Derek Anderson, Product Manager in McAllen, TX, United States
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Derek Anderson

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Location
McAllen, TX, United States
Toptal Member Since
December 13, 2019

Derek has 20 years of experience growing businesses by thrilling customers and solving real-world problems. He has served in roles ranging from VP of marketing to CTO and CEO. His expertise bridges the gap between executive vision and technical execution when delivering complex solutions at an enterprise scale. With his hands-on style and “get it done” attitude, Derek has worked with global firms such as Facebook, Cisco, Cemex, Coca-Cola, Ford, and many SMBs and startups.

Project Highlights

Mobile-first Consumer Travel Reservation Platform
Built a revolutionary travel reservation portal from the ground up through launch.
IoT Sensor Network Platform | Smart Buildings
Led, from the ground up, the design of both hardware and software for an IoT sensor network product ecosystem.
Mobile Cash, Stock and Crypto Wallet with Lending Facility
Interconnected multiple third-party FINRA registered services to provide a seamless single pain of glass financial wallet.

Expertise

Work Experience

Product Master Data Management

2021 - 2022
Public Commercial Real Estate Company
  • Took charge of the critical data infrastructure required for master data management (MDM) of four petabytes of data globally.
  • Managed both political and technical aspects of revamping an organization that we maligned with a poor reputation for the quality of service.
  • Transformed how MDM was handled and improved match rates from under 60% to over 90% by implementing appropriate data filtering and scrubbing techniques, pushing quality to the edge systems.
  • Improved net promoter score (NPS) from highly negative to positive in only 12 months, instilling confidence in the MDM process across the organization.

Product Manager

2021 - 2021
QLoop
  • Performed a pre-launch MVP analysis against market requirements to confirm product market fit and suitability of the built platform.
  • Provided the founder with a roadmap of changes needed before MVP launch and a backlog of changes for post-launch.
  • Advised the founder on go-to-market strategies to best position their new product in the real estate space.

Technical Product Manager

2020 - 2021
19NORTH1 LLC
  • Collaborated with the founder to define innovative multi-family pricing forecasts using AI.
  • Built and tested AI models for pricing prediction.
  • Implemented MVP product for live market testing with real estate development projects.

Product Owner

2020 - 2021
Syndigo
  • Collaborated with executive leadership and product experts to perform gap analysis for a product merger.
  • Designed and implemented an advanced document management system and workflow system.
  • Enabled the business to close the product gaps to migrate customers over the course of nine months.

Product Manager

2020 - 2020
Tradeshare
  • Collaborated with the founder to define the requirements for a stock and crypto lending application.
  • Negotiated know your customer (KYC) and stock custodian capabilities and integration paths for development.
  • Defined crypto protocols for buying, selling, and storing crypto for each customer account, including locking assets used as collateral.

Technical Product Manager

2020 - 2020
Invygo Tech FZ
  • Cooperated with the client to redefine their accounting procedures.
  • Developed new technical approaches to reconciling accounts with vendors and customers.
  • Created on-demand pricing capabilities for vendors to initiate pricing changes on their marketplace platform.

Product Manager | CTO | Architect

2020 - 2020
New Economy Ventures SPC
  • Designed and implemented finance protocols to manage stock, crypto, and other asset management custodianship and transactions.
  • Collaborated with the founder to define a vision for a stock trading application.
  • Designed UI for a mobile-first application and marketing websites.

Product Manager

2020 - 2020
Syndigo
  • Consulted with client executive leadership on ways to improve their product management processes.
  • Designed their next-generation workflow management solution that bridged the activities of buyers and sellers in their marketplace application.
  • Ideated and designed a configurable administration capability that replaced hard-coded business rules.

Chief Product Officer | Chief Operating Officer

2014 - 2019
Visual Lease
  • Designed, built, and scaled a B2B SaaS supply chain and contract management fintech product to over 3,000% in four years with no outside capital.
  • Managed the marketing, product, QA, internal and global third-party engineering teams directly.
  • Served as the primary SME for complex sales and implementation situations, defined repeatable processes to establish business requirements, determined the scope, and implemented solutions on a global scale.
  • Oversaw the ongoing backlog management of the desired platform features and functions. Defined functionalities that enforced regulatory compliance. Led efforts to work with clients to determine the optimal user experience on various devices.
  • Led the international expansion to Europe, GCC, and South America, including market research, product launch, and localization efforts.
  • Managed the transition from private cloud hosting to the AWS Cloud.
  • Provided solutions to companies like Azadea, Cemex, Coca-Cola, Rituals, MAF, Camping World, and hundreds of other companies.
  • Led a team that implemented over 600 corporate clients integrating with their ERP and CRM systems via API, microservices, RPA, Auth0, and Okta.
  • Leveraged blockchain technology to provide industry-leading documents and contract management security.

VP of Product and Marketing

2011 - 2014
Redwood Systems | Commscope
  • Oversaw the Redwood System's strategy, supply chain, PR, product marketing, product development, and product management. Redwood Systems, acquired by CommScope in 2013, was a leading provider of intelligent building infrastructure controls.
  • Designed and patented a system that provides low-voltage power, LED lighting control, and artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven IoT smart building sensors.
  • Designed both hardware and software products from ideation to delivery. This platform included B2C native iOS and Android building control apps as well as a B2B2C smart building control platform.
  • Leveraged sophisticated big data techniques, MapReduce, and AI to build predictive building controls.
  • Ensured that our product suite exceeded customer expectations by providing an enhanced client ROI and satisfaction for firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Google.
  • Positioned effectively Redwood Systems as a disruptive force in the market, driving exceptional levels of product demand and extreme revenue growth.
  • Enabled a global third-party B2B distribution network, providing, ordering, fulfillment, support, and training for our global trade partner reseller network.

VP of Product | Product Owner

2009 - 2011
Skire | Oracle
  • Led product management for Skire (now Oracle), which provides a business process-based marketplace platform for use by the largest global organizations to manage their most complex capital projects, contracts, and financial processes.
  • Led a team that was responsible for the vision, roadmap, development, and go-to-market strategy (from ideation to launch) of the next generation of Skire's business process management platform.
  • Designed, built, and launched a new product for project accounting. The result was a product that was responsible for over 30% of the companies go forward revenue.
  • Spearheaded product ownership discipline as part of a highly successful rollout of agile development.

SVP of Technology Products

2006 - 2009
Colliers International
  • Managed technology for Colliers International, a leader in global real estate.
  • Led a team that managed multiple B2B SaaS fintech products and marketplaces that facilitated billions of dollars worth of property contracts and related financial transactions.
  • Served as Colliers' chief technology evangelist, advocating internally for customer requirements and externally introducing technology possibilities to a conservative marketplace that is generally slow to adopt new technologies.
  • Managed three separate third-party development teams in different global locations for different product lines.

SVP Product and Marketing | CEO

2003 - 2006
WorkplaceIQ | Accruent
  • Hired to lead the international rollout of a revolutionary B2B SaaS real estate contract and transaction management product and was rapidly promoted to CEO of the firm.
  • Transformed an internationally headquartered, engineering-focused organization into a US-based, customer-oriented cohesive team, reducing costs while increasing customer satisfaction and both top-line revenue and profitability.
  • Delivered mission-critical financial solutions to firms such as Cisco, ExxonMobil, and Sports Authority.

Co-founder | CTO

1999 - 2003
Virtual Premise | CoStar
  • Served as a co-founder and personally conceptualized, designed, and managed the development of the real estate market's first SaaS lease administration tool. The product has facilitated over $250 billion in annual real estate transaction volume.
  • Oversaw and was directly responsible for the sales and implementation of clients such as Ford Motor Company, US Bank, Boeing, ADP, ACS, and URS.
  • Bootstrapped the company's growth from founding to over $20 million in ARR over four years before selling the company to CoStar.

VP of Engineering

1995 - 1999
Enercom
  • Led the delivery of the energy industry's first B2B2C SaaS energy sustainability product suite. This suite of tools facilitated some of the first web-based loyalty marketing programs deployed by major corporations in any market.
  • Led a team that designed and built software that is still used by consumers each year to help reduce their personal energy consumption. In aggregate, it helps utility companies keep power prices low and lower their overall carbon footprint.
  • Invented tools that enabled a redundant web-hosting capability for multi-tenant, SaaS delivery of products long before such was a common practice.

Mobile-first Consumer Travel Reservation Platform

Built a revolutionary travel reservation portal from the ground up through launch.

I designed and built a mobile-first B2B2C SaaS marketplace that uses AI to identify users' travel preferences and recommend activities based upon those preferences.

The system then uses AI to determine the best travel experience based upon the most streamlined and time effective itinerary. The system then produces the best travel routing between all locations along the trip and then executes the various reservations required. The system incorporates a full accounting and reservation stack and integrations with over 50 third-party tools via API and RPA.

IoT Sensor Network Platform | Smart Buildings

Led, from the ground up, the design of both hardware and software for an IoT sensor network product ecosystem.

We designed and built Avolved as a combined software and hardware IoT sensor platform.

The software platform included a B2B2C SaaS application that coordinated the back-haul of data to a data warehouse, a configurable dashboard for end users, and an AI layer to provide predictive building responses to the sensor and video inputs. The mobile component of the platform enabled people in the building to interact with the building's lighting, AC, and other environmental systems. Finally, the hardware components included third-party commercially available sensors plugged into our platform and a custom sensor where we did the electrical engineering and built the sensors themselves.

The same platform also applies to the agriculture market, where our sensors detect subtle and granular temperatures in plants to reveal potential health, quality, and yield issues across crops, and when combined with CO2, humidity, soil, and air quality sensors can drastically improve crop productivity.

Mobile Cash, Stock and Crypto Wallet with Lending Facility

Interconnected multiple third-party FINRA registered services to provide a seamless single pain of glass financial wallet.

We built a mobile first application that allowed users to manage their cash, crypto and stocks all in one single application. We then allowed this set of assets to be leveraged as collateral on a peer-to-peer lending platform. This project involved significant business and well as technical design work to accomplish the goals in a heavily regulated environment.

Product Information Management and Syndication | eCommerce

Led an initiative to design a configurable workflow engine for eCommerce product information syndication.

We designed a fully configurable workflow engine to drive syndication of eCommerce product Information to multiple marketplaces and vendors. The system allowed the manufacturer to enter the data once, confirm its validity, and publish the product to multiple online stores with a single process.

Iconia LIMS for Seed to Sale | IoT Integration Platform

Built a B2B SaaS ERP/POS solution for the agriculture industry with fully integrated environmental and quality testing.

Over three years with Iconia, we leveraged the Avolved IoT Sensor Platform. I then designed it to extend the platform for the very specific requirements of the Seed to Sale ERP and laboratory processes of the hydroponic-grow industry.

We automated the entire business workflow from planting the seed through the control of environmental grow conditions, to regulatory reporting and finally to the eCommerce, POS, and B2B trade engagement platforms.

Multi-step Delivery Optimization Mobile Application

Built a system to optimize the delivery schedules for various consumer goods.

I led the design of a system to optimize delivery schedules for various consumer goods.

We built these routes using AI to consider the starting and ending location of the delivery drivers, the locations of warehouses, locations of delivery locations, the volume of goods to be delivered, and traffic patterns (including things like making right turns only). These routes and delivery instructions were then published on a mobile-first platform similar to Uber or Lyft.

Healthcare ICD-9 Analysis | HIPAA Big Data

Built a system to analyze over a terabyte of ICD9 medical data to determine statistically expected outcomes and survivability.

We leveraged HIPAA-compliant patient health records and Medicare ICD-9 data to determine the survivability of various procedures at various hospitals with various treatment protocols and staffing levels on a national basis. The data was used to help isolate best practices for hospitals to improve patient outcomes and for making recommendations to patients on treatment options.

Arabic Language Mobile Stock/Crypto Trading Application

Designed a stock trading platform to allow investors in the Middle East to easily purchase stock/crypto in markets across the globe.

Designed and built a mobile-first stock trading platform to allow investors in the Middle East to efficiently manage cash in multiple currencies and purchase stock/crypto in markets worldwide. The significant challenges included multiple stock exchanges, cash management, Know Your Customer (KYC) validations, regulatory controls, and localization.

Workflow Engine for a Commercial Master Data Management System

Led the design of a configurable workflow engine for managing data acquired from multiple third-party sources, the reconciliation and approval of that data, and the ultimate syndication of that data to third-party systems.

I led the design of a configurable workflow engine for managing, reconciling, approving, and syndicating data to third-party systems. The system allowed each customer to define how they wanted to manage this process according to their internal procedures.

Oil Industry LIMS | High Volume Analytics

Deployed a LIMS system for a major oil company in Houston.

Developed and deployed a custom, high volume LIMS solution for a major oil companies production quality processes to comply with regulations. We worked with stakeholders to define the requirements and design the configurable workflows and data elements needed as well as to integrate analytical instruments for automatic data capture. Once we had built the system we continued our support of the product through many enhancement cycles.

Published Database Development Author

Published five books on database design, development, and management.

I wrote five commercially published books covering topics on the best practices for performance tuning, data warehousing, big data management, interactive dashboards, machine learning, and analytics.

Chairman of Industry Data Standards Group

https://www.oscre.org/

Served as the chairman of the OSCRE Lease Administration Workgroup (2006-2009).

The OSCRE Industry Data ModelTM (IDM) is an open-access, consolidated data model covering many aspects of managing the real estate asset lifecycle. My team defined the data standards for lease-document data transfers between financial institutions. These standards were adopted across the industry and are still in use today.

Management of Social Media Campaigns

Ran multiple political campaigns on social media platforms.

Over the years, I have consulted on many political campaigns on social media presence, as well as marketing campaigns with great results, helping leaders get elected at all levels of government, from the city council to Congress.
2011 - 2013

Master's Degree in Software Management

Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA, USA

2007 - 2009

Master's Degree in Strategic Business Management

Indiana University, Bloomington - Bloomington, IN, USA

2001 - 2003

Bachelor's Degree in Real Estate and Finance

Georgia State University - Atlanta, GA, USA

1987 - 1991

Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry

Vanderbilt University - Nashville, TN, USA

JUNE 2005 - PRESENT

Masters of Corporate Real Estate

CoreNet

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