Marie Lotsman

Virgin Active Group represents 233 clubs in eight countries including South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Italy, among others. The club boasts 1.2 million members with 715,000 based in South Africa (in 142 clubs)—meaning an average of 5,035 members per club.

Virgin Active South Africa is a high-end brand with a sophisticated product proposition and a very demanding business environment. You are creating a mobile app for a company at the top of its game, so you cannot do less than excellent. The mobile app for this brand aimed to fulfill their end-users' high expectations and the digital strategy of the company.

Key Focus Areas for the Client:
• Build an app with a sophisticated design that communicates a strong brand.
• Integrate it with the member management system.
• Ensure that the new mobile app was a natural extension of Virgin Active product offering to its members.

Tasks Accomplished:
• Conducted a discovery workshop for Virgin Active South Africa.
• Provided a draft of product roadmap and future release planning.
• Created design mock-ups, specifications, and user guides.
• Handled all of the communication and release.
• Managed the launch.

An Apple Watch app that is integrated with your gym's mobile app. The watch app allows users to access the gym, check-in the group classes, set fitness goals, and track leader boards in gym challenges, all of this with Siri shortcuts.

The client was an American dental equipment maker and dental consumables producer that markets its products in over 120 countries. As an equipment maker, it designs and manufactures laboratory and specialty products relating to dental supplies, designs, and artificial teeth construction.
The company already implements the most modern production techniques, such as 3D printing and CAD/CAM milling. Being a front runner company, it has received a Factory of the Future award with a 40% reduction in material costs thanks to an investment in 3D printing technology.

I worked for the global delivery company and led the development of an automated warehouse system with a retrieval system combined with a warehouse management system.

As a result, I built a system with a team that increased the speed of packaging the order, and reduced time spent on the actual task. The packaging was done with smart modelling which allowed us to be careful with fragile items and put them at the end of packing. I also used visual recognition to place the items in the most space-efficient and safe way.

The client is one of the world's leading charities dedicated to researches into the causes, treatment, and prevention of cancer. It supports the work of over 3,000 scientists, doctors, and nurses across the UK and funds a lot of other scientists at UK universities.

The goal was to create an easy-to-use tool that would model the best treatment for the patient with cancer. The cancer-decision support tool was also designed to support general practitioners in assessing patients with potential cancer symptoms.

The tool doesn't replace clinical judgment but gives more information that can be used to inform patient management decisions. Those decisions tend to be underpinned by algorithms that calculate the risk of a patient having undiagnosed cancer based on various data inputs.

Scan Upload is a type of software that facilitates lab-based scanning and ordering products from Atlantis Abutments. The software is used to preview the attached STL scans, detect the flags, and submit an order to a web-based ordering system.

KY3P offers the first central, cloud-based platform for vendor onboarding, collection, and verification of due-diligence data and vendor-risk monitoring, covering a range of third parties, including vendors, affiliates, sub-advisors, distributors, clearinghouses, and other service providers in the financial industry. For suppliers, KY3P provides a mechanism that minimizes the burden of responding to repetitive due-diligence requests from financial institutions.

Project Features:
• Due Diligence—Create a library of accurate due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) responses based on a standardized questionnaire organized by a product.
• Audit and Compliance—Store, organize and distribute documentation for third-party external audit reports
• Distribution—Securely transmit due diligence information and documents to all clients.
• Incident Management—Notify clients of a product or service impacting events, including cybersecurity incidents.

The YMCA Greater Charlotte is a non-profit organization with a focus on health, volunteering, and donation. The YMCA mobile app has a focus on customer experience, providing guidance to the YMCA services, and how a customer can leverage and access them in the easiest way. The new mobile app allowed YMCA members not only book classes but also track their personal workouts and create a fitness schedule via the mobile app.

The Next Of Kin Registry (NOKR) was established as a FREE tool for daily emergencies and national disasters. NOKR is your emergency contact system to help if you or your family member is missing, injured or deceased. NOKR is the central depository for Emergency Contact information in the United States plus 87 other countries. (See NOKR's network of volunteers). NOKR is a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to bridging rapid emergency contact information. NOKR was established in January 2004, for daily emergency situations.

NOKR provides the public with a free proactive service to store your emergency contacts, next of kin and vital medical information that would be critical to emergency response agencies. The stored information is only accessible via a secure area that is only accessible by emergency public trust agencies that have registered with NOKR.

While I was working with multiple stakeholders (Gold's Gym, Crunch Fitness, Planet Fitness, and so on), I discovered that while large chains would buy a mobile app for their members, only 20% of gym-goers would use that.

I did user research across the gym-goers and gym managers. So, in reality, a lot of gym-goers didn't know about the mobile app (were missing the opportunity to track workouts) and club managers had no idea how to promote and launch their mobile apps.

For members, I pushed through the senior leadership to make sure that our priority was UX and workout tracking. The app didn't need many features but rather a tailored, unique experience that every gym wanted to provide to its members.

I implemented this at Netpulse along with the Apple Watch mobile app for Crunch Fitness gyms.

I also recognized that we had a huge gap where we didn't help our customers (business) to launch the product properly, so I generated a new approach for the mobile app implementation and launch. I also created guides based on the gym type (boutique, chain, etc.), marketing plans, content strategies, and worked with the customer success teams, and marketing and club managers to make the app launch successful.

A bioinformatics tool for optimal temperature, optimal pH for enzyme activity, based on enzyme sequence, or 3D structure. The information was based on existing sources (i.e., BRENDA database) and additional sources that the client provided to simulate models based on machine learning (ML).

The goals were to create a website that would gather data from multiple sources around financial news and indicate the relative "weight equals truth" of each news item. This tool was able to help prioritize decisions and allocate risks for the stock market companies when gathering preliminary data about clients/potential investments.

The prioritization was built on a dashboard with "bubbles." Each bubble has a different size, color, and real-time changes when a new, similar news item comes into the source. This allowed for a simple risk indication and a drill down to news sources for end-users. Tools later were acquired by a financial organization in the US (NYC) and was rebranded under their name (NDA).

Netpulse has partnered with premium at-home fitness provider LES MILLS On Demand (LMOD).

I scoped and supported the implementation of a new feature into the mobile app platform. The feature provided the possibility for clubs now have the ability to provide the world’s best online workouts to their members through their own branded apps.

Features:
• Clubs can now offer LMOD classes as part of their membership tiers or as an as an add-on service, opening up new streams of revenue.
• Members can easily sign up and access their classes seamlessly within their club's app.
• Clubs can integrate membership details within their membership management systems.

I researched available knowledge management tools. I also provided an overview of the best solutions in the market and how they could be adjusted to a client's existing complicated workflow.

During our research phase, I created a cost of ownership for each tool, including building the tool using open sources, gathering the best-known tools, and defining features that could exceed market expectations. I also provided the implementation plan with a high-level scope.

I led a department of professionals services within the mobile platform company. The department initially was a small team that existed for customers who wanted something more than a standard product. I saw an opportunity to explore the market in medium, enterprise-level companies, and listen, observe their needs.

As a result, I've built a strategy which had specific product offering (i.e., discovery phases, specific features adjustment, customization of sales features in the mobile app) for medium and enterprise-level companies. In three years, I grew a professional services team in its own department, which focused specifically on custom development of mobile apps. The department started contributed to the company revenue (before being a cost center) and making a decent size revenue from total mobile platform revenue (40%).

Netpulse and eGym were merging. Netpulse is a mobile app and white-label platform, whereas eGym is a smart fitness equipment company. eGym had little knowledge of the digital product offerings, and Netpulse didn't know how to integrate eGym's equipment into the mobile app offering. To combine the two and avoid having two product offerings without synergy, I innovated the following feature: quick workout tracking with eGym equipment, member, and trainer mobile apps. The feature idea was initially tested with a few clients and proposed to C-level customers.

I also did the UX research and created a P&L to justify the feature development. The feature had great success within the company and with end-users. Currently, this is a crucial feature of the eGym digital suit offering.

I joined Netpulse (eGym now) when there were no professional services for custom development. A small team of four people worked on minor customizations for two clients. After joining the team, I worked with the CEO and AM/Sales team to grow enterprise sales. Concurrently, I worked with the operations manager to establish product development processes within a newly formed department.

I also managed capacity and priorities, including choosing which projects to run first and which to postpone. This included overseeing risk, determining if it was a "raw" feature or a demanding customer. I also communicated those issues and handled the risks. The most crucial factors were establishing an excellent quality and growing the team to deliver successful results.

In summary, I changed their mindset from "just writing the code" to caring about the end-user final product. Our results and client satisfaction rate grew tremendously after the first year, and we expanded our customer base significantly within the next two years. Many of our customers came with a referral. Due to the high capacity, I asked management to grow the team, find the right argument, and present the correct numbers to justify the need. I'm proud of my team's results.

Virgin Active South Africa is the largest fitness chain among the Virgin Active group and brings 40% revenue to the whole group. I helped them rebuild and create a new booking experience for their members.

A new mobile app was one of the keys to success, and the member cabinet was a smooth booking of classes in the mobile app and web. Initially, we wanted users to occupy time— usually not that popular—to increase the average class capacity.

The booking system is an internal system written by the Virgin Active team. It supports custom rules: class cost, class availability based on your type of membership, class availability based on amount no-shows, calculation of free class spots in classes, and so on. There was no API for those rules, so while working on the mobile app scope, I defined the API and what endpoints to support certain features. I prioritized the rules we incorporated first, and gradually we added all of them to the mobile and web interface.

As a result, we saw a 15% growth in AVG class capacity with online booking in the first year. Currently, over 65% of classes are booked online. This allows tweaking the operational expenses used previously to manage class bookings on site.

A product for healthcare professionals and patients to provide and get healthcare services on demand. Imagine if you could get help as easy as calling an uber? The idea of the app is to allow patients to ask either for a home visitor or a video call with a healthcare professional to get service on demand.

Patients need to go through a self-assessment quiz to be prompted to a specialist and then specify the time and place where they would like to receive the service (either at home, video call, or at the hospital). Doctors can register on the platform and provide prescriptions, doctor's notes, and follow-up appointments via mobile app. Hospitals can capitalize on adding their staff to the app and increasing the capacity of their services but also provide safe services during COVID-19. The cost and P&L statements included the API integration with key partners (a few hospitals) to address the integrated booking experience. Native integration with google calendar was provided to support small practices. Currently, the mobile app is in the prototype stage.

The location feature allowed us to find the closest gym for the mobile app user. The user could search by gym name, address, and obtain the location on the map.

However, there were several issues with the feature:
• The business (gym) provided location coordinates, and our service matched it to the Google API. Sometimes this created the wrong location in the mobile app.
• The location back-end service was not optimized: the service didn't use caching to optimize the location being up to date, resulting in multiple calls. When the cashing was applied, it significantly reduced the number of calls to the Google API. But another problem arose: storing that information.
• Features, such as location, booking, online shop, used the location service.

The location feature provided little value but required a lot of support: integrating the Google API with the client's 3rd API service to pull their data on the map. I've created a prototype that I validated with the team and customers. The new feature reduced the number of API calls to Google service, automated data gathering about the business, and prioritized the data based on end-user preferences.

A yachting company decided to try and produce professional yachting/sailing clothes. To test the idea, I decided to create an e-store to see whether the demand would cover the initial cost of the production. The production has already worked for three years, the website offers products to multiple countries in Europe, most of the sales going through the website now. The website is supported by a small IT team, one developer, SEO, and myself. Some of the imagery is currently under review (not finally published).

The website offers reviews of trips and destinations for people who love yachting. The website is built on WordPress, which has certain limitations. However, adding personal stories increased conversion tremendously and doubled the number of users coming back to buy another trip.

The website is supported by a small IT team, one developer, SEO, and myself. Some of the imagery is currently under review (not finally published). After this project, business owners wanted to validate the other idea and build another tool for their business.

I ran a discovery project for a real estate business. The business owner wanted to create a marketplace for land. I scoped out the project and provided a product roadmap, personas, and key metrics to track the business.

After the initial version of the website was done and successfully launched, the client wanted to build a mobile app that would provide similar functionality to end-users (real-estate agents and buyers).

I researched, prioritized, and implemented the improvements to the mobile app, which aimed to provide training for CPR procedures. The app was created with the partnership of one of the NGOs to decrease the death rate within the European country.

I led the project from the discovery and scoping phases through to delivery. My responsibilities included gathering requirements, mapping internal processes, and validating these processes with internal stakeholders.

I also managed team sprints and customer demos, assisting the team in troubleshooting and making strategic trade-offs without compromising product quality.