Rob is available for hire
Hire RobRob Eades
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
June 17, 2019
Rob is a digital solutions consultant with over 12 years of experience across a range of industries (automotive, financial, hospitality, retail, technology), and expertise that comes from a background in digital product management, ownership, and strategy. Rob specializes in creating software to drive sales and improve customer experience. He has built and managed highly successful products for startups, SMBs, and enterprise clients.
Project Highlights
The Fresh Group: SaaS Website Platform
Designed, architected, and product managed a multi-tenant SaaS website building, and management platform.
The Fresh Group: SaaS Supplier Management Platform
Developed a supplier management platform allowing the ordering of exhibition equipment totaling over £100,000 (GBP) per event
The Fresh Group: Microsoft Office 365 Migration
Migrated internal systems to Office 365 to allow secure, efficient, collaborative work from any location and on any device.
Expertise
Work Experience
Head of Digital
2019 - 2019
The Fresh Group
- Developed the digital strategy for the business, and budgetary stakeholder for all digital projects throughout the company.
- Oversaw new business leads for all digital pitches and proposals.
- Proposed, sold, and ensured delivery of clients’ digital needs and requirements to achieve overall company and business unit objectives.
- Led the digital GDPR team, and primary point of contact for GDPR-related issues, processes, and compliance.
- Directed the migration of the company systems to Microsoft Office 365 (Enterprise E3).
Digital Product Director
2016 - 2019
The Fresh Group
- Led development for all digital products and roadmaps.
- Participated as the budgetary stakeholder for all digital projects throughout the company, contributing to events with a value up to £2 million, and with individual digital budgets ranging from £10,000 - £100,000.
- Created user stories, and defined requirements for design and engineering teams to align with the client and company goals.
- Drove the continuous evolution of digital solutions, leveraging Agile methods.
- Led in-house and remote teams of designers and developers.
- Offered fully-managed web applications to the enterprise market (including banking, retail, and automotive clients), as the product owner for this SaaS application platform.
- Generated sales of over £100,000 per event via the implementation of an exhibition management platform.
- Defined and implemented the digital strategy.
Digital Senior Project Manager
2014 - 2016
The Fresh Group
- Managed all technical digital projects including emails, web ads, company websites, touchscreen systems, and SaaS platforms.
- Managed mission-critical web applications, and platforms for clients.
- Led the consolidation of all systems and infrastructure for the company's digital products.
- Reduced website deployment time from 16 weeks to under one week by designing and implementing a multi-tenant SaaS delegate management platform.
- Managed all internal and remote contract developers and digital designers.
Digital Project Manager
2013 - 2014
Cube3
- Responsible for the delivery of all digital projects to time, cost and quality, including functionality, design and user experience.
- Responsible for the management of all digital projects, resource availability, and day-to-day management, scheduling and billable time monitoring for a team of eight, including UX designers, front and back-end developers, project managers, plus management of third-party contractors and additional freelance resources when necessary.
- Created project plans, and defined milestones with circulation to team members and client contacts.
- Estimated design, development and project management in order to write functional specifications, and subsequent management of internal and external specification approvals.
- Project managed multiple simultaneous projects with independent deadlines and budgetary responsibilities totalling over £100,000 at any one time, including a variety of project sizes and types.
- Implemented standardized processes and testing procedures driving efficiency, and ensuring consistent quality.
- Support and managed for over 50 websites including the handling of, and scheduling of support requests in a timely manner, while minimizing impact to scheduled projects.
- Delivered significant improvements in efficiency, capacity and output volume, and quality from the team.
Digital Account Manager
2012 - 2013
Cube3
- Developed key client relationships to ensure long-term growth, and to maximize revenue and commercial prospects for the company.
- Created job budgets, proposals and estimates.
- Created and reviewed project briefs, contracts, specifications and SLAs, and maintenance and hosting contracts.
- Liaised with commercial, digital and creative teams to ensure timely, and accurate project delivery to budget.
- Implemented EU cookie compliance across client sites, including the internal development of a compliant solution.
- Ensured commercial viability of all client projects.
Freelance
2011 - 2012
Freelance
- Set up a web design company to design, develop, and deliver a number of entrepreneurial web-based projects.
- Researched, designed and developed a digital deals aggregation website.
- Researched, designed, and developed a lead generation site for bed and breakfast businesses, annually generating over 5,000 unique visitors and in excess of 20,000 page views via organic search, and 2-5 warm leads per day.
- Developed all sites with WordPress, HTML5, and cross-browser tested in Internet Explorer (8+), Chrome, Firefox, Safari and iOS.
Marketing Executive
2010 - 2011
Datamonitor (Informa PLC)
- Marketed key business intelligence, data analysis, and global business information.
- Responsible for email marketing for the Energy and Consumer Goods divisions of the Business Insights brand.
- Created promotion schedules based on past performance, and analyzed recommendations from key stakeholders.
- Generated consistent, targeted sales of market research materials via email campaigns–each campaign sent to 20-40,000 subscribers.
- Oversaw the copywriting of marketing materials for team members including content, message, and branding.
- Liaised with key stakeholders to ensure timely releases of new products, and campaigns.
- Coordinated product promotions with sales teams to ensure lead follow-ups.
- Developed direct marketing best practice initiatives to improve metrics such as open rates, click-throughs and sales via wider team projects, and campaign testing.
- Exceeded monthly sales target of £18,000 (GBP).
Marketing Manager
2009 - 2010
Celebre Art
- Responsible for heading the internal and external marketing including supplier management.
- Managed a team of three persons including setting objectives, scheduling, and personal development.
- Developed the brand, including management and creation of all marketing literature (email, print, direct mail, and web).
- Liaised with event organizers, corporate brands and charities to ensure corporate brand guidelines were followed.
- Responsible for the budget, negotiation of contracts, and implementation of a new CRM system, which delivered a 25% increase in productivity within the sales department.
- Developed the company website, which generated qualified leads for the sales team.
- Ran the supply chain to ensure delivery of client merchandise including overseeing orders from auctions and fundraising events with average order values of over £25,000 (GBP) per event.
- Sourced strategic business partners on behalf of the directors to support the launch of the company.
Marketing Manager
2008 - 2010
Front Row Events
- Created marketing literature and campaigns for email, print, and web.
- Worked closely with the management team to define marketing objectives and implementation strategy.
- Ran the supply chain to ensure client deliverables, handling average daily order values of around £7,000.
- Liaised with corporate partners and charities to ensure brand guidelines were followed. Clients included the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA ), League Managers Association (LMA), Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), the Andrew Flintoff Foundation, the Rio Ferdinand Foundation, Nordoff Robbins and Macmillan.
- Managed budgets, third parties, and client relationships for design, print, website, email, and staffing.
- Developed effective working relationships with partner companies and successfully delivered multiple simultaneous projects to time, cost and quality.
Project History
The Fresh Group: SaaS Website Platform
Designed, architected, and product managed a multi-tenant SaaS website building, and management platform.
Designed, architected, and product managed a multi-tenant SaaS website building and management platform. This included a cost and benefit analysis, and pitching to the leadership team to obtain investment for the project. It was designed to be fully-scalable, featuring Cloud DNS, load-balancing, and a secure Cloud-based multi-server infrastructure intended to handle large volumes of potentially sensitive data. Reduced deployment time for websites from over 10 weeks to under one week.
The Fresh Group: SaaS Supplier Management Platform
Developed a supplier management platform allowing the ordering of exhibition equipment totaling over £100,000 (GBP) per event
This SaaS platform brought a new source of revenue for the company, and streamlined order administration.
Previously managed on spreadsheets, this new SaaS platform handled all logistical information in a single location, and allowed simultaneous running of events to facilitate easy ordering, order tracking, and payments from suppliers for exhibition equipment.
Previously managed on spreadsheets, this new SaaS platform handled all logistical information in a single location, and allowed simultaneous running of events to facilitate easy ordering, order tracking, and payments from suppliers for exhibition equipment.
The Fresh Group: Microsoft Office 365 Migration
Migrated internal systems to Office 365 to allow secure, efficient, collaborative work from any location and on any device.
I was the company lead and key advisor for the migration of systems to Microsoft Office 365 (Enterprise E3), allowing secure, efficient, and collaborative working from any location and on any device.
Education
2002 - 2005
Bachelor's Degree in Business Economics
Manchester Metropolitan University - Manchester, United Kingdom
2001 - 2002
BTEC Diploma in Art and Design
Coventry University - Coventry, United Kingdom
Collaboration That Works
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
1
Share your needs
Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2
Choose your talent
Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3
Start your risk-free talent trial
Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring