Martha Gebremariam
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since June 24, 2021
Martha is a Product Leader with 13 years of experience driving complex initiatives from concept to delivery, including nine years specializing in building and launching software products. She leverages a user-centric mindset and a technical background in computer science to champion the intersection of business strategy, user experience, and engineering. Martha has a proven track record of accelerating delivery by engineering custom agentic workflows and leading cross-functional teams.
Expertise
- Feature Backlog Prioritization
- Product Management
- Product Ownership
- Product Strategy
- Product-market Fit
- Project Management
- Roadmaps
- Stakeholder Engagement
Work Experience
Product Owner
Softpro
- Directed a cross-functional team of 10, spanning Product, Design, Engineering, and QA in delivering software solutions serving both internal departments and external customer base.
- Led the delivery of a centralized self-service platform, enabling customers to independently manage billing and cross-application user access provisioning, substantially reducing support ticket volumes.
- Drove significant feature expansion across Dynamics 365 CRM and operations platform to substantially improve cross-departmental workflow efficiency.
- Architected and deployed a custom, multi-stage agentic workflow using Copilot infrastructure to automate raw user and stakeholder feedback into structured product requirements documented in the product backlog, reducing requirement drafting time by 50%.
- Defined product vision and roadmap, translated strategic priorities into clear requirements, and owned the product backlog prioritization to maximize the product’s overall value.
- Conducted user research and testing and presented product demos to key stakeholders to continuously refine product direction and drive adoption of new features.
- Drove agile ceremonies (stand-ups, sprint planning, refinement, and retrospectives) to ensure teams remain aligned, well-scoped, and resourced.
- Owned the release strategy, including creation of the release plan, acceptance testing, and stakeholder communications.
- Managed the customization and integration of third-party learning management software with Dynamics CRM and Okta authentication system to streamline data flows.
Product Manager/Owner
Gebeya
- Defined and launched MVP of Africa’s first pan-African two-sided freelance marketplace, enabling talent registration, multi-stage vetting, and client job matching. The platform attracted 2,000+ applicants within weeks of launch.
- Designed and shipped the end-to-end talent onboarding and vetting workflow, supporting a 4-stage recruitment process that drove 35% month-over-month growth in qualified talent supply post launch.
- Conducted discovery research across both sides of the marketplace and synthesized findings into a prioritized feature set for the MVP.
- Facilitated requirement gathering sessions to uncover pain points and translated them into prioritized product features with measurable KPIs.
- Developed and maintained product roadmaps to communicate the short, medium, and long-term plans.
- Managed competing priorities from cross-functional stakeholders and made tradeoff decisions.
- Decomposed the full product vision into user stories with clear acceptance criteria; maintained and prioritized the product backlog to keep engineering focused on the highest-impact MVP features.
- Validated product direction through prototype and usability testing.
- Monitored product performance against defined success metrics and iterated rapidly based on usage data and user feedback, driving continuous adoption improvement.
Product Manager
Shell
- Partnered with Design and Engineering teams and data analysis experts to build a statistical analysis tool that forecasts and simulates future values of negotiated commodity deals.
- Managed the development of statistical analysis software that forecasts and simulates future values of negotiated deals.
- Developed product vision grounded in rigorous understanding of business objectives and end-user workflows.
- Created, maintained, and prioritized product roadmap and backlog.
- Built business cases and measured business value.
- Facilitated scrum sessions for in-house and offshore agile team members.
- Set key performance indicators to gauge product success.
- Built business cases, tested prototypes, and defined KPIs to ensure the product delivered measurable value to users.
Innovations Project Leader/Product Manager
Shell
- Built and managed a pipeline of innovation initiatives, including a 3D modeling tool and a mobile knowledge base and communication application deployed across 60+ countries.
- Translated vision, user needs, and constraints into requirements for Design and Engineering.
- Developed release content to support launch within 60+ countries.
- Served as the main point of contact and subject matter expert for the digital solutions.
- Managed budget, roadmap, and release for global rollouts.
- Created business cases, defined and tracked KPIs, and measured product success.
Project Engineer
Shell
- Managed onshore and offshore construction projects throughout their entire lifecycle, building deep discipline in scope definition, risk management, and delivery under constraint.
- Led a cross-functional team of engineers and construction professionals, coordinating across design, procurement, and field execution groups—experience that directly informs cross-functional product collaboration.
- Developed scope of work and project execution plans to resource strategies for multi-stakeholder projects, directly translating to product roadmap and requirements ownership.
- Served as a technical translator between engineering and design teams and field execution teams, distilling complex specifications into actionable plans.
Project History
Talent Marketplace
Led the complete design and development of a talent screening and marketplace platform.
I was brought in to lead the design and development of a whole new product that will be used by millions of users.
I conducted thorough user research to understand the user needs. I defined the product strategy and built the product roadmap. I led the product requirements definition and product planning, I successfully launched the product and continued monitoring the performance indicators.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Oregon State University - Oregon
Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering
Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
Skills
Tools
Jira, Roadmunk, Google Analytics, Zeplin, Figma, Odoo
Paradigms
Agile, Key Performance Metrics, Scrum, User Testing, Azure DevOps, Usability Testing
Industry Expertise
Marketplaces
Platforms
Firebase
Other
Miro, Planning Poker, Project Management, Backlog Management, Roadmaps, Stakeholder Engagement, Product Management, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Stakeholder Management, Product Ownership, User Research, Feature Prioritization, Release Management, Launch Strategy, Product Marketing, Global Product Management, Business Analysis, Product Roadmaps, User Experience (UX), Wireframing, Web Applications, User Journeys, Vibe Coding, User Requirements, Swagger, Vision Development, Strategy, Leadership, Scope Management, Project Budget Management, Resource Allocation, Budget Management, Product Strategy, Product Vision, Product-market Fit, Analysis, AI Agents, Prototyping, Structural Analysis, Engineering, Software Development, Technology, Requirements, User Stories, Cross-functional Collaboration, Data Analysis, Innovation, Creative Oversight, Performance Analysis, Schedule Optimization, Dynamics CRM 365, AI Agent Orchestration, System Requirements, Design Requirements, Business Requirements, Learning Management Systems (LMS)
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