Gretchen Kotek
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Minneapolis, MN, United States
Toptal member since January 25, 2021
Gretchen is a healthcare industry expert with over 20 years of experience. She's passionate about her industry and is enthusiastic about incorporating smart, creative ways to develop solutions. Gretchen dynamically leads teams past any project challenges with a get-it-done attitude, robust communication skills, empathy, and fun. Gretchen provides the data needed to make crucial decisions that drive the creation of software the end user loves to use and the sales team loves to sell.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Business Strategy
- Disruptive Innovation
- Healthcare
- Human Factors
- Launch Strategy
- Product Development
Work Experience
Director of Clinical Innovation and New Product Introduction
Spok
- Worked with senior executives to roll out a quarterly business outlook meeting. This included goal selection for the quarter, training, change management, and creating templates and coaching to execute upon the new framework.
- Created the first product strategy workshop that was conducted virtually and cross-functionally. The goals included, getting a diverse group of leaders discussing our market and targeting what they considered priority for the company.
- Led the engagement of a dissatisfied clinical innovation partner. Built the relationship back up by demonstrating new feature roll outs, training, delivering early, and being creative with how we solved their problems.
- Spearheaded the successful introduction of a new product to market. Managed the UX/UI, research, hardware, software, VoIP, and NLU. Used business strategy, product management, and design to delight our customers!
- Set up and directed clinical innovation at Spok with our strategic partners in healthcare; used this opportunity to drive the roadmap and refine products.
Director of Product Management
Provation Medical
- Successfully created a strategy and business plan for the transition of an on-premise application to a cloud-based application—overseeing and coordinating the implementation of all stages of the development lifecycle.
- Served as an effective change agent across the business—ensuring that all teams are actively on-board with the product transformation and evolving customer expectations, including development, sales, marketing, and support.
- Provided strong leadership and guidance to seven product owners and managers, business analysts, UX/UI, and documentation direct reports—providing constructive feedback and motivating each to perform at optimal levels.
- Leveraged product management expertise to create a detailed roadmap and launch strategy that prioritized development in alignment with the business strategy while also agile enough to flex to emerging customer needs.
- Innovatively troubleshot problems that impact development progress—researching and implementing creative solutions that most effectively resolve the issue.
- Utilized strong communication skills to lead cross-functional teams through the various product development stages—meeting all deliverables and staying within budget.
- Partnered with marketing to facilitate how to maximize product interest; actively prepared the support team for the evolving needs of these customers.
- Introduced disruptive innovation to the team and created a framework to keep it part of the day-to-day discussions in product management.
- Acted as a strong client advocate—working directly with customers to obtain their feedback and better understand how they use the product to enhance future development.
- Designed new measures to analyze product performance and customer usage patterns to identify areas of opportunity and enhance overall product performance.
Manager of Product Management and Software Development
Wolters Kluwer
- Seamlessly managed the development and growth of two key products for Wolters Kluwer Health, a global company that provides services and software and web-based solutions to healthcare professionals.
- Strategically planned, developed, and supported product growth initiatives to ensure that products remain competitive in the market and fully meet customer growing needs.
- Obtained the voice of the customer through onsite visits, including with international customers, learning how they integrate company products into their workflow, and what current and future needs they have.
- Actively participated in advisory boards—presenting product information and gathering customer feedback.
- Regularly kept the executive team apprised of the developing needs of our customers and provide innovative recommendations on how we can best meet those needs.
- Collaborated with subject matter experts and usability vendors—leveraging them to assist with upcoming product development.
- Effectively led a cross-functional team that was made up of quality assurance developers, technology software developers, and client services to assist with the implementation of future product development and monitor progress.
- Provided strong leadership and guidance to 14 direct reports, including software developers, and a product manager.
- Wrote foundational information for use in creating collateral documentation for customers.
- Expertly trained internal colleagues, including product specialists, implementation staff, and marketing team on how products are utilized by customers to facilitate them with their roles with the product.
Global E-marketing Associate
Eli Lilly
- Managed the website design vendor for a new medication going to market.
- Provided usability guidance to the internal website design team at Lilly.
- Collaborated with the medical content team on the copy needed for website.
Researcher
Insight Product Development
- Set up participatory design meetings including screening participants, authoring script and questions, recording and transcribing the meeting, and writing the report.
- Trained and mentored new employees that joined the research team.
- Created human-factor-and-ergonomic (HFE) reports for consumer products.
- Simulated the use of products in the living lab; recorded learnings and created reports.
- Conducted in-depth interviews for what we called "buddy groups" to understand how end-users felt about the product we were designing. I created an atmosphere to gather the data and elicit responses to move the design forward.
- Developed a communication strategy to inform the entire team of all the activities and phases we were in with internal projects.
- Created a communication format to stay aligned with external stakeholders.
Project History
Director of Product Management
Successfully created a strategy and business plan for the transition of an on-premise application to a cloud-based application.
• Oversaw and coordinated the implementation of all stages of the development lifecycle.
• Worked with cross-functional teams to gain alignment and promote the strategy.
• Communicated on progress to both the executive level and a greater mix of colleagues at the company to keep them informed at the necessary levels.
Education
Master's Degree in Human Factors Engineering
University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN, United States
Bachelor of Science Degree in Pre-med, Kinesiology with Biomechanical Emphasis
University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN, United States
Certifications
Disruptive Strategy with Clayton Christensen (Certificate)
Harvard Business School Online
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Scrum Alliance
Inclusive Leadership: Becoming a Successful Leader (Certificate)
Catalyst | edX
Certified Pragmatic Marketing
Pragmatic Institute
Skills
Tools
Slack, Office 365, Google Docs, Microsoft Visio
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Product Management, User Testing
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Anatomy
Other
Microsoft Teams, Human Factors, Product Management, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Backlog Grooming, Product Strategy, Aha!, Microsoft Office, Business Strategy, Business Requirements, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Product Owner, User Stories, Strategy, Communication, Data, Value Creation, Creativity, Leadership, Disruptive Innovation, User Empathy, Launch Strategy, Pricing, Disruptive Strategy, Product Leadership, Business Planning, Product Development, User Experience (UX), Product Roadmaps, Vendor Management, Hiring, Sales Training, Metrics, Voice of the Customer (VoC), Budget Management, Management, Product Growth, Advisory, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Marketing, Trade Shows, Demo Designs, Training, Biomechanics, Contextual Inquiry, Narrative Tours, Process Mapping, User-need Hierarchy, Opportunity Maps, User-centered Design (UCD), Interviews, Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS), Usability, Design Collaboration, Engineering, Web Design, User Interface (UI), Cross-departmental Collaboration, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Mobile Apps, Agile Practices, Scrumban, Scrum Master, Training & Training Content Development
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring