Product Executive with an executive MBA and extensive background

Alex (Benyamin) Pyatigorskiy

640-***-**** / ************@*****.*** / LinkedIn / New York, NY

Summary:

A seasoned Product Executive with an executive MBA and 17 years of extensive experience in finance, payments, insurance, telecom, and media.

Past experience includes working for companies like Disney, global banks, and tech start-ups.

Experience:

XPATE Ltd. 03/2022 - Present

Chief Product Officer

Worked for a FinTech startup, establishing its technology presence, including infrastructure and all primary products such as payment gateways, payment orchestration, clearance, compliance, and all AI-based technology.

Transformed the firm’s business and technology by integrating a banking SaaS ledger with multi-currency acceptance, creating an in-house Payment Gateway for e-commerce transactions, establishing an AI-powered anti-money laundering (AML) system, launching a card issuance and management platform, and partnering with MasterCard for payment rails. Built the R&D team using internal and external resources.

Conducted market research to create an innovative product vision and roadmap for SMEs, featuring a pre-integrated e-commerce payment gateway with major platforms. It combines payment processing services with cross-border payments and currency conversion for efficient international transactions, offering real-time settlements with no cash gap for clients.

Adopted a conversational AI solution powered by predictive open-source Large Language Models (LLMs), utilizing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture, enabling real-time services across 27 EU member states and boosting conversion rates, Customer Lifespan, and Lifetime Value (LTV). The system collected data from customer interactions, personalizing the approach for each client.

Implemented Agile, switching from Kanban to Scrum. Adopted AWS for SaaS banking solutions, enhancing scalability, security, and compliance. Engaged DECTA for payment services and created Payment Service Providers (PSPs) gateway and white-label solutions. Used HubSpot for marketing and customer service; Sumsub for identity verification; Intercom’s AI-first solution for support; Apache® Hadoop® for large data processing; MongoDB for NoSQL databases; Spark for data analytics; Google BERT for NLP; Tableau for data visualization; and R for statistical computing.

Helped acquire an extensive client base, reducing customer acquisition costs (CAC) and increasing ROI through optimized marketing and strategies like Lookalike models, Retargeting, and optimized Calls-to-Actions. Conducted customer research for product development aimed at specific pain points, performed GreenWizard research to enhance sustainability, and executed UX research post-launch to analyze user interactions. Led Beta Community engagement for early adopters. Oversaw all vendor management, including SaaS and payment platforms and outsourcing partners.

Otkritie Holding 09/2018 – 01/2022

Chief Product Officer, VP Digital Business

Worked for one of Eastern-European largest financial firms, managing retail products’ digital channels, the bank’s digital presence, onboarding processes for online marketplaces, the online self-service client platform, and mobile apps for 3.5 million retail customers, 500,000 SMEs, and 5,000 large corporations.

Expanded customer base via digital channels, optimized Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), and enhanced digital usage among existing clients. Established a digital outlet for customer issues and set up processes for purely digital banking solutions like mortgages, loans, and investments.

Ensured adaptation of digital channels through integrations with major utility companies, payment and e-commerce platforms, insurance providers, and travel and entertainment services. Drastically increased customer engagement through full automation of banking services.

Created a digital business Fin Tech division with its own product development hub.

Developed predictive and analytical AI solutions through personalized ‘stories’ in the self-service channels, integrating AI-powered adaptive interface and menus to all aspects of bank offerings. Machine Learning and Large Language Models were used for AI-powered technologies.

Created a middleware API layer between the bank's core systems and front-end systems, with each product team responsible for its own microservices across all channels, such as authentication and tokenization, reducing time to market.

Engaged .NET and Java platforms with Kubernetes and Jenkins for CI/CD in a distributed Agile environment (Scrum and Kanban) on AWS and proprietary clouds to meet compliance. Used Python and MongoDB for data storage, SumSub for data enrichment, Tableau for visualization, AppsFlyer for marketing analytics, Google Analytics 360 for customer assessment, Hadoop for managing large data sets, R for statistical computation, Aggregion for licensing aggregation, BERT for deep learning, open-source LLMs for sentiment analysis, and Apache Spark for analytics.

Established and grew own UX lab with a customer analytics team, focusing on user-driven design and data-driven decision-making. Resolved numerous customer issues, such as dead-end scenarios in customer journeys, blind spots in interfaces, and redundant data points, reducing conversion rates.

Managed the bank’s vendors and partnerships and ensured fulfilment of governing regulations.

Worked directly with the Board of Directors, Executives, and financial commission, creating presentations, reports, and managing budgets. Organized and oversaw quarterly team meetings with executives, building Strategic Roadmaps and Plans of Action.

The Walt Disney Company 06/2017 – 09/2018

VP Chief Digital Officer

Responsible for developing partnerships with major digital platforms, data providers, and vendors in the Commonwealth of Independent States in Europe, expanding Disney’s reach and monetizing its data assets for 70 million unique customers.

Developed an enhanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM platform to commercialize franchise preferences across different lines of business, like streaming and merchandise; created look-alike and segmentation solutions; managed data partnerships; produced advertising supplements for streaming platforms; launched direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns with cross-channel strategies.

Managed fan communities for Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars franchises, including the Disney Mom community. Maintained a high level (96%) of brand awareness within the market, promoted upcoming releases, and branded merchandise and digital assets. Created a first-on-market franchisee store on the biggest local e-commerce marketplaces, utilizing blockchain to track all licensed goods.

Used Machine Learning to predict customer preferences and suggest next-best offers. Developed a predictive AI model for triggering systems in various business lines, including movies, TV, streaming distribution, merchandize licensing, and Disney-owned channels.

Built a data analytics team to create data clusters, structures, and models from consumer data.

Engaged Spark and Hadoop for Big Data sets handling; implemented Blackbox and depersonalization tools to ensure data privacy, security, and compliance; employed Azure-based Hadoop data lake; used Tableau for data visualization and R for automation scripts.

VEON Group 01/2014 – 05/2017

Chief Product Officer, Head of Digital Product

Worked for a major global telecom company with 220 million clients across 12 countries. Managed digital channels, including web assets, self-service tools, apps, e-commerce business, including delivery, financial services, Big Data, digital marketing, social media, and customer support.

Developed first Veon’s mobile app, reaching 12 million daily active users. Created a wallet solution for micropayments in parking apps and e-commerce. Established marketing engagement solutions and an e-commerce shop for devices. Set up data products like Financial Scoring and optimized traffic lights and railway schedules. Led the acquisition of a Real-Time Bidding (RTB) marketing company to enhance Veon’s data structure. Built internal cloud infrastructure, an OTT platform for content delivery, and an RTB system for ad impressions.

Created an Agile/Scrum environment using AWS and proprietary cloud services with a DevOps CI/CD structure. Implemented microservices architecture with API middleware. Utilized the LAMP Stack (Linux, PHP, MySQL) for e-commerce and Java/Scala for other developments. Employed Hadoop and Spark for Big Data, Apache Kafka for event streaming, and established a data lake for storage.

Established technical partnerships with companies like Spotify, WhatsApp, and data enrichment RTB players for resource scaling, churn prediction, customer scoring, and data arbitrage. Collaborated with banks, insurance firms, and transportation utilities to deliver solutions such as traffic flow optimization.

Engaged technologies, like Power BI, SAP HANA, AppsFlyer, Google Analytics 360, Hadoop, Apache Spark, Scala, as well as managed outsourced technology direction and usage.

Previous Experience:

Mobile Tele Systems (E-commerce Director); Finstar Financial Management (Director); Yandex (Product Management); AdTech, FinTech, and HRTech startups.

Education:

Quantic School of Business and Technology, Executive MBA, Washington DC, 2020-2021

The Hebrew University, Educational Diploma Program in Social Management, Jerusalem, Israel, 2004

State University of Management, Master's in Business Management, Moscow, Russia, 1998-2003

Certifications:

Certified Scrum Product Owner ScrumTreck

PMP® Certification State University of Management

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Project Management Institute

Volunteering: Limmud FSU, Volunteer, Co-Chair Co-Chair, 2005 - 2022

Teaching:

HSE University (Higher School of Economics), Digital Product and Marketing, postgraduate program

Skolkovo Innovation Center, Big Data Solutions (MBA program)

Publications:

Otkritie Holding Virtual Banking Keyboard for Smartphones

Intel ® SGX Privacy Preserving Multi-Party Data Collaboration

Otkritie Bank The Role of FinTech in Russia

VimpelCom Joint Projects with Internet Giants

Awards: CDO/CDTO Summit Laureate 2020

Board of Directors: XPATE Ltd., VEON Group, The Walt Disney Company CIS, Flocktory, etc

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