Melih Mert, Product Manager in Istanbul, Turkey
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Melih Mert

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Location
Istanbul, Turkey
Toptal Member Since
December 1, 2020

Melih is an experienced product manager, heading digital products from concept to launch and growth in the finance, eCommerce, and travel industries. He tripled international annual revenue for Pozitron, which then sold to Monitise UK for $100 million. Melih creates profitable mobile apps with iOS and Android native SDKs, with cross-platform frameworks such as React Native or Flutter, and web applications supporting mobile, desktop, or responsive design.

Project Highlights

Softkey Multi-factor-authentication (MFA) Product
Headed the Softkey MFA product from ideation to MVP launch and following releases, reaching 20+ businesses and 10+ million unique users.
Pegasus Airlines Website and Mobile Apps
Managed the redesign of the Pegasus Airlines eCommerce apps booking journey, from search to payment, achieved significant growth in user base and digital revenue.
Omnichannel Digital Banking Platform
Led design and development of a digital banking platform serving more than ten banks in the EMEA region. Tripled annual recurring revenue by increasing integration and deployment speed, releasing new features, and improving customization processes.

Expertise

Work Experience

Lead Product Manager

2018 - PRESENT
Commencis
  • Managed the consumer-facing mobile security product, Softkey, providing multi-factor authentication features to users, its web-based analytics, and back-office application, serving 20+ businesses and ten million+ active users.
  • Rolled out two new features for the core product and five new features for the analytics panel. Deployed all features to existing customers in the past six months.
  • Collaborated with the customer success team to set up POCs and present product use cases; acquired five new clients and 300,000 users in the last six months.
  • Mentored five project managers and contributed to the hiring process by conducting interviews and onboarding new team members.

Product Manager

2014 - 2018
Monitise MEA
  • Renewed Pegasus Airlines’ digital channels (flypgs.com and apps) from scratch. Conducted user research and user tests, listed pain points, and created user journeys and prototypes.
  • Managed product backlog; designed and ran A/B tests; developed 30+ features with UX/UI designers and iOS, Android, web, back end, and QA engineers.
  • Published quarterly updates to consumer applications, localized the website for seven countries, increased user base from one million to four million, and doubled digital revenue in two years.
  • Managed two scrum teams developing cards and payments features of the wallet application.
  • Created product backlog and user stories, published monthly releases to three platforms (iOS, Android, Web), and increased DAU from 0 to 1.5 million in less than two years.
  • Created integration guides used by 15 banks and 200+ merchants which covered 90% of card issuers and major acquirers.
  • Coached ten product owners working on products in finance, eCommerce, and the healthcare domains.

Product Owner

2012 - 2014
Pozitron
  • Managed native mobile banking applications used by 10+ banks in Turkey and MEA. Conducted user and market research, defined product strategy and goals, and executed prioritized roadmap with a cross-functional team.
  • Completed the sales cycle of three new banks. Deployed product enhanced with 30+ financial features to new and existing clients within two years. Tripled our international annual revenue and achieved a higher NPS than in previous years.
  • Sold Pozitron to Monitise UK for $100 million in 2014 to expand its digital banking operations.

Product Owner

2010 - 2012
Vodafone
  • Launched the “Ask HR” website providing a smart search feature for HR questions and their contents to global Vodafone employees in five countries. This decreased HR support calls by 35% two months after going live.
  • Sold Pozitron to Monitise UK for $100 million in 2014 to expand its digital banking operations.
  • Managed two different CX management products tracking user events while using Vodafone’s core services (voice, data, text). Created user groups and audiences, defined user paths and funnels, and measured and reported KPIs.
  • Collaborated with CX leads in other Vodafone operating countries to define product roadmap and priorities. Piloted three main features in Turkey: Automated response, campaigns, and reporting.
  • Analyzed the data of 20 million retail and 3,000 corporate users using SQL, BI tools, Excel, and discovered patterns in network problems.
  • Conducted user interviews with employees from five countries. Created website prototypes, developed the website with engineering and content teams, and performed training.

Softkey Multi-factor-authentication (MFA) Product

https://www.commencis.com/one-time-password-user-authentication/

Headed the Softkey MFA product from ideation to MVP launch and following releases, reaching 20+ businesses and 10+ million unique users.

Softkey is an MFA product that helps finance, eCommerce, or any applications that include payments, purchases, or funds exchange for executing secure transactions by using soft OTPs and digital signatures. It has white-label iOS and Android apps, SDKs for iOS, Android, and cross-platform frameworks such as React Native and Flutter and an authentication server app and back-office/analytics panel.

Pegasus Airlines Website and Mobile Apps

https://www.flypgs.com/

Managed the redesign of the Pegasus Airlines eCommerce apps booking journey, from search to payment, achieved significant growth in user base and digital revenue.

Pegasus Airlines is the leading low-cost airline operating in Europe, Turkey, and the MEA regions. I was the team's project owner and project manager, owning booking flow, redesigned the entire user experience of web and mobile apps, and improved it continuously between 2015-2018.

Omnichannel Digital Banking Platform

https://www.commencis.com/digital-banking/

Led design and development of a digital banking platform serving more than ten banks in the EMEA region. Tripled annual recurring revenue by increasing integration and deployment speed, releasing new features, and improving customization processes.

Managed native mobile banking applications used by 10+ banks in Turkey and EMEA.

Conducted user and market research, defined product strategy and goals, and executed prioritized roadmap with a cross-functional team.

Increased design and development velocity by adapting a new design system to our white-label/custom-made applications and creating a reusable UI widget and configurable API repositories

Completed the sales cycle of three new banks. Deployed product enhanced with 30+ financial features to new and existing clients within two years. Tripled our international annual revenue and achieved a higher NPS than in previous years.

Sold Pozitron to Monitise UK for $100 million in 2014 to expand its digital banking operations.
2012 - 2015

Master's Degree in Computer Engineering

Bogazici University - Istanbul, Turkey

2005 - 2010

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering

Bogazici University - Istanbul, Turkey

JUNE 2020 - PRESENT

Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I)

Scrum.org

MAY 2015 - PRESENT

Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)

International Institute of Business Analysis

Tools

Jira, Confluence, Zeplin, Draw.io, Google Analytics, Slack, Zoom, Google Optimize, iOS SDK

Platforms

Firebase, OTP

Paradigms

Agile Software Development, Database Design, B2C, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Scrum, Agile, Usability Testing

Industry Expertise

Digital Banking

Other

Mobile App Development, Product Management, Mobile Apps, Web Applications, Back-end Development, Product Design, Product Discovery, Business Analysis, Product Ownership, Discovery Workshops, Estimation & Planning, Roadmaps, Product Strategy, Product Growth, Product Analytics, Go-to-market Plans, User Experience (UX), Team Building, Market Research, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Parallel Computing, Neural Networks, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Mobile UX, Software Design, Parallel Programming, C, C++, Java, Android, iOS, SQL, Product Delivery, Data Analysis, B2B, Digital Marketing, P&L Management, eCommerce, Fintech, Digital Wallets, User Conversion, A/B Testing, User Research, Omnichannel Marketing, Localization, Funnel Optimization, User Flows, User Stories, Feature Backlog Prioritization, App Store, Competitive Strategy, Customer Acquisition, Product Benchmarking, Presales, Customer-centered Product Development, Customer Experience Management, Business Intelligence (BI), Stakeholder Management, Prototyping, Lean, Mobile Web, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Loyalty Management, Conversion Rate, Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA), Application Security, Transactions, Authentication, Android SDK, Web SDK, Authentication Servers, APIs, Proof of Concept (POC), Customer Research, Test Automation, User Interface (UI), Distributed Computing

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