Laura Jackson, Product Manager in Denver, CO, United States
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Laura Jackson

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Denver, CO, United States

Toptal member since February 17, 2020

Expertise
Agile Product Management
Bio

Laura's skill set allows companies to get a strong jump-start with a new product in the market, a new set of eyes on a stale product, or develop a comprehensive analysis of their brand and product to see where opportunities are lying dormant. In addition to product management, she enjoys coaching and organizing product teams to be highly efficient, agile teams with a product mindset.

Project Highlights

Loop Returns - International Returns for Allbirds
We implemented the tech needed to execute eCommerce returns internationally for our largest client, Allbirds.

Expertise

  • Agile Coaching
  • Agile Product Management
  • Competitor Analysis & Profiling
  • Product Delivery
  • Product Management
  • Product Marketing
  • Product Roadmaps
  • User Research

Work Experience

Manager, Product Management

2019 - 2020
ScriptDrop
  • Launched a new product into a new market locally for validation and feedback opportunities.
  • Developed the company’s definition, onboarding, mission, company structure, and experimentation process for the product management department as its first product hire.
  • Worked closely with marketing and PR to ensure messaging for a new product was accurate, on-brand, and updated.
  • Collaborated with finance to determine new pricing models for a new product offering.
  • Executed A/B testing and other data collective strategies to understand consumer behavior and made changes accordingly.
  • Lead a team of product engineers, designers, marketers, sales, and operations to bring a new product to market.
  • Wrote technical scope documentation for the engineering team and prioritized and groomed backlog.
  • Taught engineering best practices for user feedback collection, agile ceremonies, unit testing, user testing, and product mindset.
  • Compiled a thorough competitive analysis based on industry and direct competitors.
  • Composed product strategy by evaluating the competitive landscape, the vision of the CEO, and user feedback for sign off with senior leadership.

Product Lead

2018 - 2019
Loop Returns
  • Outlined, trained, and executed the first product development processes, scrum ceremonies, and product-driven tools for an early-stage startup.
  • Synthesized internal and external stakeholder feedback through discovery sessions for requirements gathering.
  • Set clear expectations with internal and external stakeholders for commitments.
  • Championed a clear product vision and roadmap for transparency throughout the organization and alignment.
  • Managed releases, priority, and resourcing for the engineering team and directly managed 4/7 product team members at Loop, including the lead senior back-end developer, senior back-end developer, QA lead, and product analyst.
  • Created technical scope and cards for all back-end, front-end, full-stack, and QA engineers.
  • Implemented new analytic tools such as Optimal Workshop, HotJar, UserTesting, and Slickplan in order to validate assumptions.
  • Rearchitected external knowledge base for customers to decrease time spent internally within customer support and engineering support.
  • Primary owner of all technical partnerships—including contract negotiations, technical discovery, and facilitating urgent troubleshooting asks.
  • Executed and became SME in Loop’s first international support feature.

Senior Product Manager

2018 - 2018
Alliance Data Systems
  • Owned product direction and priority for four engineering pods.
  • Advocated for the agile teams at the enterprise level in order to sponsor projects and obtain funding.
  • Set clear expectations at the enterprise level for timelines and commitments.
  • Led as a key stakeholder in cross-functional decision making and facilitated meetings and documentation for alignment.
  • Oversaw stakeholder management across eight other domains.
  • Worked with the product strategy team on market research and experimentation to validate product-market fit.
  • Transformed existing processes and working agreements within four engineering pods.
  • Educated across the enterprise the value and essential mechanics of product vs. project development for agile transformation.

Senior Product Management Consultant

2015 - 2018
Insight
  • Consulted at Macy’s, Nationwide Insurance, AEP, Huntington, and Ohio State Bar Association as a product transformation consultant.
  • Led and built a product roadmap and articulated that vision throughout the organization for alignment, awareness, and opportunity.
  • Cultivated the most valuable product direction and feature sets through data, user research, stakeholder feedback, and competitive analysis.
  • Acted as the primary point of intake for all requests to the existing product.
  • Supported scrum team by managing, refining, and prioritizing the backlog, clarifying requirements, and addressing risks to maximize value.
  • Participated in scrum team events – retrospectives, backlog grooming, sprint planning, and show and tells.
  • Defined success through acceptance criteria and key performance indicators.
  • Facilitated stakeholder engagement through requirements elicitation, escalation, and inclusion.
  • Managed vendor relations, contracts, and interactions when applicable and partners with other internal teams in the organization.
  • Composed organizational change artifacts, communication, and training for post-implementation.

Interactive Specialist

2013 - 2015
Upward Brand Interactions
  • Investigated client’s business goals and current digital footprint to develop a strategic interactive deliverable that will grow their business.
  • Served as technical project lead for multiple deliverables at a time and owned the responsibility of the overall progress, quality, scheduling resources, budgeting, and timeline.
  • Acted as the product owner and worked with the development and design team for client implementations.
  • Specialized in content strategy and improved information architecture, user experience, conversion funnels, and site metrics. Identified room for marketing automation, prominent CTA design, and SEO friendly content refresh, mapping user flows.
  • Supported the interactive director with quote and proposal development for new business, internal processes and procedures, and onboarding new personnel.
  • Worked closely with designers and developers in order to consult, provide solutions, and predict red flags.
  • Developed user experience guides/stories for client and development teams.
  • Executed QA tasks and testing before the launch of projects to identify errors and potential risks.
  • Managed 22 live projects at one time regularly with varying B2B clients.
  • Temporarily acted as the sole website support personnel for a client’s 750 franchise owners over six months.

Content Marketing Specialist

2013 - 2014
Upward Brand Interactions
  • Acted as a sales engineer for new business opportunities including discovery, quoting, scoping, proposal, SOW, and pitch preparation—owning 1/3 of the department’s portfolio.
  • Managed all freelance copywriters’ scheduling, budget, and quality of deliverables.
  • Orchestrated persona building and new brand identity standards for client’s content marketing efforts.
  • Produced creative briefs, led creative direction, and owned execution for infographics and animated videos.
  • Wrote and edited news releases, social media content, SEO writing, testimonials, case studies, and video scripts.
  • Assisted with event planning for agency’s Interact 14 and Interact 15 conference and acted as speaker liaison.
  • Led and delegated social media campaigns including set up, daily activities, and analyzing data to demonstrate campaign effectiveness.

Project History

Loop Returns - International Returns for Allbirds

https://www.allbirds.co.uk/pages/returns-exchanges

We implemented the tech needed to execute eCommerce returns internationally for our largest client, Allbirds.

Loop Returns is a white label returns e-commerce platform for Shopify merchants. One of our largest clients, Allbirds, was expanding internationally. With that expansion, their returns capabilities needed to expand with them.

My team worked on engineering as well as relationships with international shipping vendors to achieve this. It accounted for currency exchanges and more.

Education

2009 - 2013

Bachelors of Arts and Science Degree in Strategic Communications

The Ohio State University - Columbus, Ohio

Certifications

JANUARY 2017 - PRESENT

Professional Product Owner I

Scrum.Org

JANUARY 2017 - PRESENT

Professional Scrum Master I

Scrum.Org

Skills

Tools

Hotjar, Jira, GitHub, Asana, Slack, ProdPad, Trello, Tableau, Optimizely, Google Workspace, Skype

Paradigms

Scrum, Agile, Agile Product Management

Platforms

Shopify, ProductPlan

Industry Expertise

Healthcare, Banking & Finance, Insurance

Other

Agile Coaching, Team Mentoring, Product Marketing, Stakeholder Management, Market Research & Analysis, Stripe Payments, Product Delivery, Product Strategy, Product Thinking, Product Roadmaps, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, User Research, Buyer Personas, Product Management, Lean Canvas, eCommerce, Product-market Fit, Pharmacy, Microsoft, Percy, A/B Testing, Mind Mapping

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