Lavinius Marcu
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since January 14, 2021
Lavinius is a hands-on product manager who helps clients improve product performance and scale their businesses. He has founded startups and held leadership product roles at large-scale corporations. He saved a client over $7 million in support costs and helped bring a company he co-founded public. Lavinius blends empathy for customer pain points with expertise in the latest trends. Outstanding product managers are storytellers who transform vision into reality—something Lavinius is known for.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Internationalization Product and Project Manager
Reward Gateway, Limited
- Enabled RG to go-live and launch its product in Belgium.
- Built the roadmap, created the backlog, and led an agile team of 12 developers.
- Coordinated with project management and relevant stakeholders on both RG and client's side.
- Enabled RG to onboard over three million users on its platform in Belgium and opened the path to onboard members from 40 countries.
Product Management Consultant - Operations
The Collinson Group
- Worked with the CPO and senior management to implement a product operations management framework that allowed the company to accelerate delivery by 30% and increase the top-line revenue by 15-25%.
- Helped the company define a long-term product strategy and instill a product planning process.
- Trained and coached product managers and worked with stakeholders to define and track process metrics.
- Published operational dashboards for all relevant stakeholders exposing product processes' effectiveness and efficiency to speed up decision-making and transparency.
Product Management and Strategy Consultant
Alteryx
- Assisted the VP of strategy to identify new markets for the company, estimated to be $4 billion in revenue.
- Contributed to Alteryx, an analytics platform that is able to connect to various data sources (clouds, data lakes). The clients are using the platform to create data pipes, transform the data, and apply multiple ML/AI algorithms.
- Guided product management in defining and setting up experiments to validate market opportunities, allowing the company to sell its products under new use cases.
- Assisted product management in identifying and setting up metrics aimed to measure feature success from an early stage.
- Helped business stakeholders formulate business hypotheses and use data to find answers.
Product Management Consultant - Freelance
EMC Spark
- Assisted companies in AI and SaaS segments with their product strategy and market penetration scenarios.
- Defined the product management best practices and supported implementation.
- Assisted the existing team with market research and customer development.
Product Management Consultant
Travelport
- Identified systemic product inefficiencies and helped the VP of product and an ex-Accenture senior consultant to restructure the product team.
- Led the restructuring strategy for the product management function.
- Saved the client over $7 million in support costs and unlocked more than $200 million in potential revenue.
- Performed in-depth user research and helped build a vivid picture of the customer experience.
Head of Product (APIs)
Hotelbeds
- Productized the API offering acquired Google as a client.
- Implemented experimentation and hypothesis testing to validate growth opportunities.
- Led a 3-way product integration when Hotelbeds acquired its two main competitors and shifted over $4 billion in revenue under the Hotelbeds brand.
Product Manager
Aprefis
- Won the RFP and proof-of-concept with Carnival Cruise Lines.
- Architected and deployed a big-data/AI prediction engine.
- Developed an algorithm that improved margin by 7-15%.
- Led an agile team of four people composed of a UI/UX designer, software engineer, data scientist, and business developer.
Co-founder
2Performant
- Set up the vision, validation, and execution, and managed the product through the initial stages. Today 2performant.com is a public company with +$50 million in turnover.
- Constructed and ran experiments to validate market opportunities while coordinating with a team of developers to deliver the MVP.
- Led the product management and scaled the company to +$1 million in revenue.
- Performed user research and validated business hypotheses.
Project History
2Performant Co-founder
https://2performant.com/Contributed to the initial PRD when 2Performant went public, assisted with the company launch, and acquired the first clients.
Product Internationalization
Assisted GTA with the relaunch of an established API product ($200 million) in China.
We uncovered key requirements during early customer sessions, like speed, error rates, and regulatory restrictions, which formed the backbone for differentiation and client acquisition.
China's largest OTA (Ctrip) became a client with other local leaders.
AI Price Prediction Engine
Led an agile team that built a price prediction engine for the cruise industry, enabling companies to gain 7-15% more margin.
Key improvements: 90% less friction in price-setting efforts; 7-15% margin uplift.
Product Strategy for Analytics Leader
Assisted a leader in the analytics industry (+$400 million revenue) to unlock a market of +$4 billion through market research and analysis.
Analytics software is a hyper-competitive space where the client competed against established leaders (Tableau, Microsoft, SAS) from Gartner Quadrant. To differentiate, I helped the client identify new use cases in new verticals.
Growth Marketing for Cryptocurrency Trading Platform
http://www.altrady.comScaled userbase of Altrady 5x and assisted the company in developing a user acquisition process.
Education
Master's Degree in Business Information Management
Rotterdam School of Management - Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Bachelor's Degree in Management Science
Bucharest Business School - Bucharest, Romania
Certifications
R Programming
Coursera
Skills
Tools
Google Analytics, Jira
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, Design for Six Sigma, Agile, Scrum, Data Product Management, Kanban, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), B2C, Change Management, Digital Marketing Best Practices
Platforms
Blockchain, Shopify, Transifex
Other
APIs, Product Strategy, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Product Management, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Technical Product Management, Customer Analysis, Market Research, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Stakeholder Management, Product Vision, Business Requirements, Data Analytics, Business Process Modeling, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Ownership, Team Management, Startups, Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Product Leadership, Information & Communications Technology (ICT), Product Analytics, Data Visualization, Data Science, Lean Experiments, Roadmaps, Business Development, Design Sprints, Business Strategy, Launch Strategy, New Product Development, Growth Marketing, Business Processes, Data, Software, Business Analysis, Communication, User Stories, eCommerce, Product Design, User Experience (UX), Growth, Growth Hacking, Product Growth, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Product Development, User Personas, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Software Requirements Specifications (SRS), User Research, Mobile Apps, Web Applications, Planning, Wireframing, Website Optimization, Conversion Rate, Product Coach, Go-to-market Strategy, IT Services, Feature Roadmaps, Product Launch, Requirements & Specifications, Customer Insights, Digital Experience Design, Digital Strategy, Technology, Discovery, Sprint Planning, Agile Leadership, Travel Product Manager, Customer Interviews, UX Research, Research, Validated User Research, User Journeys, User Journey Maps, Market Opportunity Analysis, Product Positioning, Minimum Marketable Product (MMP), Feature Prioritization, B2B, Content Creation, Feature Backlog Prioritization, API Integration, Cloud Computing, Integration, Team Mentoring, International Growth, Growth Strategy, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Market Research & Analysis, A/B Testing, Statistical Data Analysis, Data Analysis, Go-to-market Plans, Microsoft Excel, Product Discovery, Build/Buy Analysis, Product-market Fit, Project Management, Vendor Management, Team Leadership, Subscriptions, Mobile App Development, Regulated Industries, Head of Product, SaaS, Process Improvement, Product Marketing, Cloud, Data Warehousing, SaaS Product Marketing, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Marketing Strategy, Marketing, Art, Supply Chain, Analytics, Business Model Canvas, Miro, Value Proposition Design, Sales Strategy, Payment Gateways, Business Intelligence (BI), Databases, Marketing Design, UI Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design, Funnel Analysis, Training Content, Training Materials, Consulting, Landing Pages, Marketing Analytics, Machine Learning, Big Data, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Analytics, Digital Marketing Strategy, Data-driven Marketing, Customer Segmentation, Customer Satisfaction, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Solution Architecture, Cost Estimation, Product Strategy Consultant, Content Strategy, Data Warehouse Design, Booking Systems, Open Source, Pricing, Business Partnerships, Strategic Partnerships, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Automation, SEO Marketing, Digital Transformation, Technical Requirements, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Competitive Analysis, Functional Specifications, Speech Recognition, Business Cases, Digital Project Management, Operations Improvement, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Product Owner, Data Science Product Manager, Python, WordPress, Content Management, Software Engineering, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Social Networks, Internationalization, Localization, Change Leadership, Agile Product Delivery, Leadership, Cross-functional Collaboration, Vision Development, CTO, Entrepreneurship, Opportunity Assessments, Lean Startups, User Interface (UI), SQL, Crypto, Business Services, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Healthcare Software, Cryptocurrency, UX Strategy, Product Operations, Web3, Solana, Fintech, Collaboration, Translation, International Projects, Business
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