Connie is available for hire
Hire ConnieConnie Kwan
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Location
Palo Alto, United States
Toptal Member Since
February 22, 2019
Connie Kwan is a storyteller and fractional chief product officer from Silicon Valley who works with B2B SaaS companies. Her 17 years of product leadership experience spans AI, crypto and blockchain, digital health, energy, hard tech, and software (Atlassian, MSFT, CY, and SPWR). Connie's held CPO roles in multiple companies and she advises CEOs on becoming product-led. Think of her as your fractional CPO and sounding board for areas of design, marketing, product, and engineering.
Project Highlights
Atlassian Marketplace
Grew from $20 million ARR to $200 million ARR.
Pivot
Led a team of 24 to ship an Android and iOS app. From zero full health program for tobacco addiction in less than one year.
Product Storytelling Workshop
Helped 50+ startup founders craft a strong narrative about their company and products.
Expertise
Work Experience
Storyteller and Chief Product Officer
2018 - PRESENT
Product Maestro
- Delivered new revenue streams via product-market-fit expansion.
- Trained 500+ product managers on storytelling skills using our proprietary storyteller-type system.
- Delivered knowledge as the keynote speaker for eCornell University on the topic of storytelling in leadership.
- Helped 20 clients tell crystal clear stories about their products with Product Maestro's storytelling workshops (custom).
- Built, advised, and restructured design, product, and marketing teams to enable the next stage of growth.
Chief Product Officer
2021 - 2021
Chartbeat
- Established the innovation pipeline and the discipline for evaluating the product-market fit.
- Led workshops to arrive at the product vision and clarify their two-year product roadmap.
- Restructured the Product and Design team to reduce overhead and increase productivity.
VP Product and Marketing
2019 - 2020
OMG Network
- Shipped a layer 2 Etherum (OMG) network that reduces gas cost by 3-10 times. OMG token value went up 6x.
- Cultivated a marketplace of vendors using OMG network including DeFi, banks, and NFTs.
- Led the re-brand of the company from OmiseGO to OMG Network.
Chief Product Officer
2016 - 2018
Carrot Inc.
- Co-built and led team of 20+ to deliver a product (five direct reports in PM and tech support; cross-department: four designers, 15 engineers).
- Shaped the Carrot product from greenfield—turning academic papers into a mobile-delivered, year-long.
- Pitched as part of Series A3 raise.
- Identified tech to enable faster MVP delivery of >600 mobile screens, cutting development time to half.
- Sourced and integrated vendor tech including Layer, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Tableau, WordPress, Mixpanel.
- Contributed to product strategy, product go-to-market, company culture, and Agile development.
Head of Product, Marketplace and Developer Ecosystem
2013 - 2016
Atlassian
- Built and led a team to deliver the second largest B2B apps marketplace and grew from $20 million ARR to $200 million ARR with 2000+ apps from a community of 800+ vendors, 100% YoY growth of add-ons in 2016.
- Drove product roadmap definition and analysis of specific market needs.
- Defined pricing and packaging strategies across behind-the-firewall and SaaS business models.
- Built a vendor advisory board of key partners to give input on a two-year roadmap.
- Led team on two re-designs and one architectural re-factor to boost UX and team agility.
- Led rent vs buy decisions such as rental of Algolia search service and eCommerce service.
- Led curation programs to improve inventory quality, example programs include Atlassian Verified, and Cloud Security program (CSA backed).
- Co-produced marketing events Atlascamp and Connect Week to grow apps and dev community; Partnered with BD to identify new integration partners.
Senior Product Manager
2012 - 2013
Microsoft
- Collaborated with world-class partners to co-design their News experience within Microsoft's Win8 News app to bring news sources such as AP, WSJ, and NYT to millions of users worldwide.
- Launched 15 inaugural partners in the Microsoft News app including Wall Street Journal, AP, Reuters, New York Times, and News Corp.
- Shipped the first Microsoft News app to millions of Windows 8 users in 40 languages.
- Drove product changes to reduce partner launch time by 1/10th via infrastructure standardization.
Product Consultant
2011 - 2012
Sourcemap
- Built social media campaign and did competitive analysis.
- Presented on stage at Google Tech Talk and Natural Products Expo West as a spokesperson.
CEO
2009 - 2011
RealMealz
- Designed and built a web-app on Ruby on Rails from the ground up with the CTO.
Product Manager
2007 - 2009
Sunpower
- Headed the product roadmap and product innovation.
Product Manager
2004 - 2008
Cypress Semiconductor
- Oversaw a dual-ported memory product used to power cell phone towers by companies like Siemens.
- Drove pricing strategies that resulted in a 12% growth in profit.
- Supported sales to achieve $6 million in design wins.
- Drove programs to identify over $2 million in new business opportunities.
Project History
Atlassian Marketplace
Grew from $20 million ARR to $200 million ARR.
Atlassian Marketplace is a two-sided marketplace for purchasing enterprise SaaS products.
Pivot
Led a team of 24 to ship an Android and iOS app. From zero full health program for tobacco addiction in less than one year.
Pitched as part of Series A3 raise. Identified tech to enable faster MVP delivery of >600 mobile screens, cutting development time to half. Sourced and integrated vendor tech: Layer, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Tableau, WordPress, and Mixpanel.
Product Storytelling Workshop
Helped 50+ startup founders craft a strong narrative about their company and products.
Founders learned about their own speaker archetype and ways to leverage their speaker strength to tell a more compelling story about their company and products.
Education
2009 - 2011
Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Sustainable Management
Presidio Graduate School - San Francisco, California
2008 - 2008
Executive Program in Product Management
University of Berkeley HAAS - Berkeley, California
1998 - 2003
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario