Quality Assurance Management

Sam Somashekar

Westport, CT ***** . 917-***-**** . ***@**************.*** .

linkedin.com/in/samsomashekar

SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE

Talented executive with more than 15 years of success in enterprise

software

product management, business development, marketing, and market research.

Professional Experience

COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, INC. (CA), Islandia, NY 1994 -

Present

One of the largest global IT management software providers serving 98% of

Fortune 1000 companies, government entities, educational institutions, and

companies in diverse industries, worldwide.

Senior Director, Product Management (2007 - Present) - Charged with

creating and managing global product strategy for key market trends to

unify and integrate corporate, business unit, and M&A strategies. Areas of

focus include Cloud Computing, Data Center Automation, Service Automation,

and Green IT. Created well-received presentations for key industry

analysts, executive management, and board of directors. Briefed media;

generated thought leadership content and sales tools.

Director, Product Management (2005 - 2007) - Created and led company's

first product management team for Integration Platform Services Division.

Charged with applying standards across the company's product portfolio and

accelerating integration and interoperability of products to promote

creation of larger business solutions. Product portfolio included portal

and business intelligence, service-oriented architecture, management

database, reporting, workflow, and mainframe common services. Instrumental

in developing and managing products for embedding in CA's products that

generate $2 billion. Served as key product contact for sales staff, helping

to close contracts contributing to $2 million in revenue.

. Influenced global product strategy to focus on Cloud Computing and

Virtualization by assessing market needs, evaluating competitors, and

formulating revenue projections. Led market research project on Cloud

Computing, establishing market strategy options. Updated product

roadmaps for FY10 - FY13 with innovative new products.

. Conducted M&A due diligence that led to successful acquisitions

of privately held companies valued at more than $350 million. Analyzed

target customer lists and potential for cross-sell opportunities.

Created well-received presentations for executive management.

. Increased product distribution 10%, accelerated products' time-

to-market, improved requirements management, and ensured products met

customer needs by developing and implementing industry-standard product

development methodologies, providing evangelism, and driving both

business and technical strategy and vision.

. Generated additional revenue and number of contracts won by

championing business case for investment in common reporting technology

for all CA products; managed eight-member team involved in proof-of-

concept for Open Source reporting technology. Played role in business

development and contract negotiations with prospective third-party

vendors. Contract was negotiated with Business Objects.

. Released several multiple-domain products, on-time and within

budget, by effectively collaborating with support, development,

localization, quality assurance, and documentation teams to make

project-specific decisions.

. Increased quality and expectations of generally available

product versions 35% by spearheading formation of new Beta program

structure for embedded products.

. Improved vendor support by cultivating relationships with OEM

vendors and participating in build vs. buy vs. partner decisions;

played critical role in renewal of OEM contract with major search

vendor.

SAM SOMASHEKAR 917-***-**** Page 2/3

Professional Experience continued

COMPUTER ASSOCIATES continued

. Updated positioning for embedded products as part of a total

business solution and established clear and relevant product marketing

strategies through market segmentation analysis, creation of internal

and external positioning statements, development of product messaging,

collaboration with marketing teams in other business units, and

management of accurate and informative internal/external website

content.

. Enabled accurate understanding of stakeholder requirements and

validation of products by creating product stakeholder forums for

roadmap development; meetings enabled discussion of ideas, trends, and

issues, and feedback collection and delivery of product information.

Senior Product Manager: Ingres DBMS Product Management Team (2004 - 2005) -

Brought extensive software engineering experience to strategic and tactical

management of product. Served as primary product contact for sales and

provided key technical expertise to development, quality assurance, and

support teams, ensuring new features were properly tested and added, and

software defects corrected. Collaborated with other divisions on technical,

market, and business decisions.

. Authored Ingres DBMS business plan and roadmap; utilized competitive

analysis to identify and architect key features for future product

versions.

. Accelerated advancement of Ingres DBMS product by redefining

partner programs to support Ingres DBMS as an Open Source product and

creating the Ingres Strategic Partner Development Program that

identified and attracted over 20 selective partners in key growth

areas. Led technical account management, enabling partners to increase

revenue.

. Managed release of first Open Source version of Ingres on

Windows; directed global virtual engineering team and coordinated cross-

functional groups. Platform represented 55.3% of total source and

binary downloads for Ingres r3 in 2004.

. Developed new contract templates with technology services and

legal counsel used for binding contracts with clients and partners for

extra technical services.

. Increased market recognition for product and positioned CA as a

thought leader by participating in industry events, authoring white

papers, presenting to current and prospective partners and clients, and

nurturing long-term relationships; generated more than 200 leads

through tradeshow planning and coordination.

. Played key role in repositioning Ingres DBMS as an Open Source

product and launching Ingres as a new company by assisting with

marketing strategy development; completed special assignment to co-

design content for external website that became a key marketing and

customer support tool for new company.

Software Development Leader (2001 - 2004)/Senior Software Development

Engineer (1996 - 2001) - Responsible for Ingres DBMS development and

support projects, and Windows platform releases. Participated in product

planning meetings, architected and staffed demos for conferences, and

created and delivered training to support teams. Promoted to lead team

responsible for Ingres DBMS product development on Windows, UNIX, and Linux

platforms; managed and coordinated full lifecycle of software development

projects through three major release cycles.

. Drove revenue and earned high customer acceptance through

successful release of two major product versions; reduced software

defects 35% by improving packaging procedures. Fixed 275 software

defects and implemented 20+ product enhancements.

. Generated $20 million by prototyping and developing key tool

for first production version of new software product.

. Released several well-received products, on-time and within

budget, by effectively collaborating with support, development,

localization, quality assurance, and documentation teams to make

project-specific decisions.

. Decreased software defects and increased team skills by

mentoring team members and promoting professional development; mentored

members of other global teams.

. Lowered number of product support issues and increased

implementations at customer sites by working with business unit

stakeholders on better product integration.

. Improved alignment of product with Microsoft standards and

delivered an easier embeddable interface by architecting a new install

method on Windows platform.

. Improved client product implementations 30% by delivering

improvements based on performance analyses.

Education & Certification

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, New York, NY

Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, Biology

PRAGMATIC MARKETING, INC.

PMC Certification

SAM SOMASHEKAR 917-***-**** Page 3/3

Technical Skills

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Various Microsoft Windows platforms (32/64-bit, Intel/AMD64/Itanium)

HP-UX (32/64-bit, PA-RISC/Itanium), Solaris (SPARC/SPARC64/AMD64)

Linux (32/64-bit, Red Hat/SUSE, Intel/AMD64/Itanium)

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES & STYLES

C, C++, FORTRAN, COBOL (cross-platform), HTTP, Java, C#, SQL

Windows batch, UNIX shell (bash, sh, csh, tcsh)

Client/Server, Multi-threaded, Network Programming

APPLICATIONS & DATABASES

Ingres, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft Office, Project, FrontPage, Visual Studio; Niku Clarity

IBM Rational Purify, Quantify; Various HP-UX, Solaris, Linux code debuggers

Industry Leadership

Board Member, AFCOM Data Center Institute (2008 - Present) - AFCOM's Data

Center Institute (DCI) is a prestigious "think tank" composed of

experienced data center managers, industry leaders, and solution providers

who examine issues and trends affecting data center operations. The group's

charter is to provide thought leadership and direction for the industry

about data center related matters.

. Skilled at identifying next-generation products and targeted markets,

communicating with all stakeholders to determine business requirements,

and driving them through development and launch.

. Strong record of ensuring product success by collaborating with both

internal and external customers across divisions to provide proactive

product feedback to development.

. Successful in establishing, developing, and motivating high-

performing teams, providing product vision, and delivering the best value

to customers.

. Strong influencing, problem-solving, consensus-building, and

facilitation abilities in working with diverse stakeholders.

Possess key deliverables in:

. Market Strategy Development

. New Product Development

. Product Positioning & Launch

. Product Lifecycle Management

. Strategic Partnerships

. Market Analysis & Segmentation

. Team Management & Development

. Relationship Management

. Development Methodology

. Requirements Definition

Contact this candidate