Adrian Gonzalez
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Montreal, QC, Canada
Toptal member since July 27, 2020
With an engineering degree, two master's degrees that include an MBA, and the ability to speak four languages, Adrian has delivered as a PM in North America, LATAM, and Europe on multiple innovation initiatives, including software development, AI strategy, project delivery, executive coaching, etc. He has extensive experience in technical and business roles and has worked in several industries: telecom, cloud, supply chain, fintech, IT, etc.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Artificial Intelligence Product Manager
- Azure
- Big Data
- Cloud Computing
- Machine Learning
- OpenAI
- Product Owner
Work Experience
AI Strategist - Generative AI Sales Enablement
CONFIDENTIAL
- Contributed to the generative AI sales enablement strategy of the company.
- Created business assets for sales activities related to AI and generative AI.
- Led client-facing discussions for generative AI project discussions.
Generative AI, LLM, and NLP Consultant
Alquimia Venture Capital SL
- Designed generative AI architectures with Azure OpenAI Service.
- Created an implementation roadmap for technical teams.
- Generated all related documentation for generative AI systems, including prompt engineering details.
Principal Cloud, Data, and AI Specialist
Microsoft
- Created advanced roadmaps for private and public sector clients for their big data and AI implementations.
- Designed AI-enabled architectures for specific use cases based on machine learning, deep learning, generative AI, and other data technologies.
- Trained executive and technical clients and partners on AI/ML, big data, Azure OpenAI ChatGPT, and other technologies.
University Lecturer - AI Project Management and Ethics
HEC Montreal
- Designed and led an AI program for small-to-medium enterprises.
- Developed new workshops on AI ethics and product management.
- Coordinated groups of lecturers and course content.
Mentor | Learning Facilitator - AI and Blockchain Strategy
MIT Sloan | GetSmarter
- Facilitated, mentored, and reviewed over 1,000 projects for implementation of AI and blockchain strategies.
- Taught the course, "Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy" (MIT Sloan and MIT CSAIL).
- Taught the course, "Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application" (MIT Sloan).
University Lecturer - Big Data
Concordia University
- Trained and mentored more than 150 students during the last two years and implemented online and in-person training programs.
- Facilitated workshops: "AI Design Thinking," "Data Integration & ETL," "The Art of AI Consulting," "Data & AI Project Management," "IoT-5G Mobile Communications," "Developing a Winning AI Strategy," "Deciphering Legal & Ethical Aspects of AI," etc.
- Designed two new classes: "Introduction to Big Data Business Cases and Data Collection" and "Introduction to Excel for Data Analysis."
Product Management Specialist (via Toptal)
Government Market Strategies, Inc.
- Prepared a generative AI strategy for the client for government-related applications.
- Created advanced architectures for GenAI solutions, including UI mockups.
- Analyzed the talent gap to define skills needs for the next implementation stage.
Head of AI Customer Success
Peritus.ai
- Analyzed customer data to improve customer onboarding and experience.
- Developed new strategic partnerships in Quebec, Canada, and the US.
- Held product demonstrations for B2B clients and collected user feedback.
- Designed quarterly roadmaps and detailed technical release plans.
- Aided in product design, mockups, and product development.
Interim Chief Technology Officer
Fortesza
- Managed of a 15-member technical team (back-end, front-end, infra, UX, data and QA).
- Defined of a transversal plan for multi-cloud infrastructure, security, DevOps, and data management.
- Implemented new internal and external technical support processes and systems.
- Designed a career plan and evaluation system for technical members.
Senior AI Consultant | Product Owner
IVADO Labs
- Led technical teams of more than 15 members consisting of data scientists, software developers, UI developers, subject matter experts (SME), and data engineers.
- Managed over 30 business stakeholders, SVP, and VP-level clients (including former management consulting profiles).
- Delivered three projects for transportation and telecom clients (over 2 million CAD) based on ML and optimization.
- Delivered one COVID-19 project for supply chain fast-tracking of critical cargo based on AI-NLP techniques.
- Submitted three successful SCALE AI (Canadian AI Supercluster) applications for the AI project.
- Defined technical and strategic roadmaps for the blueprint, pilot, and MVP projects and related business cases.
- Produced high-quality reports for analysis of scientific approach, data assessment, and infrastructure requirements.
- Delivered several knowledge transfer sessions for AI and agile project management.
Senior AI and Machine Learning Consultant
CGI
- Created a new "AI for Telecommunications" practice.
- Implemented an AI strategy, developed a training plan, and defined the AI project approach and a list of potential use cases.
- Worked with more than ten director and VP-level executives for business development and prospection activities (over 2 million projects).
- Architected and defined five pilot projects with internal and client teams for a proof-of-concept implementation.
- Defined technical and strategic roadmaps for the AI practice and its related projects.
Co-founder | Head of Technology and Product
SmartBonds (Self-employed)
- Co-founded an early-stage blockchain startup for the underwriting and trading of financial bonds.
- Managed a team of ten collaborators and performed individual interviews for new hires.
- Prospected more than 20 banking executives for partnership development and idea validation before and during implementation.
- Developed a vast network of connections with investors and startup incubators.
- Created product specifications and roadmap for the MVP development, including architecture, technologies, and data sources.
Data Project Director | Technical Presales
Dhatim
- Managed six new clients in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador (more than €2 million/year in projects).
- Managed more than 20 business stakeholders and presented projects to C-suite and direction-level clients.
- Worked with the main two telecommunication operators in Latin America to develop new SaaS solutions for value-added services, energy markets, and content industry (online music services).
- Performed data analysis, collection, OCR, integration (ETL), modeling, and SQL management and visualization.
- Collected technical requirements with customers and created the business cases for new products.
Telecommunications Consultant | Business Manager
Davidson Consulting
- Generated more than 50 leads (cold call) and opened three new accounts during the first six months of the subsidiary.
- Conducted market research and created supporting documents (proposals) for sales activities.
- Provided technical training to clients and consultants (3G networks, Linux systems, and so on).
- Implemented 4G/LTE software-based tools for equipment validation and simulation.
IT Project Manager | Software Developer
TIC Consulting Services (TCS Spain)
- Managed several IT development projects with a team of five developers.
- Planned and managed resources, customer relationships, product design, and delivery.
- Created technical documentation and professional training for customers.
Project History
AI/NLP-based Tool for the Rapid Distribution of Essential COVID-19 Goods
Designed an accelerated 10-week product implementation (during COVID-19), led a team of data scientists, engineers, and developers, presented results to 20+ executive stakeholders, and prepared a successful federal funding submission ($0.5 million).
I then validated this solution with several supply chain stakeholders, who are already using it as a single source of information at both tactical and operational levels, to track and fast-track critical cargo until its departure from the port.
RESULTS:
We reduced the dwell time 83% (~three days to less than 12 hours or next working day) for critical cargo. 136,000 10-foot containers (TEU) analyzed per month equals ~38 million metric tons of goods per year with an estimated $2.6 billion impact on the Canadian economy.
Interim CTO | Fintech
http://www.fortesza.comAdvised on the product strategy, assessed and prioritized the product backlog, helped scale the teams based on development workload, and aided the client in their hiring efforts for the next CTO.
Mandate: I served as a fractional CTO to advise the team in product strategy, advising on how to scale the technology teams and increase the velocity of the release cycles.
Geolocated (via Map-based SaaS) Retail Strategy for a Confidential Coffee Company
https://www.geoblink.comLed strategic and technical activities for a map-based retail project; performed customer segmentation and analyzed the best location for retailers; collected and analyzed data (e.g., Nielsen, pedestrian, transactions per product category, and more).
I worked with both product strategy and data science teams to combine, analyze, and integrate available data sources. I also prepared and presented a series of strategic recommendations for the retail company.
Port Logistics Optimization Tool
https://www.scaleai.ca/project/port-logistics-optimization-tool/Designed the solution and led a team of 10+ business and technical resources, prepared the submission and obtained federal funding ($2.7 million), validated the tool with stakeholders, and managed 20+ CXO and technical-level clients.
Concretely, this project focused on optimizing rail operations and related dwell times at Montreal port authority, providing shared and advanced visibility to all stakeholders such as port, rail, and terminal operators, and enabling data-driven decision-making, prediction, and scenario analyses.
Reducing Installation and Repair Times for Telecommunication Customers
http://www.scaleai.ca/project/reducing-installation-and-repair-times-for-telecommunication-customersManaged the product backlog with 20+ data scientists/engineers from four different teams; delivered a solution that generated $3 million in annual cost savings based on a 3% improvement in telecom technician efficiency; obtained $200,000 in funding.
This project was a collaboration between Bell, IVADO Labs, Exfo (Bell supplier of network sensors), and VuPoint Systems (Bell supplier for satellite field services). The main goal was to create a proof of concept (PoC) to optimize the field install and repair experience by using AI models to assign technicians to the tasks that suit them most.
PROPOSED SOLUTION:
We built an AI model based on 3TB of data from 5 million interventions—from over the last three years with 100+ variables from the field, network, and customer operations sources. We would then cluster tasks with similar characteristics, predict technician efficiency at completing these tasks, and derive insights to optimize Bell systems for technicians tasks assignment.
Handover Aware Interference Management in LTE Small Cell Networks
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6576398Managed and integrated a collaborative project for 4G-LTE advanced resource management techniques.
To this end, the MAB procedure explicitly considers the HO performances to configure the optimal spectrum split. The simulation results highlight the benefits of the proposed solution: higher throughputs and reduced HO failures. This is particularly the case concerning high and medium-speed users for which HO performances are more sensitive to interference.
Categorical Variable Selection in Risk Modeling for KYC Activities
Led the research and planning activities for a project with AI students and a banking client.
Traditional feature selection methods (e.g., statistical significance, recursive feature elimination, LASSO) do not work well with categorical features since these methods would retain certain levels and remove other levels of the same feature. The Group Lasso approach has shown to be more stable in terms of variable selection but displays shortcomings in terms of predictability. Instead, for a given feature, would it be more appropriate to devise a method that aggregates neighboring levels in bins in order to get a feature representation space that would better scale with the output?
Because of the numerous ways to represent categorical variables and to select which variables are of the importance we ask what are the most appropriate methods for improving categorical feature selection.
White Paper for a Blockchain-based Education App
https://pocket.asu.eduDesigned and wrote a white paper for a blockchain-enabled initiative.
FinOps Strategy for Multinational Data Company
I designed the FinOps strategy with a multi-cloud environment and several years roadmap.
AI Product Management for VC-backed Manufacturing Firm
Designed an AI-enabled product strategy for advanced manufacturing operations in North America.
• Strategic and technical roadmap for AI-enabled use cases
• Company-wide data governance foundations to catalog and govern all relevant data systems and sources
• An AI architecture based on specific use cases to continue evolving the cloud infrastructure
Generative AI Government App with Microsoft Azure
Handled strategy, technical architecture, and implementation plan definition for a GenAI-enabled application for government procurement activities.
• Technical architecture with Microsoft Azure AI
• Feature feasibility analysis
• Preliminary roadmap to guide initial implementation
• Talent analysis for required roles during the future implementation phase
• Initial high-level mockups for potential user interfaces
Generative AI Consultant for Technology Stack Definition
Conducted analysis and gave recommendations for a new generative AI technology stack.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Business Administration and Innovation
HEC Montreal - Montreal, Canada
Master of Science Degree in Mobile Communications (Telecommunications and Wireless)
Telecom ParisTech | Institut Eurecom - Sophia Antipolis, France
Engineer's Degree in Computer Science and Telecommunications
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid - Madrid, Spain
Certifications
Copilot for M365 Achiever Badge - Fundamental
Microsoft
AWS Partner: Generative AI Essentials (Business)
AWS
GCP - Cloud Digital Leader
Essentials for Istio
Solo.io
Introduction to GitOps (LFS169)
The Linux Foundation
FinOps Certified Practitioner
FinOps Foundation
Product Analytics Certificate (PAC)™
Product School
[SC-900] Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals
Microsoft
Gremlin Certified Chaos Engineering Practitioner
Gremlin
Product-Led Certificate®
Product-Led Institute
[MB-901] Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals
Microsoft
[MS-900] Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
Microsoft
Data Science for Business Leaders Nanodegree
Udacity
[PL-900] Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals
Microsoft
[DP-900] Azure Data Fundamentals
Microsoft
[AI-900] Azure AI Fundamentals
Microsoft
Introduction to Data Studio
Introduction to Delta Lake
Databricks
Certified Product Manager
The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM)
AI for Business Leaders
Udacity
AWS Business Professional
Amazon Web Services
[AZ-900] Azure Cloud Fundamentals
Microsoft
UX Designer
Udacity
Enterprise Design Thinking — Team Essentials for AI
IBM
AI Product Manager
Udacity
Situational Leadership SLII®
The Ken Blanchard Companies
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
Skills
Tools
Jira, Balsamiq Mockups, Moodle, Figma, ETL, Canvas, Strategyzer, Confluence, Slack, Zoom, Google Workspace, Balsamiq, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Office 365, Microsoft Power BI, Google Data Studio, GitLab, Financial Data, Jenkins, VMware, Git, Azure IoT Suite, GitHub, Azure OpenAI Service
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Product Management, B2B2C, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Scrum, Design Thinking, Change Management, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Agile Project Management
Industry Expertise
Logistics, Bitcoin, Venture Capital, Telecommunications
Platforms
Azure, Blockchain, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Azure IaaS, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Microsoft Power Platform, Alteryx, AIX, Windows XP, Mixpanel, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS IoT
Other
Business Strategy, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Technology Consulting, Management Consulting, Agile Product Delivery, Product Owner, Strategic Planning & Execution, Product Management, Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), Product Leadership, B2B, Executive Presentations, Education, Training, Startups, Roadmaps, Product Roadmaps, Backlog Management, Data Product Manager, Big Data, Data Science Product Manager, Machine Learning, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Data Science, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Technical Product Management, Data Visualization, Dashboards, Business Intelligence (BI), Technology, Cost Estimation, Project Management, Scope of Work (SOW), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Product Strategy, Project Planning, Estimations, Product Vision, Technical Leadership, Technology Strategy & Architecture, Training & Training Content Development, User Stories, Facilitation, Teaching, Customer Insights, Team Leadership, Product Design, Cloud Services, IT Infrastructure, Data Strategy, Responsible AI, Governance, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), ChatGPT, OpenAI, Product Analytics, Cloud Computing, Cloud, Geolocation, Miro, User Interviews, User Requirements, Data Analysis, Data Analytics, Databases, Supply Chain, Web, UI Design, Android, CTO, Content, Team Mentoring, Cryptocurrency, Data Management Platforms, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Data Integration, Data Warehousing, SaaS Product Management, Virtualization, Data Governance, Microsoft Copilot, Conversational AI, Economics, 4G, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Innovation Strategy, Research, Software Development, APIs, Networking, Agile Coaching, Product Marketing, Market Fit, Business Planning, Deep Learning, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), UX Design, Validated User Research, SaaS, Leadership, Team Building, API Integration, Google Maps API, Mobile Apps, Location-aware Technology, Teams, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Amazon Web Services (AWS), PHP, Team Management, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Optical Sensors, Stakeholder Management, Tool Adoption, Architecture, Software as a Service (SaaS), Retail & Wholesale, Strategy, CRM Design, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Automation, Chatbots, Chatbot Conversation Design, Azure Cognitive Services, Image Recognition, Natural Language Processing (NLP), API Databases, NoSQL, SQL, Unstructured Data Analysis, Product-led Growth (PLG), Product Growth, Growth Strategy, Growth Hacking, Chaos Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Databricks, Delta Lake, Data Lakes, Feedback Review, Coaching, Cloud Native, Cloud Security, IT Security, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Compliance, Cloud Infrastructure, Career Coaching, Evaluation, Community Management, B2B Sales Pipeline, B2C Marketing, AI Design, Program Development, Ethics, Know Your Customer (KYC), 3GPP, Long-term Evolution (LTE), Data Engineering, Web Development, White Papers, Technical Writing, Funnel Analysis, A/B Testing, FinOps, Cryptography, Ethereum, GitOps, Argo CD, Flux, Istio, Kubernetes, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Operations Research, Cloud Architecture, Industry 4.0, Azure PaaS, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Development, iOS, Business Development, Public Speaking, Amazon Bedrock, Vertex, Microsoft 365, Microsoft AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Semantic Kernel (SK), Government Contracting, Request for Proposal (RFP), LangChain, Prompt Engineering, Prompt Flow, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG)
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring