Dana Hette
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since January 9, 2020
Dana is a fractional CPO with 20+ years in product management, specializing in early-stage and inflection-point work where clarity, evidence, and judgment matter most. She helps teams validate product direction, establish disciplined roadmaps, and ship defensible outcomes—particularly in complex consumer, marketplace, and AI-enabled products. Known for stepping into ambiguity, aligning teams quickly, and turning messy signals into defensible product decisions.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- A/B Testing
- AI Product Management
- Marketplaces
- Product Analytics
- Product Discovery
- Product Roadmaps
- Product Strategy
- Stakeholder Management
Work Experience
Product Manager
Uni Industries Inc
- Led a time-boxed, one-month qualitative research sprint, designing and conducting 19 in-depth user interviews to evaluate core UX assumptions and validate the product thesis prior to public launch.
- Synthesized qualitative interview data and external signal using structured analysis and LLM-assisted pattern detection to identify recurring friction points, unmet needs, and weak assumptions requiring further validation.
- Delivered a clear set of product and positioning recommendations, distinguishing strong versus fragile assumptions and reducing decision risk before additional build investment during the company’s stealth phase.
CPO
Revy Autos
- Defined the product thesis and end-to-end roadmap for an AI-enabled peer-to-peer vehicle marketplace, leading the product from 0 to 1 through launch, early traction, and ongoing optimization.
- Designed and delivered AI-powered product capabilities, including conversational AI, workflow automation, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), improving buyer–seller matching and reducing manual seller effort.
- Owned product delivery and prioritization in close partnership with engineering and leadership, balancing growth, monetization, and technical feasibility while operating under funding and organizational uncertainty.
- Owned analytics end-to-end, defining KPIs and reporting, directing a data scientist for proprietary data mining, synthesizing internal and external data streams, and implementing no- and low-code outbound pipelines to integrate with external systems.
- Drove measurable marketplace growth through experimentation, delivering 6x paid conversion, 4x listing engagement, and around 15% increase in seller registrations, with user acquisition scaling to around 4,500 new registrations per month at peak.
Lead Product Manager
Azrieli Ecommerce Ltd.
- Directed product strategy and delivery for a zero-to-one marketplace replatform, joining as the first product leader on a large-scale B2C multi-vendor commerce rebuild with zero margin for launch failure.
- Established a predictable delivery model across engineering, design, and business teams, achieving 93% on-time releases, an on-time platform launch with full traffic migration, and over 30 major feature releases over 18 months.
- Designed end-to-end product workflows across internal stakeholder groups, including customer service, fulfillment, finance, catalog operations, and merchandising, ensuring operational scalability and cross-team alignment.
- Built and led the tech organization from the ground up, scaling from a two-person product and engineering core to an approximately 20-person team at peak, including four product managers reporting directly.
Product Management & CRO Consultant
Maisonette, Inc.
- Designed and delivered a new holiday LP/UX under an extremely short runway (joining in late Sept), resulting in +10% YoY lift in overall conversion and a 2x increase in conversion for gift-finder users.
- Established a formal experimentation program following holiday success, selecting the platform, defining best practices, and leading initial tests that drove a +16% increase in filter engagement and a +19% increase in on-site search engagement.
- Partnered closely with marketing, design, and external vendors to push multiple high-impact initiatives over the line, including an SEO overhaul, improved IA, and a reworked in-house CMS that better supported business and merchandising needs.
- Contributed as a senior PM consultant beyond CRO, actively participating in roadmap definition and quarterly planning, mentoring junior PMs, and supporting the hiring of a permanent Director of Product Management in close collaboration with the CTO.
Product Delivery Lead
Exodus Aviation
- Stabilized a severely distressed B2B eCommerce project within week 1, establishing a foundational product and delivery structure (roadmap, backlog, sprint cadence, and bug tracking) where none previously existed after a year of unmanaged development.
- Diagnosed and surfaced systemic product and quality failures by writing 30 UX stories and filing 36 critical bugs across a Heroku and Salesforce back end, replacing “code complete” claims with a concrete, testable understanding of actual platform readiness.
- Restored delivery momentum in under one month by enforcing sprint discipline and resetting expectations with a disengaged remote development team—doubling development velocity, re-engaging engineers, and establishing a realistic beta launch target within four weeks.
- Rapidly validated core product assumptions by ramping up on aircraft parts sales and overhaul workflows, ensuring UX and system design aligned with real-world transaction, compliance, and fulfillment requirements under extreme time constraints.
Product Manager
Stay Group
- Led the 0 to 1 build of a mobile digital concierge application, running product discovery workshops and defining core user journeys for guest services in a hospitality context.
- Established lightweight product management and delivery processes (Trello-based backlog, prioritization, and sprint structure), aligning engineering and UX around clear execution workflows.
- Designed and validated UX flows in close collaboration with design and engineering, ensuring feasibility and usability across guest-facing and operational scenarios.
- Rapidly ramped on IoT concepts and constraints to define integration requirements for connected devices, and partnered on integrations with major hospitality platforms, including ASSA ABLOY (access control) and Mews (PMS).
Founder & Operator
BioSphère Naturel
- Founded and scaled an organic skincare brand from concept to commercialization, achieving the #2 best-selling anti-aging cream on Amazon France (2018) in a highly competitive consumer category.
- Built and operated a multi-lingual, multi-region eCommerce platform using WordPress, WooCommerce, and custom integrations, supporting international sales and fulfillment.
- Designed and executed end-to-end growth funnels across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger (ManyChat), owning customer acquisition, conversion optimization, and retention loops.
- Secured and defended brand trademarks in the US and UK, successfully navigating conflicts and regulatory hurdles to protect IP and enable international expansion.
Senior Product Manager for Flights
Expedia
- Defined and delivered industry-wide data standards and APIs for flight ancillaries and branded fares, enabling consistent merchandising across partners and markets while improving NPS, retention, and conversion at a global scale.
- Launched new ancillary and fare-related capabilities using MVP-driven delivery, coordinating product, engineering, and commercial stakeholders across multiple geographic regions and time zones.
- Redesigned critical flight-shopping UX, introducing smart filtering and clearer surfacing of amenities and fare attributes to improve customer decision-making and reduce booking friction.
Senior Program Manager
Expedia
- Led development of a proprietary, internal SaaS PPC platform managing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual ad spend, consolidating fragmented regional requirements into a single global solution.
- Designed and shipped a large-scale keyword bidding and portfolio optimization system, applying clustering logic and statistical modeling to optimize bids across millions of keywords.
- Integrated massive datasets by joining millions of rows of transactional booking data with keyword performance data, enabling data-driven bidding decisions and spend efficiency at scale.
- Built and led the product delivery team, hiring two product managers and a QA Lead, while managing an external development vendor responsible for platform execution.
Product Manager
Redfin
- Led the delivery of an agent-facing web app supporting end-to-end home buying and selling workflows, consolidating region-specific agent needs into a single, scalable user experience through direct agent partnership and focus groups.
- Evaluated, selected, and integrated a Salesforce CRM back end into Redfin’s SaaS buying and selling tools, aligning internal systems with agent and customer-facing product workflows.
- Defined and owned product analytics using Google Analytics, establishing reporting frameworks and regularly surfacing insights and recommendations to executive leadership, including the CEO.
Project History
Azrieli.com Marketplace Full Rebuild and Traffic Migration
https://www.azrieli.com/Led Azrieli.com's full-stack platform for the rebuild for market dominance
At Azrieli.com, I spearheaded the full-stack rebuild of their eCommerce and multi-vendor marketplace platform, showcasing my prowess in innovative product management.
I was handpicked by the CTO. I defined the platform’s architecture and led the integration of critical components like CRM, CMS, PIM, and multi-vendor marketplace systems.
My leadership was pivotal in the project lifecycle, emphasizing strategic roadmapping and agile methodologies. This over three-year venture resulted in a significant conversion uplift, underscoring my ability to lead teams in creating robust, market-leading digital solutions.
My tenure at Azrieli.com is a testament to my expertise in transforming complex platforms to meet evolving market needs.
Maisonette — Last Minute Holiday Campaign Turnaround
Boosted Maisonette's product impact by elevating engagement and conversion rates.
As an Agile digital product manager at Maisonette, I led a data-driven development strategy to boost product impact through increased engagement and conversion rates.
The problem was a lack of engagement and low conversion rates, hindering the company’s overall performance and growth.
My contributions included strategic leadership in an A/B Testing Program, utilizing skills in Agile, backlog prioritization, product analytics, product strategy, web analytics, and user research.
The outcomes were a 19% increase in site search engagement, a 2% boost in the add-to-cart rate, and a 10% YoY improvement in their holiday campaign.
This improved performance metrics and fostered a culture of scientific, data-driven product thinking across the company.
Revy Autos — Marketplace Growth and Conversion Optimization
https://revyautos.com/- 4x — Increase in Listing Interaction and Completion
- 6x — Increase in Paid-tier Conversion
- 15% — Improvement in Seller Sign-ups
The client faced the early-stage marketplace with initial demand signals but weak conversion mechanics. Seller onboarding had a persistent drop-off, buyer-side listing engagement was poor, and paid CVR was cannibalized by the free tier. A disciplined growth strategy was needed to identify real bottlenecks and improve monetization without sacrificing conversion health.
I leverage PostHog analytics to inform hypotheses via funnels, cohorts, and retention analysis. I partnered with engineering to ship targeted UX and workflow changes across onboarding and listing creation, focusing on reducing friction and preserving user momentum. I then ran iterative A/B tests to tune flows, monitoring product mix shifts to ensure improvements increased paid outcomes without harming overall conversion.
I turned around seller growth, buyer engagement, and product mix from underperforming metrics to strong performers, creating a solid foundation for future marketplace expansion.
Kinelo — AI Product Discovery and Thesis Validation Sprint
https://www.kinelo.com/- 19 — User Interviews Conducted
- 2 — Research Rounds Completed
- 4 — Week Discovery Sprint
Kinelo was preparing to exit stealth with an AI-enabled product but lacked validated clarity on core user needs, UX friction, and MVP scope. The risk was overbuilding speculative features before confirming the product thesis. The team needed a fast, credible signal to confidently define what to build first.
I led a tightly scoped discovery sprint, recruiting participants across two rounds to pressure-test early assumptions and refine learning. I conducted and synthesized 19 interviews, using LLM-assisted analysis to rapidly cluster themes and surface patterns. Insights were translated into a refined product thesis, prioritized user jobs, and clear MVP recommendations aligned to validated needs.
Within four weeks, Kinelo exited discovery with a validated product thesis, clearer UX priorities, and a reduced MVP scope grounded in real user signal. The team moved forward with greater confidence and lower execution risk.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Wisconsin - Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Certifications
Academy Accreditation - Generative AI Fundamentals
Databricks
Skills
Tools
Jira, Trello, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Confluence, Retail Technology, Slack, Tableau, Zoom, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Asana, Yoast SEO, Google Slides
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Product Management, Agile Workflow, B2C, Quantitative Research, Scrum, Kanban, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Agile Project Management, Marketplace Platforms, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Scalable Application, Data Product Management, Domain-driven Design (DDD), Low Code, App Store Optimization (ASO), Pay-per-Click (PPC)
Industry Expertise
Marketplaces, Product Ideation, Real Estate, Blogs, Hospitality, Holistic Wellness
Platforms
WooCommerce, Omniture, Google Ads, Shopify, Zendesk, Magento, Heroku, PostHog
Other
Product Management, Requirements, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Strategy, Product Roadmaps, User Research, Product Discovery, Web Analytics, Qualitative Research, A/B Testing, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Vendor Selection, Vendor Management, Data Analytics, Analytics, Dashboards, Dashboard Development, eCommerce, Product Planning, Discovery Workshops, Integration, Website Conversion, User Flows, Data Analysis, Backlog Grooming, Backlog Management, Product Vision, Strategy, Web Applications, Product Development, Sprints, User Needs, Product Owner, User Stories, Team Leadership, Project Timelines, Scope, User Requirements, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Stakeholder Management, Digital Product Management, Sprint Planning, API Integration, MVP Design, Roadmaps, Technical Product Management, Two-sided Marketplaces, Conceptualization, Ideation, Data-driven Decision-making, Release Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Performance Management, Business Process Analysis, Composable Commerce, Project Management, Product Ownership, Startups, Software Development, Product Research, Supplier/Vendor Selection, Automation, New Product Development, Web App Development, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Business Analysis, Data, Feature Prioritization, APIs, Agile Leadership, Web Platforms, Web App Design, User Journeys, Feature Roadmaps, Ideation Workshops, Workshops, Data Product Manager, Project Planning, Early-stage Startups, Website Design, Project Scoping, Functional Requirements, Product Design, Scope of Work (SOW), Websites, Web Development, Data Governance, Data Quality, Data Reporting, Surveys, Consulting, Scalability, User Journey Maps, AI Product Management, Product Analytics, Systems Thinking, Documentation, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Distributed Team Management, Workflow, Team Management, Data Flows, Zero to One Product Development, User Workflows, Complex Web Systems, Business Transformation, Digital Transformation, Governance, Program Management, Process Improvement, Product Delivery, System Process Mapping, Workflows mapping, Digital Analysis, Digital Transformation Program Management, Project Discovery, Affiliate Marketing, Booking Apps, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), WordPress, Software as a Service (SaaS), Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Amazon FBA, People Management, CRM Systems, SaaS, Email Marketing, Email Marketing Automation, Customer Experience, WordPress Plugins, eCommerce Payments, User Experience (UX), eCommerce Platforms, Data Science, Cohort Analysis, Statistics, Salesforce, Cost Estimation, Estimations, Project Estimation, Wireframing, eCommerce Design, Product Launch, Mobile Apps, Platforms, Search, Social Communication, CRM Configuration, CRM Design, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Digital Marketing, Technical Project Management, Writing & Editing, Amazon SEO, Google SEO, Business Intelligence (BI), Business Strategy, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Market Research, Subscriptions, Data Integration, Product Information Management (PIM), Customer Research, Consumer Behavior, Business to Business (B2B), Chatbot Conversation Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mockups, UX Design, Content Management, Competition Research, Dashboard Design, Product Coach, Website Redesign, App Design, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Mobile Applications, Large Language Models (LLMs), Digital Marketing Product Manager, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Product Marketing, Conversational AI, AI Agents, Chatbots, Project Budget Management, AI Product Strategy, Online Payments, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategies, No-code Development, AI Integration, Knowledge Management, Responsible AI, QA Testing, Mobile App Testing, Mobile App Development, Budgeting, Pricing Strategy, Revenue Strategy, Workflow Automation, Workflow Automation & System Integration, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, AI Tools, Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), AI Consulting, Market Research & Analysis, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, BlueJeans, B2B, Intellectual Property, SQL, MySQL, Architecture, Algorithms, Mobile, Google Sheets, Google Meet, Miro, Airtable, Software Engineering, IoT Protocols, Travel Product Manager, ManyChat, Team Building, Agile Program Management, App Integration, Training, Funnel Analysis, Funnel Optimization, Requirements & Specifications, Business to Consumer (B2C), Commerce, Fashion, User Interviews, Mentorship, Website CMS, Catalogs, SAP ERP, Sylius, Akeneo, Web UX, Partner Management, ChatGPT, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Personal Branding, Drop Shipping, Growth, Sales Strategy, Research, RAG Systems, Product Growth, Model Context Protocol (MCP)
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