Benjamin Martin Kaleja
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Berlin, Germany
Toptal member since May 16, 2019
As product manager and project lead, Benjamin has launched products to 6-figure audiences, such as a customer service chatbot, a connected-car solution, and an industrial IoT analytics suite. He's led interdisciplinary teams that were distributed across countries. Benjamin has founded and successfully sold an AI SaaS company, demonstrating his entrepreneurial spirit, commercial acumen, and expertise in emerging technologies.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Software Development
- Business Cases
- IT Project Management
- Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
- Market Entry
- Product Delivery
- Product Management
- Product Strategy
Work Experience
Product Management and IT Consultant
Digital:Convergence
- Consulted on the design and establishment of a company builder at Körber Digital.
- Completed the product launch of a B2C chatbot at Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe.
- Performed a market study on a smart insurance platform at Volkswagen.
- Consulted on a connected car project at Volkswagen.
- Consulted on an API-based data lake project at Munich Re.
- Realized a smart home product launch at ERGO Digital.
- Handled an enterprise architecture management project at DHL.
- Contributed to a social media excellence project at Audi.
Founder | CPO | Managing Director
ZenOps Technologies GmbH
- Built and launched a SaaS platform for SMBs to put IT management and security processes on autopilot.
- Raised €1 million from European and US-based VC funds and notable angel investors, such as the MD Microsoft EMEA or CISO of AWS, and managed the investor relations full cycle.
- Sold the company to a Singapore-based competitor in an all-share M&A transaction.
Business Analyst
IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
- Performed all relevant activities in the venture capital deal chain from deal sourcing to portfolio company sales processes.
- Built a strong network in the German start-up ecosystem.
- Modeled business cases and derived enterprise valuation with various methods such as DCF.
- Negotiated term sheets and structured deals >1 million EUR.
- Performed due diligence activities on buy-side as well as sell-side.
Business Development Intrn
DuPoint Chile
- Analyzed South American markets for market entry opportunities and modeled opportunity size.
- Assisted in various sales and account management activities.
- Explored adjacent market segments for diversification.
IT Consulting Working Student
KPMG
- Consulted clients with regard to their IT and enterprise architecture governance.
- Contributed to white papers about cloud computing architectures.
- Analyzed clients total costs of ownership of technology choices.
IT Consultant Intern
Deloitte
- Conducted risk management assessments of blue-chip clients.
- Assessed cloud computing infrastructures for vulnerabilities and performed penetration testing activities.
- Implemented IT controls according to leading frameworks such as COBIT.
- Performed fraud detection audits.
- Advised clients with regard to emergent cybersecurity threats.
R&D Intern
Fraunhofer Institute
- Researched and monitored the coating process of mechanical components with ultra-hard, amorphous carbon layers.
- Assisted in conducting experiments in various domains of industrial technologies.
Project History
Körber Digital: Establishing of a Company Builder for Industrial IoT
Product owner for a Smart Factory app store; set up the product management department, and agile coach for product owners.
DekaBank: B2B Chatbot Launch
Served as the project lead and handled product development and launch throughout three major development stages.
Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe: B2C Banking Chatbot Launch
Development of go-to-market strategy and product ownership; onboarding of customers; 73% accuracy; reach: 3+ million users.
Volkswagen: Data Platform for Vehicle Data
Strategic foresight, market landscape analysis, project setup, and design of technological blueprint.
Volkswagen: Connected Car Launch
http://www.volkswagen-we.comBusiness case development, product management consulting, and supply chain and operation strategy.
Munich Re: IoT Platform/Data Lake Project
Led requirements analysis and MVP design and business case modeling.
ERGO Digital: Smart Home Product Launch
https://www.smarthome.de/moeglichkeiten/ergo-smarthome-schutzbriefProduct strategy and management for collaboration of ERGO and Telekom for a joint product launch.
DHL Express: Capability Management Project
Led a team of six to implement a capability lifecycle process across the clients' organization.
Audi: Social Media Excellence
Data analytics of social media streaming data, benchmarking of dealer's performance, and derivation of actionable metrics.
SAP: Cloud Platform Strategy
Assessed SAP's hyperscaler strategy for a SaaS product portfolio.
Education
Master's Degree in IT Systems Engineering and Management
Technical University of Berlin - Berlin, Germany
Exchange Participant in MBA Program
Siam University Bangkok - Bangkok, Thailand
Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management
Technical University of Dresden - Dresden, Germany
Certifications
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers
DeepLearning.AI
Generative AI with Large Language Models
DeepLearning.AI
PRINCE2® Foundation Certificate in Project Management
AXELOS Global Best Practice
AWS Fundamentals: Building Serverless Applications
Amazon AWS
AWS Fundamentals: Going Cloud-Native
Amazon AWS
Microsoft Enterprise Security Fundamentals
Microsoft
Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I)
Scrum.org
Big Data Analytics
Hasso Plattner Institute
Professional Scrum Master Level I (PSM I)
Scrum.org
Machine Learning
Stanford Online
Skills
Tools
Trello, Confluence, ProdPad, Office 365, Jira, Zoom, Atlassian Suite, Figma, Balsamiq Mockups, Asana, Slack, Postman, Google Workspace
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Agile Software Development, Agile Product Management, BPMN, PRINCE2, Microservices Architecture, Azure DevOps
Industry Expertise
Venture Capital, Automotive, Insurance, Banking & Finance
Platforms
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Other
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Agile Coaching, Smart Factories, Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Engineering, Market Entry, Product Management, Business Development, Lean Product Development, Organizational Design, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Business Cases, User Journey Maps, Business Analysis, Product Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Go-to-market Plans, User Research, Business Models, Product Design, Product Marketing, Innovation, Product Ownership, Product Discovery, Product Delivery, Scrum Master, IT Project Management, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Web App Development, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Cloud Computing, UX Process, Release Management, UML, Enterprise Architecture, Aha!, Chatbots, Big Data, Notion, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Financial Controlling, International Projects, International Growth, Finance, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Analytics, Product Owner, Agile Product Delivery, Cybersecurity, IT Security, AWS Cloud Computing Services, Serverless Architecture, Project Delivery, Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Prompt Engineering, Workflow Automation
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