Bombastic One-Liner
With demonstrable success in disparate fields globally, my experiences converge into a uniquely cultivated value prospect.
About Me
40 years of young life spent living different periods in Ireland, Chicago, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Ubud, Cape Town & Malta.
I've worn hats and won caps in Gaelic Football, in areas form Sociolinguistics to Professional DJing, from the management of Major Event Operations, and involvement in some unique Startup Entrepreneurship ventures.
I find my home away from home in the office of innovative companies that cherish building products that customers and shareholders equally love.
Software Product Leader. Strategically and Operationally.
Of paramount importance: Guiding with Humility and Leading by Example
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Highly experienced product professional with a dedicated working ethos toward ensuring highest ROI from development operations. Passionate about commercial value, I have a 13-year record of striving for customer-centric solutions with the necessary innovation to set products apart from their respective competitive landscapes.
Consistently recognized for strong leadership skills and highly adaptable to various organisations and cultures. I have a key interest in adapting agile methodologies to strive for a culture of motivated efficiency, with the driving objective to derive maximum commercial outcome from lean development operations.
Is this product compelling to our target market? How can I know this today? Will it succeed against the competition come launch-day? How is our product truly differentiated? Can I explain this differentiation to our executives in 2 minutes? And to a smart customer in less than 1 ?
- Marty Cagan, "Inspired" (paraphrasing: mine)
Key Professional Values
People
Processes
Processes
I have a good way with people and find the process of building relationships across all levels of an organisation something that happens naturally. I click with C-level executives which enables me to influence decisions above my station. I click with colleagues at the "coal-face" which enables me get people to go above and beyond their duties to hit ambitious deadlines and solve implementation problems that at first appear overly complex.
I studied coding to talk real talk with my engineeers, I taught myself UX to walk the walk with my designers, and I mastered sociolinguistics to indentify unsaid motivations sitting a level beneath the verbal and written word.
I'm proud to say I can walk with Kings (OK not actual kings, but Baronesses!) - nor lose the common touch (re-integrated ex-cons, unfortunate homeless and mates from the margins). This personal background helps me easily and naturally find common ground with all colleagues across organisations, from the intern developer to the executive steering committee.
Networking and coffee mornings are anathema to me. "Networking" is simply the act of being helpful to people where it's not specifically a part of one's role description, and finding that helpfulness returned when grateful colleagues step-in at opportune moments to drive one of my own project objectives toward solved, sealed and delivered.
Processes
Processes
Processes
I am an expert in agile transformation, drawing from from an academic background and professional experience in the area. I believe in empowered resources and "Outcome over Output" OKRs. I'm also cognisant of output-based quarterly roadmaps being something imposed upon executive management, and thus must be integrated into most agile frameworks beyond startup scale.
I'm a great fan of the intercultural theories of Geert Hofstede. My Masters in CS thesis, researching intercultural dimensions in approaches to agile methodologies, opened with the Hofstede quote: "Managerial approaches that are at odds with prevailing cultural values are unlikely to be effective because the employees won’t like to adopt them."
I've introduced adapted and adaptive agile imethodologies with success in startups in Asia.
I designed the agile transformation initiative for Betsson's ($250m annual revenue) Sportsbook division, distributed amongst product development teams across Europe.
Yet, I'm very much a "horses for courses" man: where the stakeholder environment is more rigid, then Scrum itself is an impediment. Kanban is preferred. With some 'requirements-up-front' projects with an immovable delivery deadline, there's no point steering away from traditional Waterfall SDLC.
Passion
Processes
Passion
I'm a lifelong, die-hard promoter of true innovation. When playing catch-up to a leading competitor, why aim to build something that will get us to equal ground (hoping the competitor sits and waits for us to catch-up)? Why not use the competitor products' weaknesses to build something better. I have a knack for projecting the trajectory of today's trends, and their most likely manifestations in the future. And I want to build that future with our organisations holding the torch. I have form in this area.
When the fan is hit by the proverbial sh*t, I tend to step up and coordinate the response to nullify fallout, both proactively and reactively. This is my event management background in action, and it comes to shine in in the product field when I step-up to take ownership of the full cross-divisional response to unforeseen production issues of all severity levels. I have form in this area too.
On a personal level I have a passion in studying:
Metaphysics, God, Science and Music.
The PCC, DMN and D2r2.
And Societal misunderstandings and counterproductive misrepresentations of mental illnesses and addiction.
At present, I am working with a number of rehab centres in developing a rounded, tailored and better-fit rehabilitation programme that offers the most-afflicted of gambling addicts more of an optimistic outlook come their day of discharge.
Some Organisations I Worked For & With
Contact Me
Feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn or you can email directly below: