Reuben is available for hire
Hire ReubenReuben So
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Toptal member since June 9, 2020
Bio
Reuben is a digital leader specializing in digital strategy, product management, transformation, and innovation. He brings a unique mixture of enterprise and startup experience from a range of industry sectors such as aviation, public sector, commercial property (REITS), media, and telco. Along with having taken small greenfield initiatives to market and running enterprise transformational programs, Reuben's led cross-disciplinary teams to deliver measurable benefits upwards of $100 million.
Project Highlights
Jetstar.com Digital Transformation
Managed the digital transformation of Jetstar Group’s digital channel (website), successfully achieving over $60 million in revenue uplift.
EPA Victoria Transformation
Led, as the head of product, the full transformation of EPA Victoria, including people, process, technology and culture.
Expertise
- Agile Product Delivery
- Agile Product Management
- Digital Strategy
- Innovation
- Product Delivery
- Product Growth
- Product Management
- Product Strategy
Work Experience
Product Director
2021 - PRESENT
Cognizant
- Worked with senior executives to transform digital experiences from D2C and D2B eCommerce to D2B portals.
- Led the product management community within Australia and NZ.
- Led the engagement end to end, overseeing all planning and delivery.
Head of Product
2019 - 2021
EPA Victoria
- Architected, mobilized, and led the transformation program that leveraged a scaled agile delivery model with a more than one hundred million dollar budget, 350 full-time staff, partners, and vendors across five decentralized squads and directorates.
- Transformed people, processes, and technology concurrently at the same time within one year.
- Successfully delivered 140+ newly established products and services addressing over 4,300+ scenarios enabled by 22 new digital platforms.
- Defined the digital delivery scope, which included establishing 22 new digital platforms—CRM, CMS, portal, IDAM, finance, HR, records, data intelligence, governance, security, and an IT operating model.
- Established the business delivery scope, which included the new value chain, business and regulatory architecture, and a target operating model.
- Determined the people delivery scope, which included establishing new L&D modules, learning management systems, change management, internal and external comms, and organizational development and culture.
Head of Digital Products and Customer Experience
2018 - 2019
Vicroads
- Established and led the product management practice within VicRoads from the ground up, which included leading a team of 13 product managers, CX, and UX designers.
- Managed and led the delivery and submission of numerous business cases to state treasury and finance, seeking ranges between double-digit and hundreds of million dollars.
- Managed three self-service portals, two websites, and one mobile app—serving 6.4 million citizens, businesses, partners, and government agencies over 22 million transactions annually.
Mentor
2017 - 2019
Startupbootcamp
- Deeply involved with the accepted star-ups to provide both advice and guidance to navigate around their challenges to ensure they have a proven problem-solution and product-market fit.
- Mentored Spark Horizon, a Swiss-based energytech/adtech startup producing electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS). Their charging stations use machine learning-based facial sensors to display targeted physical OOH advertising.
- Mentored WePower, a blockchain-based startup (WPR token) that focused on addressing funding available in the green-energy sector, as well as enabling consumers to purchase power (via PPAs) directly from generators to ensure their power was green.
National Manager — Insights and Innovation
2016 - 2018
Wilson Group
- Led the development of the world’s first predictive pricing and revenue engine for city-based parking.
- Drove pricing, revenue, and yield management strategies across the national parking portfolio with 440 sites that generated hundreds of million dollars in revenue—successfully generating an annual revenue uplift of double-digit million dollars.
- Reengineered and optimized business processes to increase efficiency and capability maturity, resulting in reducing 6,500+ labor hours annually.
Manager, Digital Products & Innovation
2015 - 2016
Wilson Parking Australia
- Drove Wilson Group’s strategic entry into the sharing economy/P2P market place (disruptive services).
- Oversaw the digital transformation, streamlining five digital products and channels into a single experience.
- Product-managed a digital portfolio, inclusive of the website, online bookings engine (Book a Bay with $16 million annually), and native apps (Parkmate, ePark).
Digital Product Manager
2014 - 2015
Jetstar Group
- Managed the digital transformation of Jetstar Group’s primary digital channel—the website—successfully achieving over a double-digit million dollars in revenue uplift.
- Led a 3-to-5-year roadmap of theJetstar.com and Boxever—ML product recommendations.
- Strategically targeted 14 APAC countries in nine languages.
- Led the strategic digital marketing, which achieved a consistent page-one Google SEO result for key search permutations and delivered a double-digit million dollars attributed annual revenue uplift.
Digital Product Owner – Mobile and Digital Identity
2012 - 2014
Sensis
- Developed strategic roadmaps and business cases along with leading the agile delivery of native mobile apps across three key brands (Yellow Pages, White Pages, and Whereis Maps).
- Managed the digital Identity and IDAM technical platform, a critical enabler for up to 20 Sensis products and services.
- Led the agile delivery team of 15 members (BAs, developers, and QA resources).
Digital Product Specialist
2008 - 2012
Locatrix Communications
- Worked with telcos to design and deliver digital marketing and VAS solutions to increase ARPU and general consumer spending. Daily engaged with the product, project, engineering, and operational stakeholders to deliver and support the products.
- Created a detailed market analysis and pre-sales documentation (whitepapers, pitch/sales, and conferences), including RFI/RFP (request-for-information and request-for-proposal) and tender responses.
- Served as a product specialist and business analyst on product solutions including platform apps for Twitter, Facebook, and Friendster.
Project History
Jetstar.com Digital Transformation
Managed the digital transformation of Jetstar Group’s digital channel (website), successfully achieving over $60 million in revenue uplift.
Management, Accountabilities, and Achievements include:
• Led the digital transformation of Jetstar Group's primary digital channel, Jetstar.com, successfully achieving over $60 million in revenue uplift.
• Managed CEO and CXO level stakeholders across the wider business, as well as external supplier and vendor management.
• Led a 3-to-5 year roadmap of the Jetstar.com and Boxever (ML product recommendations).
• Strategically targeted 14 APAC countries in nine languages.
• The channel sees ~$3.4 billion revenue PA, 15 million monthly sessions, and 90 million monthly page views
• Implemented eCommerce features: personalization, digital marketing, content strategy, and conversion optimization.
• Implemented customer remarketing features delivering over $12+ million annual revenue uplift.
• The strategic digital marketing achieved consistent page-1 Google SEO results for key search permutations, delivering $25 million attributed annual revenue uplift.
• Mobilized and managed Jetstar’s personalization stream roadmap.
• Made real-time product recommendations based off of product propensity.
• Led the digital transformation of Jetstar Group's primary digital channel, Jetstar.com, successfully achieving over $60 million in revenue uplift.
• Managed CEO and CXO level stakeholders across the wider business, as well as external supplier and vendor management.
• Led a 3-to-5 year roadmap of the Jetstar.com and Boxever (ML product recommendations).
• Strategically targeted 14 APAC countries in nine languages.
• The channel sees ~$3.4 billion revenue PA, 15 million monthly sessions, and 90 million monthly page views
• Implemented eCommerce features: personalization, digital marketing, content strategy, and conversion optimization.
• Implemented customer remarketing features delivering over $12+ million annual revenue uplift.
• The strategic digital marketing achieved consistent page-1 Google SEO results for key search permutations, delivering $25 million attributed annual revenue uplift.
• Mobilized and managed Jetstar’s personalization stream roadmap.
• Made real-time product recommendations based off of product propensity.
EPA Victoria Transformation
https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/Led, as the head of product, the full transformation of EPA Victoria, including people, process, technology and culture.
As the head of product in the portfolio management team, my role was to advise, architect, mobilize, and lead the $100 million and 350-person program to successfully transformation rebuild all aspects of the organization from the ground up. This was to transform the people, process, and technology concurrently at the same time within one year. I successfully delivered over 140 newly established products and services addressing over 4,300 scenarios, enabled by 22 new digital platforms.
Education
2020 - 2020
Completed a Course in Innovation Management
University of Leeds - Leeds, United Kingdom
2020 - 2020
Completed a Program in General Management
Melbourne Business School - Melbourne, Australia
2020 - 2020
Completed a Course in Leading Strategic Innovation
Deakin University - Melbourne, Australia
2005 - 2009
Bachelor's Degree in Software Engineering
Griffith University - Brisbane, Australia
Certifications
SEPTEMBER 2020 - PRESENT
SAFe Agilist
Scaled Agile Framework
DECEMBER 2018 - PRESENT
Strategic Selling
Miller Heiman Group
Skills
Tools
Asana, Slack, Zoom, Jira, Confluence, Microsoft Word
Paradigms
Agile Product Management
Industry Expertise
Regulatory Reform, Commercial Real Estate, Government
Other
Product Strategy, Product Delivery, Product Growth, Agile Product Delivery, Innovation, IT Strategy, Digital Strategy, Software as a Service (SaaS), Innovation Management, Enterprise, Product Roadmaps, Product Management, Digital Marketing, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Fintech, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Business Transformation, Digital Transformation, Business Transformation Program Management, Digital Transformation Program Management, Business Architecture, Innovation Labs, Innovation Strategy, Disruptive Innovation, Process Innovation, Product Mapping, Business Intelligence (BI), Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager, Software Engineering, Feature Prioritization, Feature Backlog Prioritization
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