicked, due to accelerated launch cycle, to build team from scratch and oversee development and deployment of Alerts, and Reminders in 126 days, as part of AOL 8.0 launch. At peak, supervised 110 people in Ireland, California, and Virginia.
- Outperformed already aggressive target by completing product development in 63 days.
- Acquired 2M new users within 60 days and 5M within four months of Alerts and Reminders deployment.
- Implemented business plan for deriving partner revenue from AOL Alerts and Reminders product.
Director, Channel Product Management (December 2001 - April 2002)
Planned and started implementation of a system to handle dynamic content on the AOL service; system was deployed in late 2002.
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Designed new publishing system for AOL local properties to allow for complete editorial control of the look and feel of particular page templates.
Director, Local Product Development (January 2001 - November 2001)
Led first concept of targeting ads based on geography (Town Pages product) and laid foundation to start localization by zip code on home page, giving search the knowledge of where you are, every time you executed a search.
- Re-conceptualized, developed, and launched new local search application, which was innovative in 2001.
Director, Core Products (June 2000 - January 2001)
Launched the next-generation personalization product, My AOL, to increase member adoption rate. Planned and launched redesign of AOL.com, placing greater emphasis on features and providing, for the first time, a unified sign-on experience outside the AOL client.
- Initiatives increased successful registrations from 35% to 65%.
- Planned and launched Newsletter 1.0 product, which centralized newsletter distribution across AOL. Product successfully registered 500K new users in less than three months.
Acting Director, Community (November 1999 - June 2000)
Managed operations of all community products, including Chat, Message Boards, and Hometown. Developed and deployed the Community Center concept, which centralized community applications by topic for easy access by members.
- Planned and launched the Groups@AOL product which grew to 100K groups within first four months.
Senior Product Manager, Aol Search (March 1999 - November 1999)
Conceptualized and built AOL's first homegrown Web search product within six months. Initiated and deployed Recommended Sites product, which provided targeted search results listings programmed by an editorial team.
- Increased search volume by 25% and search revenue in one year from $15M to $60M by implementing a targeted search inventory system that was tightly integrated with AOL's ad sales organization.
- Recommended Sites product increased targeted clickthrough rate from 3% to 19% upon deployment.
Product Manager, My News (January 1998 - February 1999)
Led bicoastal matrixed team in Dulles, VA and San Mateo, CA in creating My News, an automated news and personalization product for use on AOL.com. Established requirements, set goals, and delivered product from start to finish.
- Led product from launch through its first 2M members in six months.
- In less than two hours, put the first fully indexed and searchable copy of the Starr Report on the Internet.
- Team won company award for delivering project on time while working on opposite sides of the country.
WASHINGTONPOST.NEWSWEEK INTERACTIVE
Online Producer/Mad Scientist, washingtonpost.com, ElectionLine and Digital Ink
Arlington, VA
1995-1997
Examined new ways of integrating existing information and content on the site. Performed "utility in-fielding" for projects, involving organizing, formatting, and uploading large quantities of content. Created two dozen databases.
- Deployed World Reference, the first comprehensive international reference section in the online world. A later generation of the effort is still available on Washingtonpost.com.
- Launched, in real time, the first comprehensive background and profile package on the Heaven's Gate mass suicide, within 12 hours of the story breaking.
- Implemented "autolinking" where related material is automatically linked to stories.
- Conceptualized, developed, and launched Weatherpost, the first weather forecasting site on Washingtonpost.com.
- Built and launched the first Business Section of the online edition of The Washington Post.