Michelle Anderson, Product Manager in Chester, United Kingdom
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Michelle Anderson

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Chester, United Kingdom

Toptal member since December 1, 2020

Bio

Michelle is a passionate and value-driven manager with 5+ years of comprehensive experience leading cross-functional teams in planning, building, launching, and managing award-winning, top-selling products in B2B and B2C. She is combining her Agile proficiency with innovative leadership to evolve product strategy and achieve results. Michelle has experience at global FTSE AIM 50 and NASDAQ organizations and smaller European companies, where she implemented digital strategies and Lean processes.

Project Highlights

Visualise Tool for GBG Connexus
Introduced the data visualization of more than one billion PII records.
ADESA IVI—Intelligent Vehicle Inspection
ADESA IVI was designed to save users time and money by following a framework of images required to perform an inspection on a vehicle. The AI was further introduced to reduce the ambiguity over damage estimation by utilizing machine learning.

Expertise

  • Agile
  • Cross-functional Collaboration
  • Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
  • Process Design
  • Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
  • Product Strategy
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Team Leadership

Work Experience

Owner

2020 - PRESENT
Women in Product Technology (WiPT)
  • Founded a company to promote women in product management, tech, and STEM education.
  • Wrote a personal blog to highlight successful female product professionals.
  • Evaluated the tried and tested product tools and listed reading recommendations.

Technology Product Manager

2019 - 2020
Greenbank Holidays, Ltd.
  • Managed 20 different European websites across both Eurocamp and Al Fresco brands, leading geographically diverse stakeholder groups.
  • Steered the business towards an Agile mindset focused on delivering MVP and data-driven decision making. Implemented Scrum framework for the development team, resulting in the delivery of all commitments for the first time in February 2020.
  • Introduced the project management to a mobile companion app and modernized their systems alongside the head of IT.
  • Improved communication and roadmap visibility radically across the business, introducing the triage process for bugs and streamlining the UAT process.

Product Manager

2018 - 2019
ADESA Remarketing, Ltd.
  • Spearheaded the introduction of a new self-service auction platform for UK dealerships, which evolved into a PaaS product for Vauxhall and FCA.
  • Introduced an award-winning automotive industry first—ADESA IVI, a mobile app appraisal using AI and machine learning to reduce the total cost of vehicle disposal dramatically.
  • Developed a UK-specific product roadmap and collaborated with the wider product team to understand and contribute to ADESA Global product requirements, creating outlooks for three-, six-, and twelve-month pathways.
  • Participated in the client meetings to understand and enhance our knowledge of customer needs and opportunities to ensure the customer's voice is incorporated into product design.
  • Led the stakeholder management to ensure business alignment on the roadmap and prioritization of features and participating in sprint planning, stand-ups, and other key gating ceremonies in SAFe methodologies to ensure efficiency and transparency.

Product Manager

2016 - 2018
GBG, PLC
  • Rewrote the product strategy for the trace element of the company for GBG to achieve its vision of becoming a £100 million company by 2021.
  • Led the Connexus suite of products (SaaS), which included a UI, API, and Bureau offering, winning two product innovation awards on retail and insurance industry events.
  • Introduced a new product by Connexus called Visualise, an identity industry first, taking various forms of PII data, presenting them clearly and concisely, and drawing detailed analysis and conclusions to help companies save valuable resources.
  • Reprioritized the product roadmap to reflect innovation, customer feedback, and technical improvement using Jira, Trello, and Aha! to include cloud-based hosting, a complete overhaul of UI, replacing the matching engine and continuous integration.
  • Managed five UK EPD releases as well as the Connexus release to a brand-new EMEA country, working closely with developers, BA, QA, and product owners within a pod using Agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban.
  • Conducted user interviews, undertaking investigative research, and competitor analysis to support SDLC and secure market position.

Project History

Visualise Tool for GBG Connexus

https://www.gbgplc.com/visualise/

Introduced the data visualization of more than one billion PII records.

I fostered group-wide collaboration on the first GDPR compliant visualization tool of PII data in the UK to bring together teams from IT, development, architecture, legal, and finance. This was my first new-to-market product. I participated in building it from concept to launch. It was completed in eight months and became the headline product supporting the core pillar of innovation.

Connexus is utilized by a number of organizations in the UK, including HMRC, Virgin Group, John Lewis, Aviva, and Npower, to find the individuals and communicate with them for various reasons. The ability to visually make links between those individuals, enabling businesses to save time and, ultimately, money, was paramount to securing GBG's market position. As a result, I was able to nominate the developers involved, and they were recognized and rewarded by the business.

ADESA IVI—Intelligent Vehicle Inspection

https://adesa.co.uk/vendor-services/adesa-ivi/

ADESA IVI was designed to save users time and money by following a framework of images required to perform an inspection on a vehicle. The AI was further introduced to reduce the ambiguity over damage estimation by utilizing machine learning.

Whenever a vehicle comes off-lease, there is a complicated process for assessing that vehicle's value, including damages, and then selling it on, known as the total cost of disposal. In addition to that, a quick Google search provides reams of reviews from extremely unsatisfied customers who have often been charged for damages they were never aware of. Therefore, we wanted to design a tool that could be used by someone with no experience of vehicle appraisals and equally become the go-to tool for professionals by merely using a guided walk-through to take several vehicle images.

The tool then evaluates these images and estimates damage and cost to repair, based on the previous estimations. IVI is also continually learning to ensure its accuracy and can be interrogated at any point in the process for auditing purposes.

Education

2004 - 2007

Bachelor's Degree in Law and American Studies

University of Wales - Swansea

Certifications

AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT

AIPMM Product Management Certification

280 Group

JANUARY 2019 - PRESENT

SAFe

Scaled Agile, Inc.

Skills

Tools

Jira, Slack, Trello

Paradigms

Agile, Iterative Design, Incremental Development, Scrum, Kanban, Agile Product Management, Azure DevOps, Mobile App Design, B2C

Other

Cross-functional Collaboration, User Stories, Agile Coaching, Front-end Design, Process Design, Team Leadership, Stakeholder Management, User Requirements, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Project Management, Release Management, Product Launch, Research & Investigation, Digital Product Management, Innovation, Product Management, Product Vision, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Market Research, Product Roadmaps, User Experience (UX), Data-driven Decision-making, Feature Roadmaps, Aha!, Product Strategy, Scrum Coaching, Product Marketing, Mobile Apps, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Data Visualization, Cloud, Data Analysis, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Legal, Business Administration, Marketing, eCommerce, SaaS, B2B

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