Product Strategy, Development, Marketing, and Management

Stephen Blankenship

SF Bay Area, CA • 408-***-**** • *******.***********@*****.***

Product Management Executive & Go-to-Market Product Strategist with 15+ years of experience driving product development and strategy solutions for enterprise software firms. Track record of transforming software companies’ product strategies and lifecycles from initial development to user support. Adept at spearheading full scale product process and aggressive marketing strategies. Cultivated partnerships with global Fortune 500 corporations and worked closely with partners, VCs and analysts. Strong awareness of interconnectivity between product and operational goals. Early experience in IT and engineering.

SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND SPECIALTIES

• Product Strategies: Conceptualized and led development of the entire family of enterprise software products at 3 businesses, which boosted company revenue up to >3.5X within 4 years. Transformed the product lines from desktop to the cloud. Won several U.S. patents.

• Product Development: Formed the comprehensive technology strategies at all 3 companies. Developed the architectures, made them scalable, and optimized them for database technologies, SaaS, and PaaS. Created and directed the product development, testing, and launch processes; shortened development times >67% by combining Agile and Waterfall in unique ways.

• Relationship Development: Built companies’ partnerships from scratch, and developed them into >40% of total revenue. Built an enterprise software company’s business development channels; exceeded requests >50%. Developed partnerships with Fortune 500 firms in the finance, transportation, consumer electronics, software, telecom, and food & beverage industries.

• Marketing: Built and led the product marketing functions at all 3 companies. Formed and directed the product marketing strategies from end to end, including branding, social media, events, and PR.

• Communication: Provided one of the main public faces for all 3 companies’ products. Described products’ value to VCs and analysts, and evangelized them in many markets via webinars, videos, and blogs. Product Line Strategies • Product Development • Product Branding • Product Marketing • P&L • Industry Trends Enterprise Software • B2B • B2C • Content Management • SaaS • PaaS • Cloud Technologies • Networking User Relations • Product Evangelizing • Investor Relations • Channel Marketing Strategic Partnerships • M&As • Team Building

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Sherpa Digital Media, Redwood City, CA

Vice President, Product & Engineering (2018–2019)

Played leading part in boosting revenue >35% and increasing the number of logos 80% at company that provides a data- driven video platform and several services for enterprises; formed and directed the first strategic vision for the creation and marketing of products. Released new industry-leading features (e.g. Simulive, Re-broadcast), deemed by analysts as highly user friendly.

Developed and launched Sherpa’s first strategic vision for product development and marketing strategy, including full-scale campaigns, brand optimization and target marketing efforts.

Skyrocketed customers/logos by 80% and revenue 35+% after working with sales, sales engineering and analyst teams to establish channel partnerships, drive market awareness and amplify Sherpa name.

More than doubled quarterly release volume by creating Agile-based development process, boosting QA coverage and code reviews, and shuffling DevOps team.

Grew partners by 200% through new relationships and participation in trade shows and industry events.

Connected engineering groups, sales teams, customers and partners by developing feedback loops throughout the product lifecycle.

Migrated product architecture to Modern Player technology. Recruited top talent in marketing, sales and engineering. Served as frequent speaker, most recently in webinar “Resetting Expectations on Enterprise Content Security & Compliance” (March 2019).

RAMP, Boston, MA

Vice President, Product & Operations (2015–2018)

Joined struggling enterprise software company, and boosted revenue >100% by leading the conception, development, and marketing of all 3 new product lines. Transformed the business from applications to content delivery.

More than doubled revenue by driving product development lifecycle for three new product lines from concept and architecture to marketing and branding.

Pursued and landed Ramp’s first Fortune 50 logos.

Built the business development channel into 45% of Ramp’s revenue and exceeded requests 50+% by outsourcing messaging and recruiting high impact marketing staff.

Cultivated business in Europe from scratch by working with channel partner and fostering new customers.

Launched Ramp’s first beach head in Europe by working with analysts and targeting potential partnerships.

Won deal with EU Parliament by adapting video software translation into 30+ languages, outperforming competitors.

Avoided loss in revenue by forecasting demise of existing product line and offloading business.

Developed and led the marketing strategies. Analyzed competitors and industry trends, formed the market vision, and identified the target markets. Managed the marketing campaigns, including social media, events, channel development, and tradeshows. Spoke at industry events, formed customer councils, and worked with PR firms.

Kontiki, Inc., Mountain View, CA

Vice President, Product Management (2012–2015)

Led Kontiki’s entire product portfolio including development, marketing and partner relations. Built engineering team and recruited and hired CTO. Developed the QA and release processes from the ground up. Invented Media Center from scratch and created the industry’s standard for web-based video (one of the industry’s first products to integrate with SharePoint). Won two U.S. patents.

Piloted marketing including branding, campaign management, social media, events and organization of the first customer council and user group meetings. Developed marketing channels from the ground up, including Fortune 500 companies. Built partner marketing function, onboarded 10 partners and leveraged relationships to expand Kontiki into Asia.

Boosted YOY revenue 30%, increased customer logos by 70% and raised market share from 4% to 30% by transforming desktop products into the first P2P content delivery solution.

Conceived, developed and marketed products that increased recurring revenue 70%, garnered 40% more customers YOY and generated more than 80% more up-sales. Maintained 95% renewal rate.

Upgraded architecture and sped feature delivery times 3X, and built application stacks while enabling product scalability and reliability.

Created product development methodology that enabled two major releases per year and 4–6 patch releases per year. Spearheaded the combined use of Agile and Waterfall to derive the best from both.

Reduced customer dissatisfaction rate from 30% to 5% within 6 months by reorganizing the customer support team, defining the standards and developing KPIs.

Kontiki, Inc., Mountain View, CA

Director, Product Management; Director Sales Engineering (2008–2012) Played major role in increasing revenue from $4M to $15M by managing development and marketing of content delivery products. Secured Fortune 100 partners and worked with business development to secure channel partnerships with leading companies in the telecom and video conferencing verticals.

Reduced bugs 80% after developing the first end-to-end engineering processes and instituting company’s first weekly coordination between development, QA, operations and product management.

Maintained 100% of customers after 2008 spin-off from VeriSign and enhanced relationships with customers by establishing processes for reviews (e.g. Sandbox Preview).

Grew sales team 200% and trained members to optimally support product launches.

Managed demo-to-contract sales of more than $500K in recurring revenue seats in several verticals.

Attained SOC2 certification–a company first.

VeriSign/Kontiki, Inc., Mountain View, CA

Manager, Sales Engineering and Solution Architecture (2006–2008) Managed worldwide product SE engineering for global sales and support operations; hired, trained, and managed 20 pre-and post-sales engineers in the U.S., UK, and India. Led the development and deployment of content management systems to key clients, and developed policies and strategies for sales and marketing.

Led the creation and implementation of content management systems for Fortune 100 companies in the finance and automobile industries.

Worked with cross-functional internal groups to up-sell products. Prior Experience

Senior Sales Engineer 2004 – 2005

Network Operations Manager / Network Architect 2001 – 2004 Early IT IT Manager / Data Center Architect Responsys.com (1999 – 2001) Experience IT Systems Administrator BAAN (1998 – 1999) Systems Engineer / Sales Engineer Acer America Corporation (1996 – 1998) Military E4 Specialist, Heavy Anti-Armor Weapons / Expert SAW Gunner / 101st Airborne / Iraq U.S. Army PATENTS US # : 9871716

TITLE: Broadcast readiness testing in distributed content delivery networks INVENTOR(S): Stephen J. Blankenship, Jeff S. Dallacqua US #: 9866602

TITLE: Adaptive bit rates during broadcast transmission in distributed content delivery networks INVENTOR(S): Stephen J. Blankenship, Jonathan King Tash Education A.A., General Studies De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

Contact this candidate