Nick Grantham
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Dublin, Ireland
Toptal member since November 24, 2021
Nick is an experienced product leader and successful entrepreneur with a strong background in product management, product development, UX, and digital strategy. He led large global teams through to small agile cross-functional groups. Nick is an enthusiastic, tech-minded, thoughtful, and self-motivated professional with a passion for new ideas, elegant design, and delivering technology that has a real impact.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Product Management
- Content Strategy
- Director of Product
- Jira
- Leadership
- Lean Product Manager
- Lean Startups
- Scrum
Work Experience
Product Manager
Self-employed
- Provided the overall product vision, design, and hands-on development of Laybase SaaS solution in collaboration with Australia’s largest private property developer.
- Oversaw the holistic product vision, end-to-end design, and development of UpSparks—a next-generation learning app that blends physical and digital gameplay with augmented reality selling 10,000+ units across the US.
- Acted as a part of the IT transition team for Apex Fund Services in acquiring hedge fund administrator Custom House, which added $24 billion in assets to the Group’s portfolio.
Founder
Fractus Learning
- Founded the business that US investors acquired six years after its launch.
- Built an entrepreneurial mindset, defined the strategy, and delivered a web product supporting over 200,000 teachers, parents, and students per month that was featured on sites such as Forbes and Washington Post and referenced by 60+ institutions.
- Led activities such as recruiting, developing, and motivating a diverse global team and 100+ contributors, contractors, and volunteers to maintain the Fractus Learning platform.
- Applied the deep product management skillset to collaborate with a globally distributed cross-functional team and customers in the US, UK, Ireland, and Australia to pivot and expand the Fractus Learning product set.
Quality Director
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Led a team of over 200 internal and external team members in building global teams based in India, the USA, China, Argentina, and the Czech Republic.
- Developed and maintained a culture of quality within the product development and across the broader organization.
- Oversaw the quality of all digital content and apps released under the HMH brand, including 1000 products released in 2013 under highly demanding deadlines.
- Delivered the product quality to support over 50 million students in more than 150 countries by ensuring exceptional customer service in anticipation of user issues and quick response to the reported incidents.
- Collaborated with 100+ vendor and contract teams to ensure global partners meet and exceed KPIs and strive to improve high levels of performance and delivery.
Agile Coach | Scrum Master
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Delivered a multi-sensory intervention platform for more than 8,000 US-based schools.
- Liaised and negotiated with the product owners to rank feature sets, manage competing priorities, and ensure development met the stakeholders' and customers' expectations.
- Mentored and coached in Agile methodologies across the business to motivate and bring together cross-functional team members, ensuring individuals worked collaboratively under pressure.
- Presented the live product demos and user experience walkthroughs to the stakeholders, sales, and internal management teams across the USA, Ireland, and India.
QA Manager
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Managed teams of 80-120 internal and external vendors in maintaining and enforcing quality within the product development and across the broader organization.
- Collaborated and worked at the management level with the engineering, tech editorial, business analysis, program management, and finance departments to establish the ongoing processes and strategies.
- Defined the vendor and partner selection; worked with the vendor management to ensure partners met and exceeded the set KPIs.
Engineer
Xtralis
- Planned and implemented testing at the appropriate development milestones—unit and component testing, system testing, integration testing, load and stress testing, overall performance testing, storage testing, and bandwidth testing.
- Initiated and maintained communication with the software and test engineering groups and marketing team to ensure the product requirements were met.
- Designed and developed the project test plans and schedules and managed the implementation.
- Analyzed the large data sets to determine system areas of deficiency for further testing and optimization.
Project History
Fractus Learning
Founded and exited a successful edtech startup supporting over 200,000 teachers, parents, and students that was featured on Forbes, Washington Post, Fast Company, and TNW and referenced by 60+ institutions including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.
Laybase
http://www.laybase.comDelivered the overall product vision, design, and hands-on development of a SaaS solution in collaboration with Australia’s largest private property developer.
UpSparks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEeay-FEL0YLed the holistic product vision, end-to-end design, and development of a next-generation learning app.
Education
Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Degree in IT and Telecommunications
University of Adelaide - Adelaide, Australia
Certifications
ICT in Primary Education
University of London
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Situational Leadership
Australian Institute of Management
Six Thinking Hats
Australian Institute of Management
Negotiation Skills
Australian Institute of Management
Skills
Tools
Jira, Trello, Slack, Zoom, Stripe Checkout
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Agile Software Development, Agile Product Management, Augmented Reality (AR)
Industry Expertise
Education Technology (Edtech)
Other
WordPress, Management, Content, Content Management, Content Strategy, Content Marketing, Leadership, Education Product Manager, New Products, Lean Startups, Software Development, Lean Product Manager, Director of Product, Engineering, Jamstack, SaaS, SEO Tools, Google SEO, Organic SEO, SEO Content, Content Creation, Web Content, Educational Platform Design, Agile Coaching, iOS, SaaS Product Marketing, Unity, eCommerce, Stripe API, Stripe Payments, WordPress API, Amazon API, Amazon FBA, Amazon Web Services (AWS), QA Automation, QA Testing, Software QA, Quality Assurance (QA), QA Test Plan Management, QA Leadership, Manual QA, Website QA, Hardware, Automation, Amazon SEO, YouTube SEO, Social Media Content, Decision Analysis, Data-driven Decision-making, Negotiation, Contract Negotiation, Price Negotiations, Headless Software, Unity3D, Unity-ARkit-Plugin, Product Management, Apps, App UX, App UI
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