Francesco Bellanca, Product Manager in London, United Kingdom
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Francesco Bellanca

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Location
London, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
May 10, 2019

Francesco is a trilingual product leader and complex problem solver with a deep understanding of AI architectures and products. He has a background in big data and network theory. He has launched a startup that was selected among the top 100 for the Digital Pioneers Award (together with companies like Revolut and Spotify) from Google and The Financial Times. Francesco then spent 2.5 years leading product at Sifted (backed by the FT), helping it grow through the Series A phase.

Project Highlights

Feral Horses
Led the company from the idea stage to more than £230 thousand in art sold.
Skype in the Classroom
Involved in the Microsoft project (Skype in the classroom) to teach kids from all around the world a wide variety of topics.

Expertise

Work Experience

Guest Lecturer

2019 - PRESENT
Christie's Education
  • Lectured on entrepreneurship in arts.

Committee Member

2019 - PRESENT
H club
  • Screened potential members of the club.

Guest Lecturer

2018 - PRESENT
Sotheby's Institute
  • Lectured on art and technology.

Head of Product

2021 - 2024
Sifted
  • Built the product team from the ground up, including dev, design, and product.
  • Oversaw the tech migration to a headless CMS stack, delivering on both technical requirements and business objectives.
  • Built internal tools initially developed during one of our hackathons to save hundreds of hours of complex work with LLM-powered AI architectures.
  • Led and organized quarterly hackathons to test and evolve new product ideas while exploring cutting-edge technologies.

CEO

2016 - 2020
Feral Horses
  • Led the company from the idea stage to more than $500,000 in art sold.
  • Successfully raised an angel and crowdfunding round with more than 250 investors, reaching the target in two weeks.
  • Iterated quarterly on strategy assumptions, using a set of strict KPIs to vet the success of the hypothesis, and adjusted the strategy accordingly.
  • Built internal agile processes both for people in the office and remotely.
  • Completed the company's merger with a competitor.

Feral Horses

Led the company from the idea stage to more than £230 thousand in art sold.

Think about a world where the cultural patrimony, the art that is in museums, and the objects that represent our cultural heritage are owned by millions of people.

We built a platform that designs a new paradigm for cultural interaction based on the decentralization of property and redistribution of profits; a platform where people can buy and sell shares of museum-worthy art.

Skype in the Classroom

Involved in the Microsoft project (Skype in the classroom) to teach kids from all around the world a wide variety of topics.

Skype in the Classroom is an online community that allows thousands of teachers to inspire the next generation of global citizens through transformative learning on Skype.
2016 - 2017

Master's Degree in Big Data

King’s College London - London

2013 - 2016

Bachelor's Degree in Business

Greenwich University - London

AUGUST 2022 - PRESENT

Human-Centered Systems Thinking

IDEO

MAY 2018 - PRESENT

Machine Learning Academy

University College London

NOVEMBER 2016 - PRESENT

Big Data in the Art World

ArtTactic

Collaboration That Works

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