Michael Skovsgaard, Product Manager in Kolding, Denmark
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Michael Skovsgaard

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Kolding, Denmark

Toptal member since October 17, 2022

Expertise
Product OwnersAgile Product ManagementProduct Strategy Consulting
Bio

Michael is a product management professional with a passion for technology and people. He is commercially and technically adept at planning, designing, selling, and supporting IT infrastructure solutions and building cloud-based applications and SaaS products that increase revenue and reduce costs. Michael works with customers, senior executives, sales, engineers, and everyone in between. He focuses on value creation, customer empathy, and getting things done.

Project Highlights

Whaii Match
Created a SaaS tool that saved 25-40% of HR talent acquisition and recruiter's time while lowering failed hires by 10-15%.
The School Cloud
Freed up an average of 14 minutes per hour in the classroom for teachers and students that no longer needed to spend time getting computers and applications ready.
Enterprise Virtual Desktop Project
Reduced operational and maintenance costs by more than 40% for a large public sector customer.

Expertise

  • Agile Product Management
  • Cloud Services
  • Cross-functional Team Leadership
  • Go-to-market Strategy
  • Leadership
  • Remote Team Leadership
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Startups

Work Experience

Founder, CTO & Co-CEO

2018 - 2022
Whaii
  • Took four people analytics SaaS products and APIs from zero to one by putting together a talented team of developers, designers, copywriters, and domain experts and guided them as the CTO and product manager using agile principles.
  • Secured funding from investors and growth funds in less than three months by creating the product strategy and vision, go-to-market strategy, and development roadmap.
  • Reduced cloud infrastructure costs by 55% by optimizing the overall technology stack, application architecture, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Reduced the number of support tickets by 40% using analysis, user feedback, and customer interviews to continually improve the products resulting in an increase in NPS score from 29 to 43.

Partner

2007 - 2018
C2it
  • Managed a 30,000+ user cloud, SaaS, and IaaS services platform as the CTO and product manager of the education section business unit.
  • Assisted in growing the company from four to 70 employees through the board and director-level roles heading the virtualization, cloud services, and IT infrastructure business areas.
  • Increased growth by 50% YoY by defining and performing marketing and sales of IT infrastructure, IT management products and services, and IT freelance contracts to major enterprise companies in the people IT business unit.

Partner and Product Manager

2011 - 2015
C2it | The School Cloud
  • Managed the ideation, planning, development, and go-to-market of a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) edtech solution.
  • Achieved market penetration with initial key customers.
  • Won the bid to gain access to vital education sector frame agreements.

Key Account Manager

2005 - 2007
Dell
  • Increased sales by 30% YoY by defining and executing the go-to-market strategy for selling products and solutions to the public sector.
  • Signed several projects and framed agreements of over $1 million with large public sector regions and municipalities.
  • Achieved a strategic goal of transitioning Dell Denmark from 10% to 30% solutions-based sales vs. product-based.

Project History

Whaii Match

Created a SaaS tool that saved 25-40% of HR talent acquisition and recruiter's time while lowering failed hires by 10-15%.

Led the ideation, planning, architecture, security, design, development, and launch of Whaii Match, a SaaS tool for HR and recruiters using AI, machine learning, and linguistics. It infers personality, values, need, and skills in job candidates, enabling recruiters to rank candidates based on how well they match a certain job and company or team.

Whaii Candidate Report

Reduced failed hires by 10-15% for our customers by providing a SaaS tool giving insights into job candidates.

Led the ideation, planning, architecture, security, design, development, and launch of Whaii Candidate Report, a SaaS tool for HR and recruiters using machine learning and linguistics. It provides HR professionals and recruiters automated insights into job candidates to better assess if they are a good fit for a particular role.

Whaii Profiler

Increased response rates to cold emails by up to 10x and positive outcomes of cold calls and meetings by up to 2x for salespeople.

Led the ideation, planning, architecture, security, design, development, and launch of Whaii Profiler, a LinkedIn browser extension for salespeople. Whaii Profiler helps salespeople, recruiters, and anyone who wants to communicate, convince, and collaborate better with other people. It is integrated into LinkedIn, so when you visit a person's profile, you get insights into their personality, consumption preferences, and how to best speak, write, meet, and collaborate with the person.

The School Cloud

Freed up an average of 14 minutes per hour in the classroom for teachers and students that no longer needed to spend time getting computers and applications ready.

Led the ideation, planning, architecture design, security, development, and launch of The School Cloud, a PaaS and SaaS solution for the K12 education segment. The School Cloud delivered virtual Windows desktops and applications from the cloud to all school device types. Schools, teachers, students, and parents saved countless hours of IT headaches not having to install, maintain, and support operating systems and applications while ensuring that all applications run flawlessly regardless of device type (laptops, desktops, tablets, iPads, Macs, etc.).

Enterprise Virtual Desktop Project

Reduced operational and maintenance costs by more than 40% for a large public sector customer.

Led the planning, design, development, delivery, and project management of a 10,000+ user virtual desktop project. Delivered an end-to-end virtualized desktop solution to increase security and easy access to applications across all functional areas of the municipality. The customer gained a more efficient IT infrastructure while lowering operational and maintenance costs. User satisfaction increased because they could now securely access all their professional applications from home, enabling a work-from-home scenario.

Skills

Tools

Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Zoom, Canva, Mailchimp, Trello, Google Analytics, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Visio, Skype, Skype for Business, Slack, Figma, pgAdmin, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft Project, IBM Watson, TeamViewer, VirtualBox, VMware, VMware vSphere, Citrix NetScaler

Paradigms

Agile, Agile Product Management, Agile Project Management, Scrum, Design Thinking, Team Development, B2B2C, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C)

Industry Expertise

Sales & Marketing, Consumer Products, Exercise & Fitness, Healthcare, Higher Education, Hospitality

Platforms

Mandrill, Google Ads, Citrix

Other

Microsoft Office, SaaS, SaaS Design, Enterprise SaaS, SaaS Product Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), Software, B2B, B2B Partnerships, B2B Product Management, Business to Business (B2B), Product Vision, Head of Product, Product Owner, Microsoft PowerPoint, IBM Watson Personality Insights, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Teamwork, Sales, Key Account Management, Account Management, Product Ownership, Scrum Product Owner, Business Ownership, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Product Management, Danish, Agile Product Delivery, Strategic Planning & Execution, Agile Practices, Agile Sprints, Agile Delivery, Cloud Services, Leadership, SaaS Product Marketing, LinkedIn Connect, Windows, IT Product Management, Digital Transformation, Operational Efficiency Improvement, Conceptualization, Chief Product Officer (CPO), Creative Thinking, Digital Product Management, Feature Prioritization, Lean Startups, Product Development, Product Roadmaps, Strategy, Planning, Product Planning, Business Planning, Sprint Planning, Go-to-market Optimization, Market Entry, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Minimum Marketable Product (MMP), Product Positioning, Positioning, Customer Insights, Stakeholder Management, Corporate Strategy, Feature Roadmaps, Roadmaps, Scope, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Market Research & Analysis, Business Models, Feature Analysis, Product Strategy, Customer Experience, Functional Requirements, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Project Budget Management, Scope Management, User Requirements, Applications, Microsoft Teams, Google Apps, Microsoft Planner, Software Sales, Software Design, Software Consulting, HR Analytics, HR Tools, B2B Sales Pipeline, B2B Lead Generation, Management, Task Management, Time Management, Product Design, Product Launch, Product Sales, Data Products, Ideation, Microsoft Excel, Team Management, Teams, Team Leadership, Team Mentoring, Remote Team Leadership, Offshore Team Management, Distributed Team Management, Tech Sales, Channel Sales, Sales Funnel, Sales Pitches, Business, Business Development, New Business Development, Startup Funding, Startup Growth Strategy Development, Product Growth, English, IT Infrastructure, Cloud Infrastructure, Data Center Infrastructure, Infrastructure Architecture, Go-to-market Plans, Go-to-market Strategy, Azure Cloud Services, LinkedIn API, Extensions, Chrome Extensions, Microsoft, Networking, Windows Desktop Software, IT Project Management, Public Sector, Email Marketing Automation, Project Management, Mentorship & Coaching, Agile Leadership, Pricing, Pricing Strategy, Market Research, Pricing Models, Product Marketing, Product Frameworks, Flow Diagrams, Diagrams, Technical Writing, Technical Drawing, UML Diagrams, Cost Analysis, Fundraising, Project Timelines, Mobile Apps, Monetization Models, Product Strategy Consultant, Financial Modeling, Forecasting, System Integration, eCommerce, Consumer Applications, Edtech Design, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Product Coach, Product Line Analysis, UI Design, User Experience (UX), UX Design, Wireframing, Software QA, Software Deployment, IT Management, Product Hunt, PostgreSQL, LogRocket, LinkedIn Marketing, Facebook Ads, Open Broadcaster Studio (OBS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Google Tag Manager, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Server Virtualization, VMware Horizon, VMware ESXi, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenServer, Storage, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Mindfulness, Data Centers, Sales Forecasting, Infrastructure, New Product Business Cases, Feature Planning, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Research, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Subscription Pricing, MVP Design, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Stakeholder Interviews

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