Product Strategist; Product Manager

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL

Accomplished Product Strategist with extensive experience in strategy and planning of software and solution portfolios for enterprise business applications, including: SaaS, integrated development and deployment platforms and suites, user experience, pricing and licensing, packaging, run-time & virtual machines, and internationalization. Thought-leader of business and operational integration of mergers & acquisitions. Unique understanding of how business and technology intersect with the ability to communicate at CXO levels down to individual contributors across the entire organization and externally with worldwide partners, customers, in pre-sales, post-sales and consulting activities. Pragmatic Marketing and Agile Certified Scrum Product Owner. My core competencies include:

* Hands-on enterprise product management with over 12 years of experience in the global software business with direct and indirect channels including 1,300 ISVs, over 10,000 direct-end-users, 60,000 customers in 120 countries

* Vast experience of synthesis for strategy and planning of whole-products and solutions portfolios, including the integration of 7 product lines and more than 50 products

* Collaborative leadership: Initiating, listening and responding to creative dialogue, particularly with cross-functional, cross-divisional teams of 3 corporate divisions

* Customer champion with emphasis on partnership, account intimacy, building and cultivating strategic relationships: e.g. Customer Advisory Board of 180 worldwide strategic customers ($10M revenue each)

* Business and operational integration of mergers & acquisitions (20 products)

* Deep business focus, balancing broad technical expertise including SaaS, tools, deployment and internationalization

* Excellent inter-personal, people and time management skills leading 15 product managers (USA, Canada, UK, and India), 3 direct reports

* Polyglot and with broad international, multi-cultural experience including Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, South Africa, Israel, North America, Australia, Mexico and Brazil

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

PROGRESS SOFTWARE CORPORATION, Bedford, MA, 9/1995 - 9/2010 (15 years)

Global enterprise-software company that develops application-infrastructure for diverse sectors- ERP-manufacturing, financial services, retail, telecom, transportation, and government. Approx. $500 million annual revenue and 1300 employees.

Product Strategist, 12/2006 - 8/2010 (3 years 9 months)

* Managed "One Progress", from strategy to implementation: Corporate initiatives led by product management for the Progress portfolio, including release life-cycle management, OOBE policies and guidelines, Eclipse-based tooling, common branding, platforms and standards, and agile planning and development framework, working with engineering and product management teams, operations and shared services

* "One Progress" span three product divisions: Enterprise Business Solutions, Enterprise Data Management Solutions and Application Development & Integration Infrastructure with a total of over 53 products and solutions, more than 20 of which from acquisitions

* Built a portfolio Product Integration strategy and roadmap for 8 product groups, leading 15 product managers (USA, Canada, UK, and India)

* Developed a collaborative multi-product solution strategy which spawned 5 strategic technology panel teams

* Authored vision and strategy for One Progress Enhancement Requests Management process, and Structured Customer Feedback (Voice of the Customer) process

* Provided consultancy to product and release stakeholders on complex issues such as rebranding of the product portfolio, consistent life cycle, and pricing and licensing Stakeholders include corporate development and strategy, as well as the technology, architecture, and product marketing groups

Consultant Product Manager, 10/1998 - 12/2006 (8 years 3 months)

* Working with the OpenEdge team the revenues of this unit doubled to more than $300M, with 1200 ISV-app.partners, over 10000 direct-end-users, for a total of more than 60000 customers in 120 countries

* Established overall product strategy of the OpenEdge platform (18 products), within a team of 9 product managers

* Team lead with responsibility for bringing the product-line to market. Ran the delivery team with all functional groups to insure the success of the OpenEdge Release 10 that released two weeks ahead of schedule and on budget

* Managed from strategy through release the first low-footprint, Internet-ready, rich desktop user experience deployment client product for Application Service Providers (Progress WebClient, in 1999)

* Designed and managed a streamlined product-line re-packaging strategy from 37 to 18 products for easier, faster adoption, efficiency gains, and lower operational costs. Included the introduction of 3 brand new products

* Restructured pricing and licensing of the product portfolio to industry standard user-based, as well as capacity-based and subscription models

* Definition of the mid- and long-term vision and strategic direction of OpenEdge SaaS

* Strategic ownership of ABL language, user interfaces (GUI, .NET, Java, HTML-XML, ChUI), run-time (Virtual Machine), client products (web and desktop), internationalization, packaging, and pricing & licensing

Prior to this position worked as the Migration Product Manager, and Language and Development Tools Product Manager in the OpenEdge product-line.

Technical Services Manager EMEA, Rotterdam, Holland, 9/1995 - 10/1998 (3 years 1 month)

* Member of the EMEA Technical Services Centre Management Team

* Managed the Technical Services for the EMEA Southern Region (France, Spain, Italy, etc.) and the EMEA Distributors in 30 countries (incl. South Africa, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.)

* Handled the day-to-day running of the support centre, reporting to the Director, with 8 direct reports of a total of 32 international TSEs, with support of over 14 languages

* Extensive professional services engagements with customers in France, the UK and Scandinavia

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT

QUADWORD, S.L., Barcelona, Spain, 12/1993 - 8/1995: ISV. IT Director (20 engineers)

AURIGA SERVICIOS INFORMATICOS, S.A., Barcelona, Spain, 11/1988 - 12/1993: ISV specialized in European mid-market manufacturing, services, and very large IT projects for government, financial and chemical verticals. Co-founder and IT Director

PEGASUS, S.A., Barcelona, Spain - 6/1986 - 11/1988: ISV, DEC software house. Analyst and Development Manager (6 engineers)

S.A.E., S.A., Barcelona, Spain - 10/1985 - 6/1986: Academy. Trainer: Information technology, DOS, CP/M, COBOL and BASIC

SKILLS SUMMARY

Pragmatic Marketing. Agile. Progress: ABL, RDBMS, GUI, ChUI, WebSpeed, AppServer, GUI for .NET, Open Client for Java, Open Client for .NET, Translation Manager, Visual Translator, OpenEdge Architect, DataServers, Sonic, Actional, Apama CEP, Savvion BPM, DataDirect Connect, Orbix, Orbacus, Control Tower. Eclipse. Collaboration: Confluence, Jive, Sharepoint. Internationalization and Localization. SaaS and SAS-70. Accessibility: Section 508. Migration and Platforms. Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, One Note, Project, Visio. UNIX and Linux. Oracle: RDBMS Administrator. DEC: VMS, Rdb, Datatrieve, CDD, COBOL, Basic, Fortran, C.

LANGUAGES

Fluent: Catalan, Spanish, English. • Write and Speak: French. • Understand: Portuguese, Italian, Dutch

EDUCATION

Master of Business Administration in Sustainability by SFIA

Certified Scrum Product Owner by Scrum Alliance

Power Positioning by Corporate Visions

Pipeline Acceleration by Sirius Decisions

Principles and Qualities of Genuine Leadership by AchieveGlobal

Survival Skills for Analysts by Systemation

Fundamentals of Finance for the Technical Executive by MIT Sloan School of Management

Negotiation Skills by Karrass USA Ltd.

The Executive MBA: Market, Product and Financial Planning by Boston University

Enginyeria de Telecomunicacions (1st) at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

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