Vice President
Product Management / Product Development
Senior executive with over 20 years in product management, product development, technical operations, and business management, including 12 years at the executive level. Information technology and software products leader with record of developing and launching successful new products, turning around under-performing products and businesses, and building high-performance product organizations. Experienced leader of product teams with as many as 200 technology professionals, 5 development centers, and offshore operations. Accomplished P&L general manager and change-agent skilled in restructuring, introducing best practices, driving to metrics, and improving financial performance. Successful senior leader in startups and $1B public companies. MSEE & BSEE degrees.
Vice President – Product Development & Professional Services
THE COBALT GROUP - Austin/Seattle
March 2002 to December 2005
Leading web-based application software, website, CRM, and marketing services company – annual sales of $140 million, serving a customer base of over 12,000 automotive retailers and top global automobile manufacturers.
Recruited as vice president of professional services to lead operations for the company’s custom software and services business generating $12 million in annual sales. Led team of 80 engineering, QA, program management, and graphic design professionals in the development of custom software applications and websites for automobile manufacturer clients. In 12 months, restructured the professional services delivery team, introduced project forecasting tools, established resource utilization metrics, and reduced annual operating costs by $2MM.
As vice president of product development, led the company’s development team of 100+ engineers, business analysts, program managers, user interface designers, and QA professionals in the development of centrally-hosted (ASP), enterprise-class CRM software used by automotive retailers and manufacturers to generate leads, track Internet and showroom traffic, and increase unit sales. Responsibilities spanned 3 development centers in Austin, Seattle, and Bangalore, India. Served as executive site-leader for the company’s development center in Austin.
• Delivered new generation lead management software product to market, and led deployment to more than 3000 automotive retailers within 6 months of initial release. This product serves 5,000 customers, and is the market leader with 25% market share.
• Under contract to a major automotive OEM client, completed a deep CRM product suite integration with the client’s retailing network, resulting in a network-wide product endorsement and more than 100 unit sales, producing an annual revenue stream of $2 million.
• Led integration of products from acquired companies. Enhanced design, improving speed and scalability, permitting customer base to triple in 12 months to 200 customers, and grow to 400 customers in 24 months.
• Completed transition to offshore development model, with operations located in Bangalore, India.
• Drove organization to standard product development life-cycle process, established product quality metrics, and led initiative to drive customer reported defects to zero in 6 months for key products.
Sr. Vice President and General Manager – eGovernment Solutions
HART INTERCIVIC - Austin, Texas
August 1999 to September 2001
Privately held electronic voting and document automation software company with annual sales of $40+ million.
Recruited as vice president and general manager of the company’s eGovernment Solutions Group, to lead and turn around a $6 million business unit providing workflow software, document imaging systems, and related professional services to local government clients. Promoted to senior vice president within 6 months of joining the company.
With responsibilities encompassing sales and marketing, software development, systems implementation, training, and customer support, led the business through a comprehensive operational and financial recovery. Within 18 months, gross margins had increased from 10% overall to over 40% on new sales. Within two years, the business was at break-even after exceeding $2 million in losses the prior year, and its sales opportunity pipeline had doubled from $9MM to $18MM.
• Repositioned business from custom software solutions to a provider of standard software applications.
• Overhauled product strategy and led development of standard products and new web-based products including an Internet document retrieval portal and an electronic filing product.
• Completed financial turn-around: Reduced new system installation time by more than 50%…..Improved new contract gross margins from 10% to 42%….Improved overall division gross margins from 2% to 23%……Increased sales opportunity pipeline from $9MM to $18MM in 6 months. Drove implementation of profitable operating plans in FY2001/FY2002….. Reduced payroll costs 35% while increasing revenues 30% (from $4.9MM to $6.4MM) and increasing cash flow by $5MM.
• Averted multi-million dollar losses on fixed-price customer contracts through contract re-negotiation and by meeting delivery commitments to customers.
• Completed a fast-track Y2K certification program, providing compliance certificates to all customers within 120 days of program start.
• Key contributor to re-tooling the company’s business plan and raising $32+ million in VC funding.
Vice President - Product Management & Development
REYNOLDS & REYNOLDS - Dayton, Ohio
December 1996 to August 1999
(NYSE: REY) Leading provider of information management systems and software to the automotive retailing market, with annual sales of $1+ billion.
Recruited to build a product management organization and lead software development for automotive retailing information systems and application suite products generating annual revenues of $400 million. Led organization of 200 product management and technical professionals based in 5 cities with direct budget responsibility of over $22 million. Software products and applications included accounting, finance and insurance, sales operations, CRM, parts & service operations, inventory management, electronic parts catalogs, document management, and retailer-to-manufacturer connectivity services.
A capstone achievement was rebuilding the company’s product management discipline. Over a 30 month period, the role of product management was redefined, the organization was restructured into product businesses, new product leaders were recruited, product management training was introduced, and foundational product management disciplines were implemented. After three years of building, the product management organization was recognized as one of the most improved and best performing teams in the company.
• Replaced functional departments with business teams possessing total product responsibility and business results accountability.
• Introduced and drove adoption of standard product development life-cycle process. Also introduced product roadmaps and product planning process to manage annual development investments of $30MM.
• Developed metrics to measure and drive product performance, and drove organization to improve customer satisfaction, quality, total cost management, and time-to-market.
• Developed and introduced product management training curriculum into the company’s professional education system.
• Turned around struggling CRM and document management products with combined annual revenues of $30 million. Customer satisfaction ratings increased from 40% to 85%, support costs were reduced 30%, & overall product costs were reduced 10%.
• Established Software Quality Management function and introduced automated software testing.
• Served as executive leader for the automotive division’s Customer Advisory Board.
Vice President – Engineering & Operations
SPECTRAVISION - Richardson, Texas
October 1993 to October 1996
Spectravision was the leading provider of scheduled movie delivery systems, video on demand systems, video-based interactive services, and video entertainment content to the lodging industry. In 1993, Spectravision was a public company with $124 million in revenues. The company was sold in October of 1996.
Recruited to lead engineering and technical operations, reporting to CEO. Led organization of 240 including technology development, IT, satellite network operations, call-center operations, procurement, vendor management, and manufacturing/repair operations.
• Led negotiations for the sale of the company’s manufacturing operations, and negotiated contract terms for ongoing production and repair services, reducing direct payroll by 150 employees, reducing inventories by $4.5 million, and reducing repair costs by 50%.
• Led development of the new generation digital store-and-forward video-on-demand system (branded “Digital Guest Choice”) which was deployed to more than 100 customer locations in 12 months, and met a crucial contractual commitment to the company’s largest hospitality client. Digital Guest Choice was the first digital-store-and-forward video system deployed on a large scale for commercial use in the industry.
• Sold and transferred company to acquiring entity in 1996 as senior member of executive team.
General Manager
SRX, INC. - Dallas, Texas
June 1990 to October 1993
Telecommunications start-up with annual sales of $15 million.
As general manager, led business unit that developed and marketed PBX/ACD systems to the public safety market. Business unit revenues grew from zero to $3.2 million between 1990 and 1992 and captured 15% market share in a market dominated by the Bell Operating Companies.
1989 to 1990 Product Marketing Manager
SRX, INC. - Dallas, Texas
Led software product planning, market requirements, pricing, marketing collateral materials, sales training, project management, market launch, competitive analysis, and life-cycle management for PBX/ACD systems, enhancement packages, and software feature releases.
1984 to 1989 Engineering Manager SRX, Inc.
1983 to 1984 Senior Engineer SRX, Inc.
1982 to 1983 Engineer United Technologies
1979 to 1982 Product Engineer/Product Engineering Manager Mostek
Education
Master of Science, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, 1986, Southern Methodist University, Dallas
Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering, 1979, Washington University, St. Louis |
