Alain Kowalczyk

Seconded from Mastercard Vocalink, as a direct report within the start-up to the managing director, I acted as the sole product authority across this venture’s product lifecycle from inception to delivery into live production.

Establishing a collaborative approach from its inception with external technical and operational partners, I fostered an agreed development and operational model that allowed the start-up to deploy live services for Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, and Carphone Warehouse within a 12-month window.

The SaaS offering provided an innovative off-balance sheet managed service. The success of the business model predicated on using low-cost payment methods and risk management tools to drive operational profitability.

I was brought into the start-up to help pivot the initial technology solution into the e-learning market. Working closely with the founder and sales channel partners, I published the first product roadmap and pricing strategy, authored new contractual schedules, established a help desk solution and DR facility, underpinned by a new product development approach.

I employed a strong collaborative working approach to improving fractious team dynamics between development and marketing staff, driving an increased focus on value-based prioritization. This ensured the platform was clearly differentiated from its larger established competitors as a user-centric, consumer-grade digital hub. Key techniques introduced to the team to improve ways of working included impact mapping, customer journey mapping and alpha user testing.

I was directly accountable for deploying the SaaS platform to the first two enterprise customers, enabling the start-up to generate substantial revenue for the first time in two years.

Responsible for the execution of the business strategy, I led cross-functional teams to design, develop, and successfully launch an m-commerce-managed service offering to the UK's retail and media communities.

At the time, a key market differentiator of the fully managed m-commerce service offering was payment indemnity. This was highly attractive to enterprise customers who had little m-commerce experience. I collaborated with marketing and sales to prioritize the product backlog to support a number of user acquisition campaigns, resulting in over 200,000 active users within 12 months of launch.

I sponsored and executed several experiments to hone the value proposition, including a B2B mobile marketing service and express retail product checkout via image capture on the app.

As the lead business analyst within a 15 FTE team, ensured formal acceptance from the client for re-platforming of their $1 billion retail finance business onto a new multi-tier architecture product.

I worked with the business teams to identify, document, and prioritize the requirements of the current product and directly authored BAD and service definition documents sourced from multiple client documentation to inform the technical design and development effort.

I then worked with key power users and stakeholders during the development phase to scope the testing strategy and path to production service readiness. I coordinated a small cross-functional team representing each business area to surface the QA and UAT tests required to achieve acceptance of the 9-month project. I also defined and actioned a number of QA tests on behalf of the client.