Ece Isel
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Ankara, Turkey
Toptal member since May 26, 2020
Ece is a technical product leader with 21+ years of experience translating executive vision into AI implementations. She's an expert in enterprise customer acquisition frameworks and product decision-making under uncertainty. Ece has delivered measurable impact—including 67% efficiency gains, 467% platform growth, and 30% cost reductions. She specializes in enterprise GenAI solutions, systematic customer discovery, and scaling products across global enterprise deployments.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Product Management
- Data Analytics
- Data Visualization
- Feature Backlog Prioritization
- Product Ownership
- Product Roadmaps
- Product Strategy
- Requirements & Specifications
Work Experience
Senior Technical Business Analyst | Product Manager
Pfizer - Smart Factory
- Led the technical design and release of KEA (Knowledge Engineering Agent), a RAG-based system within Pfizer’s Agentic AI Framework. Engineered the integration of structured SAP data with unstructured knowledge bases using knowledge graphs.
- Directed the development of Batch Buddy, a GenAI manufacturing copilot under the Golden Batch initiative. Implemented root cause analysis workflows and anomaly detection models that reduced cycle times and improved batch yield by 0.5–1% per line.
- Established the PGSOPS Data Lake on Snowflake as the centralized repository for shop-floor operational data. Designed pipelines to ingest real-time telemetry from manufacturing systems, creating the foundational data layer for ML/AI model training.
- Oversaw the Knowledge Management Mobile (KMM) application, architecting a centralized access point for GMP documents and SOPs to drive paperless operations and ensure "Right First Time" compliance standards.
- Leveraged AI architectures: agentic AI workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), knowledge graphs, and large language models (LLMs).
- Worked on data and platforms: Snowflake, Snowflake Cortex Analyst, SAP Integration, SQL, OSI PI Historian, and Azure Cloud Services.
Director of Product Management
Anunta Tech
- Applied a 4-phase customer acquisition methodology across enterprise clients, from CloudOptimal's National Grid deployment to DesktopReady rollouts, consistently converting prospects to full enterprise adoptions.
- Built CloudOptimal, a cloud optimization platform that provides real-time analytics and automated cost recommendations, from concept to market. It achieved 25% infrastructure cost savings for enterprises.
- Reduced operational costs by 30% through the CloudOptimal SaaS platform, optimizing enterprise cloud resource utilization across AWS and Azure environments with automated cost recommendations.
- Championed GenAI development from proof-of-concept using Python, gaining board approval and leading platform implementation for AI-powered operations assistant, reducing manual effort.
- Established comprehensive product management processes using business-objective weighted scoring and time-criticality frameworks, enabling consistent delivery across multiple SaaS platforms.
- Conducted 65+ stakeholder discovery sessions applying systematic customer research methodology across internal and external stakeholders for product validation and market positioning.
- Created the DesktopReady platform, enabling seamless migration of 500,000+ remote desktop users to cloud-based workspaces with centralized management capabilities and enterprise security.
- Converted enterprise clients with 10,000+ employees to paid CloudOptimal users through direct product demonstrations, ROI-focused value propositions, and strategic customer success initiatives.
- Built comprehensive API integration frameworks, enabling CloudOptimal and DesktopReady to connect with enterprise systems like Active Directory, monitoring tools, and billing platforms.
- Led strategic roadmap development using a data-driven prioritization methodology, translating client feedback into profitable product features across DesktopReady, CloudOptimal, and EuVantage.
Product and Data Analytics Lead
Trust & Safety Laboratory
- Applied systematic discovery and validation methodology across TrustGraph pilot programs to misinformation API deployments, converting leads to paying customers through strategic MVP development and product-market fit validation.
- Secured three pilot programs with leading social media companies (150+ million users) through systematic product-market fit validation, demonstrating measurable ROI and scalable trust and safety solutions.
- Led customer discovery and market research, conducting 20+ interviews to frame trust and safety problems, validate product concepts, and translate user feedback into development-ready specifications.
- Developed a complete product strategy from problem identification to roadmap execution for detecting bad actors and fraudulent transactions. This established clear business requirements and success metrics.
- Owned the end-to-end product delivery by creating prioritized roadmaps and release plans for engineering and stakeholder teams, ensuring alignment between technical execution and business objectives.
- Established lean product management processes, including PRDs, user story mapping, and agile backlog prioritization using business-objective weighted frameworks for systematic product decisions.
- Implemented software process improvements, evangelizing Jira and Confluence adoption while training teams on Agile methodologies and improving project delivery efficiency and cross-functional collaboration.
- Created interactive dashboards and reporting systems using AWS, SQL, and Tableau, saving clients 20 hours of manual work per week through automated data visualization and real-time analytics.
- Led a dual role as product manager and project manager, ensuring the delivery of high-value outcomes for professional services transformation while evangelizing Agile methodologies across teams.
- Collaborated with engineering, policy, and operations teams, making strategic prioritization decisions for scalable implementation of trust and safety solutions across multiple platform environments.
NFT Marketplace Product Manager
UCollex International
- Designed a complete NFT marketplace product experience from scratch, including core trading functionality, user flows, and customer journey optimization.
- Built innovative Web3 features, including Mystery Boxes, Virtual Spaces for NFT display, and automated auction processes with smart contract integration.
- Created comprehensive product requirements, including detailed PRDs, user stories, and interactive Figma prototypes for development teams.
- Led cross-functional product development, coordinating engineering, design, growth, and technology partner teams for seamless execution.
- Owned strategic product roadmap, translating business objectives into prioritized feature development and release planning.
- Collaborated with management stakeholders, ensuring alignment on user flows, design specifications, and development timelines.
- Conducted market research and competitive analysis for NFT marketplace positioning and feature differentiation strategies.
- Managed product discovery and validation through user testing and iterative design improvements for consumer Web3 experience.
- Facilitated agile development processes, including sprint planning, refinement sessions, and stakeholder communication.
- Delivered end-to-end product launch from concept ideation to market-ready NFT marketplace with full consumer functionality.
Head of Product
Mostly AI
- Led the development of an AI-powered synthetic data generation platform, enabling organizations to leverage advanced analytics and machine learning while maintaining GDPR and privacy compliance for enterprise customers.
- Coordinated with data science and engineering teams to establish a compatible architecture addressing both platform scalability and data science requirements for synthetic data generation.
- Defined the comprehensive product vision and strategy, aligning with customer needs in an emerging privacy-preserving data market and international regulatory requirements for synthetic data solutions.
- Implemented standardized product workflows and processes, increasing team efficiency and delivery consistency across five cross-functional teams through transparent prioritization frameworks.
- Established a transparent, data-driven product prioritization process with backward assessments, ensuring continuously optimized roadmap development aligned with customer validation and market needs.
- Built strategic partnerships with C-level stakeholders (CEO, CTO, and CSO), aligning product priorities with the company's long-term vision and market positioning in the privacy-preserving AI space.
- Enhanced organizational communication and visibility by implementing Jira and Confluence as central hubs, improving product visibility and stakeholder alignment across distributed teams.
- Fostered a cross-functional collaboration culture, promoting individual ownership with clear OKR reporting and ongoing team training for exceptional business value delivery and accountability.
- Defined and communicated clear business requirements across all organizational levels, ensuring alignment between strategic vision and technical execution for synthetic data platform development.
- Built strong relationships with enterprise customers and partners, validating product-market fit for synthetic data solutions in analytics and machine learning applications across industries.
Group Product Manager
Comodo Security Solutions, Inc.
- Scaled a cybersecurity platform to 200,000 business customers and 750,000 protected endpoints across global markets through strategic enterprise customer acquisition and comprehensive product portfolio management.
- Led a geographically distributed team of 31 product managers, UI/UX designers, and operations engineers across Turkey, Ukraine, and India, delivering enterprise security solutions across multiple product lines.
- Achieved a 467% increase in protected endpoints for the Comodo One platform, growing from a baseline of 90,000 endpoints and 9,000 business customers through strategic platform consolidation and customer expansion.
- Applied a 4-phase customer acquisition methodology across major enterprise accounts, from UPS's 100K endpoint deployment to MSP partner onboarding, consistently scaling from pilot to full enterprise adoption.
- Launched the Comodo Dragon platform in 2018, built on zero-trust architecture with advanced threat detection and response capabilities, establishing.
- Conducted monthly customer research trips to the US, interviewing 50+ MSP owners and applying systematic customer discovery methodology to validate product-market fit and optimize go-to-market strategies.
- Established data-driven product development methodology, mentoring teams to develop and track key product metrics for continuous improvement, optimization, and alignment with business objectives.
- Designed API infrastructure and integration capabilities enabling seamless connections with third-party security tools and enterprise system ecosystems for comprehensive cybersecurity management.
- Defined comprehensive product strategies and roadmaps for the Itarian and Comodo One portfolios, mentoring teams in prioritization frameworks aligned with business objectives and market requirements.
- Managed key enterprise customer accounts through regular on-site meetings, gathering feedback and fostering strategic relationships for product development insights and customer success expansion.
Senior Product Manager
OpsGenie
- Contributed to a strategic foundation enabling a successful Atlassian acquisition through product leadership and platform development that demonstrated market value and growth potential.
- Managed a complete product lifecycle for an incident management platform serving enterprise customers with complex alerting and resolution workflows.
- Enhanced the platform's alerting mechanism through systematic product improvements, conducting competitive research, and market analysis for more timely incident resolution.
- Implemented comprehensive Scrum methodology and Agile practices training for development teams and customer success engineers on modern product development processes.
- Led software process improvement initiative, creating workflow documentation and selecting optimal project management tools (Jira and Confluence) for team efficiency.
- Collaborated with customer success engineers to gather user feedback and translate customer requests into actionable user stories and development priorities.
- Established product feedback loops through user interviews, prototyping, and iterative development, ensuring continuous alignment with customer needs.
- Facilitated sprint planning and grooming sessions with development teams, managing backlog prioritization and feature specification for consistent delivery.
- Created prototypes and wireframes for new features and improvements, ensuring clear communication between product vision and technical implementation.
- Championed customer-centric product development by establishing direct feedback channels and systematically incorporating user insights into the product roadmap.
Senior Project/Product Manager
Innova
- Led the end-to-end development of the iHope debt collection platform for enterprise businesses, streamlining collection processes and empowering organizations with efficient automated tools.
- Conducted comprehensive requirements gathering through on-site client meetings, interviews, and workshops, documenting complex workflows using BPMN methodology.
- Managed enterprise client relationships, acting as primary advocate and liaison between clients and internal teams to ensure successful project delivery and satisfaction.
- Spearheaded organizational transformation, leading transition from traditional Waterfall to Agile and SAFe methodologies, improving project flexibility and delivery efficiency.
- Organized strategic release planning meetings, incorporating customer feedback and business requirements into prioritized product roadmaps and development cycles.
- Fostered cross-functional collaboration coordinating between technical support, product development, sales, marketing, and accounting teams for seamless project execution.
- Prepared detailed technical specifications and project deliverables, enabling accurate development effort estimates and clear stakeholder communication.
- Managed complete project budget lifecycle, including financial planning, client communication, approval processes, and ensuring on-time, within-budget delivery.
- Provided comprehensive customer support, resolving escalated issues and ensuring smooth project execution for enterprise debt collection implementations.
- Built strategic client partnerships, maintaining strong relationships with enterprise customers and acting as a trusted advisor for their business process optimization needs.
Process Analysis Team Leader and IT Project Manager
Fujitsu
- Led the analysis and implementation of the Public Procurement Authority's e-Procurement platform, successfully digitizing all tendering procedures and streamlining government procurement processes.
- Managed the "e-Tender" project, facilitating the completion of three successful electronic tenders on the new digital platform, showcasing expertise in delivering complex IT projects on schedule.
- Played a key role in the Software Development Process Improvement Project and actively contributed to the CMMI working group, confirming requirements for the CMMI document related to the Requirements Development Process Area.
- Implemented and continually improved requirements practices within the organization, ensuring the gathering, documentation, and verification of clear, consistent, and standards-aligned requirements.
- Led the requirements analysis and verification process, ensuring all requirements were complete and met project needs. Actively elicited requirements using various techniques (interviews, workshops, etc.), demonstrating strong analytical skills.
- Maintained close coordination with the project team and developers, ensuring projects stayed on schedule and within budget. Managed requirements traceability and defect identification to prevent costly errors and delays.
- Demonstrated expertise in requirements gathering, analysis, documentation, verification, and traceability, ensuring project success and alignment with stakeholder needs.
Software Development Team Leader and IT Project Manager
TOBB ETU Hospital
- Led the complete digital transformation initiative, designing and implementing a comprehensive hospital information system (HIS) from scratch for clinical, administrative, financial, and inventory management.
- Replaced legacy hospital systems with modern, integrated HIS, significantly improving hospital operations, efficiency, and patient care delivery across all departments.
- Served as central stakeholder communication hub, gathering requirements from clinical staff, administrators, and users while designing solutions and producing technical documentation.
- Ensured full healthcare regulatory compliance, implementing HIPAA-equivalent data privacy standards and healthcare regulations throughout system design and deployment.
- Led the successful transition from Waterfall to Agile (Scrum) methodologies, fostering team collaboration, development flexibility, and faster delivery of critical healthcare features.
- Developed enterprise-grade healthcare software using C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, SQL with Oracle and SQL Server, creating robust system architecture for hospital operations.
- Created comprehensive technical documentation, including UML diagrams, use cases, and system specifications, ensuring clear communication and knowledge transfer.
- Facilitated cross-functional project management, monitoring progress, prioritizing clinical needs, and ensuring deliverables met strict healthcare operational requirements.
- Analyzed and modernized legacy healthcare code formulating cost-effective solutions to improve system performance and operational efficiency.
- Managed organizational change management, ensuring the smooth adoption of a new HIS with minimal disruption to patient care and hospital operations.
Senior Software Development Engineer
CompuGroup Medical
- Led the design and implementation of a hospital information system from scratch, impacting thousands of users across Turkey and international healthcare organizations.
- Developed comprehensive healthcare software solutions, including clinical, administrative, and financial modules for enterprise hospital management.
- Conducted extensive user requirements analysis and system design, working directly with healthcare professionals to understand clinical workflows and operational needs.
- Demonstrated full-stack software development expertise from concept to delivery using C#, VB.NET, C++, Oracle, Visual Studio, and Enterprise Architect.
- Visited client sites regularly for requirements gathering, ensuring developed solutions were tailored to specific healthcare environments and regulatory compliance needs.
- Recognized as a top-performing developer company-wide, showcasing exceptional troubleshooting skills and cost-effective problem-solving capabilities.
- Led transition from Waterfall to Agile development processes, improving team efficiency, collaboration, and delivery speed for healthcare software projects.
- Engineered a scalable healthcare system architecture, supporting multiple hospitals and ensuring robust performance for mission-critical healthcare operations.
- Championed rapid application development methodologies, enabling faster delivery of healthcare solutions while maintaining quality and compliance standards.
- Managed the complete software development lifecycle from requirements gathering through deployment and maintenance for international healthcare implementations.
Project History
Comodo ONE: A Top Security Service Platform with Over 500,000 Endpoints
https://one.comodo.com/Led the product lifecycle management activities for Comodo ONE, which was recognized as a Trust Award finalist in the Best Managed Security Service category for the 2018 SC Awards.
The SC Awards are recognized as the industry’s gold standard for cybersecurity professionals, products, and services. Vendors and service providers who offer a product and/or service for the commercial, government, educational, nonprofit, or other industries are eligible for the SC Awards’ Trust Award category.
Comodo ONE is a free integrated IT and security management platform for managed service providers (MSPs). It combines remote monitoring and management (RMM), ticketing, and patch management into a single, easy-to-use console. It helps MSPs automate existing processes, view real-time data and alerts from customer networks, reduce operating costs, and improve the quality of service.
Comodo ONE is the only complete IT and security management platform that provides IT management tools for free. The money users save on licensing fees and other service costs through Comodo ONE allows them to hire more people and better compete for business.
www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/sc-awards-finalists-2018/
Comodo Added to Gartner Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Magic Quadrant
Gartner, Inc. has added Comodo’s Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEP) solution to its Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Magic Quadrant in recognition of the company’s completeness of vision and ability to execute.
Gartner, Inc. is the world’s leading research and advisory firm and the most influential analyst organization, given its broad reach and deep insight, based on more data points than any other analyst firm in the game.
Comodo has expanded its product portfolio to include a baseline of Endpoint Protection Platform capabilities for enterprises (free, premium, and platinum) with Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection. Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEP) includes malware protection, a host-based intrusion prevention system (IPS), web filtering, a personal firewall, sandbox analysis, vulnerability analysis, and patching, and a 100% classification capability that helps guarantee a good or bad verdict on all executables. When an executable is untrusted or unknown, it is run in a tightly controlled container to isolate any potentially malicious activity.
Comodo One, the company’s centralized IT operating platform, provides a simplified deployment experience and a baseline of typical EPP features.
Comodo One with Comodo AEP combines security and endpoint management with the benefits of preventing endpoint infections due to malware simplifying the administration of security patches, OS updates, and application control.
Lead Author of “Investigating the Role of Product Manager in Software Product Organizations”
Wrote: Investigating the role of a Product Manager in Software Product Organizations.
Product management requires a broad perspective and management approach that considers multiple disciplines, such as technology, marketing, strategic planning and engineering, and interactions between these disciplines. These define product management in a variety of ways and with their own perspective.
The objective of this book chapter is to explore, understand, and investigate the role of a product manager in software product organizations to:
• Understand the general concept of software product management.
• Understand the role and responsibilities of a product manager in the software product and management context.
• Explore how a product manager role fits in with other roles in organizations.
• Walk through the roles of a product manager according to the different development phases in the software development lifecycle.
Global Online Marketplace with >100M + MAUs and Top 3 Social Media Network with >500 M MAUs
http://www.trustlab.comLed the product development process for the detection of bad actors and transactions with off-platform signals and mitigating damages based on off-platform signals. Over one million requests are processed per month.
I led the product development process for the detection of TOS (terms of service) violations with on-platform signals. Projects also covered high-harm content detection, including violence, sexual content, harassment, and other forms of badness. The long-term contract is accomplished (18+ months). I repeated projects with four of the top five social media networks, signing long-term contracts with three.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering
Baskent University - Ankara, Turkey
Certifications
Pragmatic Marketing - Level II
Pragmatic Marketing
Data Science and Big Data Analytics: Making Data-driven Decisions
MIT
AI Product Manager Nanodegree Program
Udacity
Data Science Foundations - Level 2
IBM
Data Science Foundations - Level 1
IBM
Python for Data Science
IBM
UML Requirements Modeling For Business Analysts
i-con technologies
Blackblot Product Management Professional in Product Planning
Blackblot - Product Management Expertise
Blackblot Product Management Professional in Product Management
Blackblot - Product Management Expertise
Introduction to CMMI for Development v1.3
CMMI Institute
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Next Generation ICAO 9896 Voice over IP Interfaces for the Air Traffic Service Ground Voice Network
JSP Consultancy
OMG-Certified Expert in BPMN 2 (OCEB2)
OMG
SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance
Microsoft
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: SQL Server 2008, Database Development
Microsoft
Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
IIBA
Software and Database Expertise (400 Hours)
Microsoft
Customizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft
Oracle Database 10g: Performance Tuning
Oracle University
2609:Introduction to C# Programming with Microsoft.NET
Microsoft
2555: Developing MS.NET Application for Windows (C#.NET)
Microsoft
Oracle 9i: SQL Tuning Workshop
Oracle
Skills
Tools
Figma, Atlassian Suite, Tableau, ETL, Jira, Google Analytics, Tableau Desktop Pro, AWS Step Functions
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, Scrum, Requirements Analysis, Agile, Agile Project Management, Design Thinking, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Team Development
Industry Expertise
Healthcare
Platforms
Blockchain, AWS IoT
Other
Product Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Vision, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Wireframing, IT Project Management, Business Process Management (BPM), UML Diagrams, User Stories, Project Management Professional (PMP), Business Model Canvas, Roadmaps, Feature Roadmaps, User Onboarding, Process Analysis, Business Requirements, Product Launch, Endpoint Security, Patch Management, Business to Business (B2B), Business Analysis, IT Business Analysis, Business Process Optimization, Product Owner, User Experience (UX), Cybersecurity, User Journeys, Scrum Product Owner, Software as a Service (SaaS), Data Analytics, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Product Discovery, SQL, UML, Backlog Management, Sprint Planning, User Interface (UI), Requirements & Specifications, Business Intelligence (BI), Cloud Computing, Feature Prioritization, Technical Product Management, Customer Discovery, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Microsoft Azure, User Journey Maps, Web Development, Lean Analytics, Agile Leadership, Market Research & Analysis, UI Design, Product Development, Business Processes, Process Mapping, Process Improvement, Process Optimization, Process Management, Customer Journey, SaaS Product Management, Feature Planning, Lean Product Manager, Product Coach, New Product Development, UX Prototyping, Product Management, B2B, Web Applications, Use Cases, Business Models, Product Growth, Digital Product Development, Digital Product Management, User Requirements, Data Analysis, Data Product Manager, Data Cleaning, Data Visualization, Data Pipelines, Product Analytics, Product Ownership, Requirements, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Technical Business Analysis, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Impact Mapping, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Design Sprints, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Pricing Strategy, C#, Databases, .NET, APIs, REST APIs, UX Design, Software Requirements Specifications (SRS), Web App Development, Customer Research, Lean Startups, Value Proposition Design, Qualitative Research, Product Strategy Consultant, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Proof of Concept (POC), Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Machine Learning, jQuery, CSS, Data Science, Enterprise Architecture, Chatbots, HTML5, Python, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategies, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Cryptocurrency, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Business Process Improvement (BPI), C#.NET, Business Process Modeling, Diagrams, Flow Diagrams, Technical Drawing, Technical Writing, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), AI Agents, Workflow Automation & System Integration, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Large Language Models (LLMs), Cross-functional Team Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Prompt Engineering, Agentic Frameworks, AI Product Management, Conversational AI, AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, API Design, Terraform, Swagger, Data Warehousing, Collibra, Customer Acquisition, Cloud Architecture & Integration, Visualization, OpenAI API, Snowflake, OKR Management, Digital Transformation, Manufacturing Operations, Python 3, RESTFul APIs, Customer Journey Management, IT Security, Fraud Detection, Content Moderation, Profiling, Customer Journey Maps, Data, Architecture, Statistical Data Analysis, Product-market Fit, Cross-functional Collaboration, Stakeholder Engagement, Zero Trust, Threat Detection and Response (TDR), Vulnerability Management, Enterprise Customer Management, Global Team Management, MSP (Managed Service Provider), Portfolio Management, Customer Success Management, Distributed Team Leadership, Training, Competitive Analysis
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