Leo Gassel

*** ********* **.

Cary, NC *****

919-***-****

ad4qnx@r.postjobfree.com

Objective

Seasoned Product Owner with a proven track record of driving product vision, strategy, and execution in fast-paced environments. Leveraging extensive experience in Agile methodologies and cross-functional collaboration, I aim to contribute strategic insights and leadership to the Product management team to enhance product development processes and drive measurable business impact. Seeking a challenging opportunity to apply my expertise in delivering innovative solutions and maximizing customer value.

SKILLS

Product Vision and Agile Leadership:

●Demonstrated ability to set and communicate a clear product vision, guiding teams towards successful outcomes.

●Mentorship in Agile methodologies, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration.

Roadmapping and Stakeholder Communication:

●Skillful in gathering and analyzing feature requests and bugs, translating them into achievable roadmaps and milestones.

●Effective communication of progress and priority changes across cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

Tools Proficiency:

●Expertise in Jira for agile project management, including boards, planning, grooming, and user story refinement.

●Proficient in ServiceNow, Odyssey, Documentation/Confluence, Miro, Figma, Slack, Zoom, and Azure DevOps for efficient product development and collaboration.

Agile Methodologies and Certifications:

●Proficient in Agile methodologies and SDLC, with certification as both Scrum Master and Product Owner.

●Experienced in SaaS product development, driving product success through iterative development and customer feedback loops (CI/CD)

ERPs, Reporting, and Statistical Software:

●Experience with ERPs such as SAP BW/BusinessObjects, and reporting tools like Tableau, SQL, QlikView, Microsoft office and Google Analytics for data-driven insights.

●Proficiency in statistical software including R and Bi Objects for advanced analytics and modeling.

Financial and Analytical Skills:

●Proficient in financial analysis, statistics, quantitative modeling, and mathematical reasoning to drive product success.

●Utilize analytical skills to assess product performance and make data-driven decisions.

●SWOT, GAP, Marketing, Requirements, Risk, and Business Analysis

Financial and Analytical Skills:

●Proficient in financial analysis, statistics, quantitative modeling, and mathematical reasoning to drive product success.

●Utilize analytical skills to assess product performance and make data-driven decisions.

●Deep understanding of industry regulations including ERISA, SEC, and Dodd Frank, ensuring compliance and risk mitigation.

●Extensive knowledge of financial instruments, trade practices, and retirement plans including 401k/403b/TEM plans, 529, and IRAs.

EDUCATION

North Carolina State, Raleigh, NC — MBA

August 2011- May 2013

Master’s in Business Administration in Finance/Accounting

3.85 GPA

Jenkins Graduate School of Management

EXPERIENCE

ImageQuix, Raleigh - Product Owner

May 2023-Now

As a seasoned Product Owner at ImageQuix, I have played a pivotal role in shaping and delivering innovative products and features to both internal and external users. With keen focus on enhancing user experience, I worked and led cross functional teams to ensure timely delivery. I was an active participant in Development Life Cycle (SDLC) projects, showcasing a comprehensive understanding of project management implementation and release processes within the SaaS environment. Led production and release support of new features for ecommerce and desktop applications

Responsibilities:

●Developed, structured, and conveyed product visions, roadmaps, and strategies to align with organizational goals.

●Offered comprehensive training and mentorship to both seasoned and emerging agile teams, fostering continuous improvement and cohesion.

●Fostered close collaboration with diverse stakeholders including executives, support, marketing, engineers, designers, and third-party vendors, to alligin platform infrastructure capabilities across multiple projects

●Orchestrated the thorough breakdown of project requirements into actionable features, epics, and user stories, accompanied by precise acceptance criteria and rigorous unit testing.

●Maintained ongoing communication with engineers, designers, QA, executive leadership, and architects to ensure alignment and progress.

●Oversaw multiple backlogs for two engineering teams, encompassing triage, bug resolution, new feature integration, infrastructure enhancements, and customer support tasks.

●Managed triage backlog, addressed customer issues and defects in coordination with internal support and marketing teams

●Tracked and analyzed Agile Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as burn down rates and velocity, facilitating informed decision-making by sprint and quarter.

●Provided regular project updates to stakeholders and marketing executives on a weekly basis, ensuring transparency and alignment.

●Spearheaded an internal project aimed at developing a customer support tool to streamline development processes and minimize turnaround time.

●Facilitated bi-weekly Agile ceremonies including backlog refinement, sprint planning, and retrospective sessions, fostering team collaboration and efficiency.

●Collaborated closely with internal stakeholders to prioritize backlogs for both engineering teams, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and customer needs.

●Managed the release process from planning to execution, including comprehensive documentation and communication of release notes to relevant stakeholders.

Accomplishments

I have a proven track record of accomplishments that have significantly enhanced operational efficiency and customer experience.

●Team and I successfully implemented the Stripe payment system, providing end users with greater flexibility and budgeting options for product purchases (API Integration)

●Additionally, executed the integration of dynamic tax calculation functionalities tailored for both US and Canadian markets, empowering customers to accurately assess and report their tax liabilities. Recognizing the critical role of communication in business

●I elevated the efficiency of SMS/email marketing and communication channels by transitioning to a more effective service provider (Twilio - cloud communication API integration)

●Furthermore, I played a pivotal role in enhancing internal processes by designing and deploying a cutting-edge customer management tool, streamlining workflows and facilitating seamless internal collaboration.

My strategic contributions reflect a commitment to innovation and excellence in driving operational success.

Gravity9, UK – Sr. Product Owner/Manager

February 2022 - April 2023

As a PO working in Agile project management for a software development company, responsible for defining a product vision and roadmaps, by collaborating with client stakeholders, internal engineering, and UI/UX teams. Understanding business requirements and crafting roadmaps to MVP via prioritization of features and visualizing technical and cross stream dependencies. Breaking down the work into features, epics and user stories with clearly defined acceptance criteria and unit testing. Simultaneously working on multiple projects that were in flight, such as redesigning an application process for a real estate firm, as well as lead development product launch strategy for a software tool that monitors client’s databases for highest standards. Identify a clear path to MVP. Redesigned CRM application for a client. Developed enhancements to make a rental application process faster without overwhelming the underwriting capacity while collecting important insights for marketing and leasing purposes.

Other Responsibilities:

●Identified clear path to MVP (roadmap) and future milestones

●Created product backlogs to be clear and concise for stakeholders, developer teams, and testers (QA)

●Lead agile ceremonies (stand up, refinement, sprint planning, retrospectives, demos etc...)

●Worked closely with QA team to perform user testing of acceptance criteria, functionalities (DoD)

●Lead cross functional discussions to identify release and other stream dependencies

●Worked closely with clients/stakeholders on progress report and new features updates

●Performed marketing/competitors, GAP, Competition and ROI analysis for new projects

Accomplishments

Throughout the 3-week discovery phase, our team effectively outlined a roadmap to Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for AI-driven call center applications. We not only presented compelling features and designs to the client but also identified challenges and provided clear pathways and timeframes for overcoming them. Additionally, we delivered comprehensive ROI analysis, competitor assessments, and speed-to-market evaluations. Collaborating closely with the lead engineer, we developed detailed technical documentation. Furthermore, we spearheaded innovative ideas for the Minimum Marketable Viable Product (mMVP) and meticulously crafted the roadmap to MVP and client beta testing. This involved creating a robust backlog for the development team to ensure efficient progress..

Charles Schwab, Raleigh, NC – Product Owner (software development)

March 2020 – February 2022

As a PO, responsible for long/short term planning, defining scope, and prioritizing features. Actively participate in daily scrum calls to make sure the team has all the requirements to proceed with their work. In addition, prior to each quarterly planning, work with all the stakeholders and business partners to identify upstream and downstream dependencies. Helping UI/UX teams with UAT testing and problem solving, as well as collaborating with Architects to identify elegant and timely solutions.

Other Responsibilities:

●Translated product vision into specific results, and ensure success in execution and attention to detail by effectively managing the product

●Identified and partner on process improvements which enhance our B2B user experience

●Proven track record of exceptional product management skills, experienced with back-end API product development, UX/UI development, and ability to synthesize data into insights and actions

●Agile Scrum framework: managed, developed, and prioritized backlog

●Worked across various domains, functions, and groups

●Presented to Intake process to determine priorities and dependencies in front of architects and senior leadership

Accomplishments

Successfully planned and delivered fully redesigned end to end project for performance calculations on Schawb.com. The project was broken down into 4 major millstones. Four back-end teams were involved in the process of re-designing the performance page and shifting all services from a 3rd party vendor to inhouse calculations

OTHER EXPERIENCE

Credit Suisse, Raleigh, NC — Business Analist (Scrum Master)

March 2017 - April 2020

Work with QA/DEV/BA experience:

Collected business regulatory requirements from finance change (client) for new Calculation that impacted multiple reporting applications, workflow, data flow, entitlements. Documented functional requirements and converted into business requirements for the development team.

Worked directly with the Developer team to discuss implementation, dependencies, and to design best IT solutions

Additional responsibilities

●Backlog management and prioritization with respect to business needs and technical capacity of developers and QA teams (Agile methodology)

●Provided functional requirements in form of Epics/stories, assigned tasks using JIRAs, created test cases for QA to test (UAT/regression).

●Updated acceptance criteria agreed with feedback from business. Lead end to end solution delivery and performance, driving the delivery with stakeholders and project teams.

●Worked closely with lead developers, product owners, and PMs to ensure on time delivery with minimum defects/bugs.

●Identified future dependencies and provided elegant IT solutions.

●Converted Functional requirements into business requirements (BRD documentation)

Accomplishments

Part of the process improvement initiative redesigned the entire existing process to better meet financial goals and requirements for a fast paced and ambiguous environment. The new process allowed for a significantly more accurate forecast, as a result 2019 year-end actuals were closely aligned with forecasted financials. The new process incorporated statistical analysis of collected data, Identification of patterns and correlations between various KPIs, monthly reviews, close collaboration with business partners, sr. management, projects managers, and hiring managers globally.

Additional Accomplishments

Acted as Scrum Master for Risk based P&L team (Americas), successfully delivered all user stories by the end of each sprint. Provided live support for each release, including additional QA testing, to assure no production issues are registered.

Fidelity Investments, RTP — Capacity and Planning Analyst/Retirement Consultant

(Former Investment Consultant and trader)

September 2007 - February 2017

Provided support to Tax Exempt products (403b/401a) by running tactical and strategic forecast analysis to assist with hiring and training decisions of personnel. Overlooked a group of over 300 employees, which included, but not limited to detailed monthly/weekly analyses of employee movements among departments, attrition, and individual metrics/performance. Made recommendations to the business on staffing needs as business needs evolved and changed in real time. Provided detailed and high-level analysis on all KPIs to assist directors with long- and short-term decisions. In addition, worked as investment consultant (w/series 7, 63,66). Provided exceptional customer service, while making all deadlines and hitting targeted goals. Deep knowledge of all investment products and instruments and plans, such as 401k, 403b, 401a, pensions, retirement brokerage services, stock plan services, 529, and individual retirement/non-retirement accounts.

EDUCATION Cont.

North Carolina State, Raleigh, NC — Business Administration

August 2003 - May 2007

Bachelor of Science in Business Management in Finance/Accounting

PROJECTS

Project Name — Dynamic Tax, Twellio, Customer manager, E-commerce integration: Successful implementation.

Project Name — Productivity Assessment (Global)

Designed metrics, and calculated KPIs. Provided training to PMs, PMOs, VPs, and functional leads. Collected data and produced quarterly KPIs to show productivity trends, achievements, and opportunities. Documented the process, collected quarterly results and feedback from the leads, presented improvement strategies, and measured increase/decrease in productivity and efficiency.

Project Name — Portfolio Health (Performance Reporting)

PO for team Predators, designed and enhanced APIs for position/account/portfolio cash flows and time weighed returns. Data conversion from 3rd party to in house management, to achieve full scalability to count for future customer growth. The project will provide a total annual cost saving of $100M per year to the firm.

Project Name — FRTB (Global)

Lead BA (Americas) - Worked as part of a small team. The objective was to analyze an impact for implementation of Fundamental Review for Trading Book and product control applications

across IT

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