Emma Davis
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since September 15, 2022
Emma is an experienced CPO/VP product leader and consultant, passionate about transforming customer outcomes with technology. She's led product organizations at startups, such as Klarna and Divido, and enterprises, such as Barclays, Visa, and Chaucer Insurance, building teams that work cross-functionally with growth and technology. Emma is a thought leader in eCommerce, fintech, insurance, retail banking, and payments. She excels in building a vision and seeing it through to delivery.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Product Management Consultant
Balanced Family UG
- Advised a startup providing relationship coaching via an app and podcast, defining the methodology and leading early prototypes through qualitative and quantitative user research, synthesis, and product proposition development.
- Mentored startup co-founders on consumer research, product prioritization, and growth strategies leading to friends and family launches.
- Provided mentoring to startup co-founders on product vision and investor pitch decks, including the go-to-market approach and forecasts.
Product Manager
Helios Design and Consulting, LLC
- Worked with a global research and design agency on end-to-end research to define the SaaS product platform and portals for the leading international buildings and cold chain management company with a strong environmental focus.
- Advised and defined an end-to-end product discovery and development process.
- Developed a framework for product prioritization, including a complex multi-parameter scorecard.
- Synthesized jobs-to-be-done research and developed the traceability of research to the product feature set.
- Developed and coached an internationally distributed team on templates for epics and stories that enabled the definition of a multi-persona, multifunctional, data-rich enterprise platform.
- Synthesized research information, data, and stakeholder feedback.
- Developed logical models for user workflows, navigation, and data flows.
Conceptualization and Business Automation Product Management Lead
Royal Claims Services Ltd.
- Worked with the president of a leading north American claims management firm serving a top player in the insurance market. Designed transformative optimization of the end-to-end claims management process for complex, multi-contract risk policies.
- Mapped out "as is" and "to be "processes, encompassing internal systems for workflow, content management, and communications and external systems for client and regulatory policy management, payments, and reporting.
- Delivered recommendations for a phased end-to-end process flow optimization and automation, including database, portals for user interaction, and API integration with external systems, including those for a key player in the insurance industry.
- Defined user personas, use cases, and jobs to be done, then interviewed and workshopped with internal users of the system to collaboratively design optimal experiences.
VP and CPO of Product
Divido
- Reported to the CEO as the first senior product hire at this BNPL finance platform. A hired team from two to eight established core product practices in prioritization and scorecarding to enable C-suite decisions across tech and commercial growth.
- Created and embedded consumer-focused insight and design function with first customer research, UX design system, process design, use case analysis with data, and sales demos on customer journey conversion.
- Achieved the C-suite collaboration on strategy, product-market fit, use case analysis, and roadmap development in a complex SaaS ecosystem. Partnered with growth and customer success teams for top-tier financial service lenders, PSPs, and eCommerce.
- Created and embedded data in commercial and product optimization with first data analytics and business intelligence hires, warehouse, and web analytics implementation to support use case analysis and product and process design.
- Established a prioritization framework and product backlogs with empowered teams to enable parallel product development, balancing client and core work.
- Published thought leadership articles on the financial services "Buy Now, Pay Later," including KYC, Identity, and UX optimization in the retail finance space, speaking on behalf of Divido UK at international industry events.
- Led the zero-to-one build of the POC BNPL payments app virtual card in three months, using lean UX/product management. With the co-founder, defined the proposition market fit, MVP, UX journeys, biometrics, KYC, rapid prototyping, and delivery.
Non-executive Director
Brixton Pound CIC
- Steered the strategic direction of The Brixton Pound (B£), the UK's first local urban currency. Served as a non-executive director for part of a team securing investment from an International blockchain company to build secure local currency.
- Was part of the team that founded London's first and only pay-what-you-feel cafe with surplus food, offering space to community groups and managing multiple art exhibitions to support up-and-coming local artists without the prohibitive gallery fees.
- Set up and ran the Brixton Pound Fund as part of a team, which fundraised using raffles and percentage interchange on a pay-by-text scheme, and crowdsourced local organizations to which to donate.
- Steered the 0-to-1 MVP of Brixton Pound on the blockchain, creating a working prototype, app, and token exchange secured on the Algorand locbkchain as the non-executive director.
Senior Director | Product and Proposition Management
Barclays Bank UK PLC
- Led strategy, development, and management of products and services for onboarding and money management for family and social banking with P&L ownership for 3 million customers under 30. On the current account council with strong risk and control.
- Transformed the digital onboarding process of the bank's first mobile app and KYC from scratch. Led research, ideation, MVP, design, delivery, and GTM. Won the CEO-level investment to roll out, exceeding cost, conversion, and market share targets.
- Built and coached a team of product and proposition managers and business analysts, led end-to-end delivery on a portfolio of web products, including wealth management, investments, insurance, savings, open banking, cards, payments, loans, and BNPL.
- Created a rapid POC and zero-to-one for the UK's first app for student account digital (web and app) opening and onboarding, including a partnership with fintech companies Onfido for NFC and KYC and Perlego for referrals and incentives.
- Grew Barclays Money Mentors Financial Services Advice product from a team of 12 in 2020 to over 2,500 trained mentors, becoming the lead for Barclays ATL marketing in 2021, including cross-channel business and process mapping and referral strategy.
- Built and delivered a product roadmap for consumer money management, gamification, and rewards, collaborating across businesses to deliver innovative digital services, including card controls, subscriptions, open banking aggregation, and payments.
- Embedded agile product management across the enterprise from legal and compliance to engineering. Established the POD function across fraud, legal, and risk for complex and control-based decisions. The model is rolled out company-wide.
- Delivered percentage point speed improvements and content authoring efficiencies with the product leadership of Barclay's public website and staff knowledge-base CMS, content, and collaboration software.
- Led the team to transform website and content publishing processes and tech for Barclays.co.uk, pivoting from a waterfall program into autonomous ring-fenced feature teams, working cross-functionally on ongoing optimizations.
- Served as a product manager and consultant leading end-to-end early-stage innovation, including partnering with fintech companies to provide rental installment payments (BNPL in housing), open banking aggregation and spend analysis, and child investment funds.
Head of International Development | EMEA and Asia
WorldFirst
- Set and implemented WorldFirst's international product strategy and led a team to drive the development of our international SME banking and FX platform services through new product and market entry, reporting to the CEO over maternity leave.
- Negotiated with global regulators, trade bodies, and government, shaping regulatory policy for FX, governmental and regulatory relationships at senior levels of HM Treasury, DIT, FSA, and EBA, including responses to PSD2 consultation.
- Led strategy for the Indian market entry, winning and representing the company on a UK trade mission to India. Developed partnerships with eCommerce marketplaces, logistics, and local payments with on-site visits.
- Coached a globally distributed product-focused strategy team, working collaboratively with specialists in payments, banking, engineering, HR, legal, compliance, B2B customer success, and marketing.
- Led WorldFirst's strategy for European growth on the occasion of a hard Brexit and European rollout strategy for the new World Account product with accountability for P&L forecast and successful delivery of profitability.
Global Product and Vertical Manager | Digital Goods
Klarna
- Established a go-to resource within Klarna UK for know-how in payment strategy, open banking, and direct debit, representing Klarna at forums and conferences and in consultation with regulators and schemes.
- Joined a team who transformed business strategy to enable Klarna's entry into the UK market, pivoting from a local Swedish product to a globally scalable product-market fit. Secured the path to delivery across Germany, the UK, the USA, and offline.
- Built relationships with international regulators and schemes and negotiated agreements with platforms, PSPs, acquirers, and APMs to achieve cost-effective payment processing across Europe.
- Led a strategy for eCommerce payments in the digital subscription vertical, developing a new proposition with the product and engineering teams across the UK, Sweden, and Germany, refining it to maximize customer experience and profitability.
Head of Product | European eCommerce
Thomas Cook
- Led the website eCommerce offering across all of Thomas Cook Travel's European sites for search, check out, and booking a holiday. Built a team of product and analytics owners to deliver this key part of the web and digital transformation.
- Led the delivery of a new mobile, responsive website and checkout experience, collectively delivering over a 20% improvement in conversion—over 50% on mobile—and over a 25% improvement in ancillary sales.
- Established tracking, measurement, and testing of customer experience, conversion, ancillary attachment, AOV, and payment method performance. Conducted continuous user testing and MVT.
- Led the ideation to delivery of an industry-leading installment payment solution, making Thomas Cook the first online travel agency to offer direct debit online.
- Gained national press coverage, over a 50% YoY increase in advance bookings on the website and double-digit improvement in cash flow.
- Delivered numerous incremental product initiatives on the website, including personalizing holiday extras, card scans, social media logins, referrals and dynamic product packaging.
- Established partnerships with card networks, PSPs, and APMs and an exclusive launch partnership with the Pay by Bank app alongside the industry-leading partnership with GoCardless to offer direct debit.
Head of Proposition and Product Owner | eCommerce Merchants
Visa Europe
- Was part of the core product proposition team on Visa Europe's strategic program to design, develop, and launch Visa's strategic approach to payments, a digital wallet called V.me, now Visa Checkout and click to pay.
- Built Visa's first agile delivery capability in a demanding, fast-changing environment. Coached product managers and a team of BAs, designers, and over 100 developers.
- Secured global leadership approval of a business case that delivered value to a complex multi-party ecosystem and conversion for consumers, PSP, and merchants while balancing risks to Visa's 4,000 issuing banks.
- Provided the end-to-end strategy for delivery into multiple markets in a team that grew from six to 100 in two years.
- Delivered on time the consumer trial and multi-country rollout. For the consumer, it entailed fast and secure registration, account management, and checkout; for the merchant, web analytics, multipart fraud protection, and APIs.
Senior Business Intelligence Consultant and Manager
Thorogood
- Served as a lead consultant in delivering data engineering, data science, data visualization, and business strategy for clients across insurance, finance, CPMG, pharma, health, law, and travel. Promoted to the consultancy sales team within a year.
- Oversaw a new performance management practice for a year, winning and developing the offshore capability to deliver four multi-million pound data and BI projects in industries such as law, travel, and financial services.
- Led numerous seminars and presented at the global Microsoft BI conference. SME in sales engagements with responsibility for marketing, development of methodologies, and training to support new data, BI, and performance management solution offerings.
- Launched a data-driven dynamic operating cost model for a major airline. Led a distributed team from initial requirements gathering and user interviews through design, development, UAT, and data training, spanning 100 airports worldwide.
- Provided a healthcare company CEO and top 200 executives with web-based data intelligence. Led multicountry workshops to gather requirements and translate them to data strategy, data source integration, metric, and dashboard design.
- Managed planning, budgeting, and performance. Served as the lead consultant on developing data-driven annual accounting, planning, and budgeting and presented at the Microsoft Global BI conference in Seattle with the client's finance director.
- Enabled the selection of the most appropriate solution for a global dashboard for an international healthcare and consumer goods manufacturer by reviewing dashboard technologies, which resulted in a successful data strategy implementation.
- Performed sales reporting and analysis. Served as a technical lead on a SQL database, Cube, and dashboard solution, enabling brand managers to harness the power of EPOS data and multiple external sources with advanced reporting tools.
- Carried out reporting and analysis from complex market share data for a global consumer goods manufacturer. Led a team of five consultants from requirements gathering through functional design, technical development, and user testing.
Project History
Digital Onboarding for Barclays UK
Managed the delivery of the UK's first mobile app and web onboarding journey for Barclays, doubling conversion of account opening and achieving double-digit percentage channel shift, market share increase, and CEO-backed company-wide rollout.
KEY ACTIVITIES
• Provided end-to-end leadership from discovery and ideation to successful GTM, doubling conversion and winning tens of million GBP investment in the company-wide product rollout.
• Initiated new partnerships with fintech, such as Onfido, and established leaders to leverage the latest AI and ML technology to protect against fraud.
• Pioneered new agile ways of working, building ringfenced product, technology, and design feature teams supported by researchers, data analysts, and frontline staff.
• Worked cross-functionally with data and marketing to deliver successful GTM across web, branch, and social channels.
The established POD function across the fraud, legal, compliance, and risk departments working alongside the core teams enabled us to quickly make complex risk and control-based decisions. The model is now being rolled out company-wide.
It was a market first and judged best-in-class according to an independent opinion that can be read at builtformars.com/banks/opening/.
Spreading the Cost of a Holiday—Thomas Cook
https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/59163/thomas-cook-introduces-interest-free-direct-debit-paymentsLed an industry-leading digital payments solution from ideation to launch to make Thomas Cook the first online travel agency (OTA) to offer direct debit online, achieving over a 50% YoY increase in advance bookings by meeting key customer needs.
I partnered with GoCardless, an early-stage fintech at the time, for a seamlessly embedded journey within Thomas Cook and extensively customer-tested optimizations for customer choice and confidence.
The project resulted in gained national press coverage, over 50% YoY increase in advance bookings, a double-digit conversion and cash flow improvement, and an impact on P&L and balance sheet, including risk. The feature became one of the four headline reasons to book with Thomas Cook on an enduring basis.
The snapshot of websites of 2016 can be reached at web.archive.org/web/20170228124103/https://www.thomascook.com/direct-debit/#intcmp=Footer_DirectDebit.
Barclays Money Mentors and Money Management App Tools
https://www.barclays.co.uk/money-mentors/Built the Barclays Money Mentors service from a pilot team of 12 in 2020 to over 2,500 trained mentors by the end of 2021, resulting in Barclays' ATL market campaigns and ten million active app customers.
The service achieved the highest NPS in the bank and became the leader of a multi-million-pound investment in ATL marketing for Barclays in 2021.
Alongside the expert mentors, we delivered digital tools for money management, increasing key engagement statistics and NPS for the Barclays app. We also delivered customer savings goals, categorized spending, calendar, map, open banking, and a sophisticated data-driven engine for customer insights. I led the team across Agile, Scrum, and Waterfall frameworks and methodologies to deliver an end-to-end portfolio of product features, from discovery and investment prioritization through design, delivery, and GTM.
Some demos and videos can be viewed at www.barclays.co.uk/help/payments/direct-debits/cancelled-direct-debit-calendar-view/ and www.barclays.co.uk/ways-to-bank/account-aggregation/.
Education
Master's Degree in Mathematics
University of Cambridge - Cambridge, United Kingdom
Certifications
ILM Recognised Business Mentor
Association of Business Mentors
Certified Product Management Scrum Master
Scrum.org
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Scrum.org
PRINCE2 Practitioner Certification
PRINCE2
IBM Cognos TM1 Certified Developer
IBM
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist—SQL
Microsoft
Skills
Tools
Financial Data, Zoom, Slack, Tableau, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Jira, Atlassian, Atlassian Suite, Microsoft Power BI, SQL Server BI, Power Pivot, Figma
Paradigms
Scrum, B2B2C, B2C, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Agile Product Management, Agile, Agile Project Management, Requirements Analysis, Mobile App Design, Rapid Prototyping, User Testing, Agile Software Development, Data-driven Design, Iterative Design, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Design Thinking, Change Management, Marketplace Platforms, Database Design, Gamification, Pragmatic Marketing, Augmented Reality (AR)
Industry Expertise
Financial Services, Insurance, Consumer Products, Banking & Finance, Marketplaces, Real Estate, Industrials
Platforms
Blockchain, WooCommerce
Other
Excel 365, Microsoft PowerPoint, Team Leadership, Commercialization, Collaboration, Data Analysis, Product Management, B2B Product Management, Customer Research, Market Research, New Product Business Cases, Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Value Proposition Design, Agile Product Delivery, Project Management, Business Strategy, Online Payments, Product Leadership, Data Analytics, Mobile Apps, Commercial Strategy, Fintech, eCommerce, Digital Payments, Consumer Banking, Digital Product Management, Digital Product Design, Agile Delivery, Product Delivery, Growth, A/B Testing, Customer Acquisition, Two-sided Marketplaces, Agile Practices, Agile Coaching, Agile Leadership, Product Design, Ideation, Business Cases, Card Payments, Product Strategy, International Payments, Internationalization, Mobile Applications, Conceptualization, Roadmaps, MVP Design, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Marketing Research & Analysis, Consumer Lending, Web & Mobile Applications, Know Your Customer (KYC), Identity, Prototyping, Concept Testing, Product Launch, Product Growth, Growth Strategy, Cross-functional Collaboration, Business Models, Digital Product Development, Product Development, Discovery Workshops, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Project Planning, Project Timelines, Stakeholder Management, User Stories, Communication, Estimations, Presentations, Negotiation, Management, Market Research & Analysis, Pricing Strategy, Monetization Models, Go-to-market Strategy, Value Proposition, Customer Experience, User Experience (UX), Business Analysis, Process Design, Use Case Analysis, Process Mapping, Design Requirements, Wealth Management, Functional Requirements, Dashboard Design, Technical Product Management, Data Visualization, Data Reporting, Cost Estimation, Estimation & Planning, Financial Modeling, New Product Development, Requirements, Lean Product Manager, Mentorship & Coaching, Qualitative Research, User Validation Testing, New Products & Services, Pitch Presentations, Feasibility Studies, Pitch Decks, Revenue Strategy, Business Plan Consulting, Checkout, Ideation Workshops, User Feedback, User Research, Feature Roadmaps, Product Coach, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), User Personas, Personas, Product Descriptions, Product Development Manager, Product Marketing, Budgeting, Project Scoping, Technical Requirements, Go-to-market Optimization, Market Entry, Minimum Marketable Product (MMP), Pricing, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Product Positioning, Market Fit, Sales Enablement, Workshops, Cost Analysis, Scope, Process Flows, Process Improvement, Vendor Selection, Contact Centers, Channel Strategy, SMS, User Interviews, Management Consulting, ROI, Data Strategy, Finance, Feature Prioritization, Payment APIs, SaaS, Product Vision, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Audience Targeting, Mobile, Big Data, Monetization, Feature Planning, Budget Modeling, Scope Management, End-to-end Implementation (E2E), Financials, Market Opportunity Analysis, Third-party Logistics, Vendor Management, Web Applications, Jobs to be Done (JTBD), User Requirements, Business Requirements, Market Segmentation, App Development, Product Discovery, Project Budget Management, Business Planning, Product Ownership, Product Owner, Digital Platform Development, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Dashboards, Certified Scrum Professional, Enterprise SaaS, User Flows, Product Strategy Consultant, Technical Project Management, Platforms, Process Optimization, Process Automation, Task Management, Product Viability, Analytics, Analysis, User Journeys, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Coaching, Competition Research, Consumer Insights, Market Research Analyst, Mobile App Development, Sprint Planning, Data-driven Dashboards, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), User Engagement, eCommerce UX, Feature Analysis, Data-driven Decision-making, International Growth, Revenue Modeling, User Needs, Product Customization, Documentation, Iteration Management, Product Enhancement, Planning, Technical Documentation, Technology, Tracking, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Website Redesign, User Surveys, Focus Groups, User Retention, Open Banking APIs, Business to Consumer (B2C), Scheduling, Team Mentoring, Software as a Service (SaaS), Business to Business (B2B), International Finance, Online Banking, System Integration, Web Platforms, Biometrics, International Data Privacy Regulations, Customer Discovery, New Products, Project Tracking, Discovery, Scrum Master, Apps, Startup Consulting, Subscriptions, Culture Management, People Management, Integration, Booking Apps, Creative Tech, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Workflow, Technical Business Analysis, Quality Assurance (QA), Expansion Strategy, Business Development, Small Business, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Operations, Go-to-market Plans, Integrated Sales & Operational Planning, Operational Efficiency Improvement, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), Fintech Consultant, Regulatory Compliance, Miro, SaaS Product Marketing, P&L Management, SQL, Development, B2B, B2B Partnerships, Partnerships, B2C Marketing, Websites, Web Development, Profit & Loss (P&L), Web Analytics, Machine Learning, Outsourcing, UX Design, Mobile UX Design, APIs, Mortgages, iOS, Android, UI Design, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Salesforce, Multi-sided Marketplaces, Charity, Volunteering, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Revenue & Expense Projections, Mobile UX, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), Accounting Modernization, Insurance Product Manager, Insurance Broking, Startups, Media, Early-stage Startups, Healthcare Services, Marketing, Software Development, Data Privacy, Security, Pricing Models, Tech Sales, Standard Operating Procedures Development, Call Centers, Reinsurance, Billing Systems, Chief Product Officer (CPO), Architecture, REST APIs, Marketing Attribution, Web App Development, Technical Hiring, Marketing Strategy, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), GDPR, Privacy Frameworks, User Interface (UI), Website Traffic, Hotels & Lodging, Travel, Datasets, B2B Lead Generation, Markets, Executive Support, Compliance, Referrals, Subscription Box Service, Accounting, Accounting Software, Internet of Things (IoT), Automation, Lucidchart, Statistics, P&L Responsibility, TM1, Microsoft SQL Server, MDX, Foreign Exchange, B2B Sales Pipeline, Fraud Prevention, Proof of Concept (POC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Fundraising, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Business Intelligence (BI), Business Intelligence (BI) Platforms, Offshoring, Sales, Consulting, IT Consulting, Project Consultancy, Software Consulting, Product Consultant, Data Science, Fitness, Election Management Systems, WordPress, Multimedia, Graphic Design, Telematics, Telemetry, Interactive Prototypes, Cryptocurrency, Gaming, Business Process Flow (BPF), Business Process Flow Diagrams, Data, Databases, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), UX Research, System Requirements, Customer Segmentation, Product Frameworks, Industrial Equipment, IoT Protocols, JTBD Interviews, Process Management, Quantitative User Research, Mentorship, Small Business Consultants, Small Business Management
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