Stephen M. Walker II
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Lisbon, Portugal
Toptal member since November 20, 2019
Stephen is an entrepreneur and digital product leader, passionate about exceptional, innovative products. His experience ranges from scaling startups to launching new products with Amazon, AT&T, Disney, Microsoft, Productboard, and Symantec. He speaks about innovation and collaboration worldwide from La Product Conf to SxSW, expounding on how strong leadership, hiring, culture, and customer obsession are the foundation for successful product outcomes.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Customer Research
- Design Sprints
- Dual Track Agile
- Hiring
- Lean Experiments
- Product Discovery
- Product Growth
- Product Strategy
Work Experience
Founder
Klu.ai
- Led Klu.ai in raising $1.7 million in pre-seed funding, enabling the company to scale its platform for assisting businesses in leveraging generative AI models.
- Positioned Klu.ai as a significant entity in AI collaboration, contributing to developing AI products and shaping the future of AI applications.
- Developed Launchpad, an AI-first product operations platform leveraging GPT-3 to aggregate and summarize project statuses, releases, and metrics, laying the groundwork for Klu.ai’s LLM App Platform.
Founder
Innovat Labs
- Advised startups on product discovery, strategy, and growth.
- Acted as interim VP of product, advising CEOs, setting planning cycles, and staffing teams.
- Assisted organizations in building exceptional product departments with best-in-class hiring, processes, and training.
- Launched hardware (full NPI) and software products.
- Authored work and shared information as a public speaker.
Senior Director | Product Management
Productboard
- Led product management and design across Europe, doubling the size of the team. I recruited the head of design to lead the design organization, established the brand design department, and brought on the SVP of Product in the US.
- Conducted the product strategy to raise Series C and Series D, achieving unicorn status.
- Piloted up-market strategy to shift product from SMB-focused to enterprise-ready. Launched the API platform, SSO, teams and permissions, reporting, workflow automation, and machine learning (ML) services.
Head of Product
Freeletics
- Worked for Freeletics, which is featured annually on the Apple and Google–ranked #8 in combined worldwide app store revenue in the health and fitness category with over 40m users.
- Grew product and market fit: increasing download activation, subscription growth (+30% YoY), and product retention (+30% QoQ engagement). Grew from 17 million users in 2017 to 40 million+ in 2020.
- Was responsible for the product roadmap and business impact communication to board. Created a three-year roadmap, successfully raising Series A in 2018, Series B in 2019, and Series C in 2020.
- Created a culture of experimentation and growth loops. All significant product growth attributed to sustained A/B experiments–not large projects or new feature launches.
- Developed product road-mapping processes, department career ladders, and optimized dual-track discovery and delivery.
- Led the product department at the intersection of AI, social networks, gamification, and behavioral psychology.
Head of Global Experience Design
Amazon
- Pitched and executed strategy for a mobile app expansion into 42 new countries with an annual sales growth rate of 31% on track for $5 billion in cross-border sales by 2020. The three-pillar strategy focused on ML localization, payment support, and country-specific CX.
- Led design, research, and product management for Prime Now Singapore, Amazon Australia, Amazon UAE, and localization features now available on all Amazon retail experiences.
- Built the first global customer research database to enable worldwide testing of new concepts and prototypes.
Product Design Manager
Capital One
- Oversaw the investing line of business reporting to the local GM as head of design. Collaborated with the GM and peers to pivot the business model from self-directed investing to a robo-advice platform. Co-created pitch to sell legacy assets.
- Piloted Spotify Squad inspired framework, leading to a complete cross-department restructuring. All team and project disciplines collocated, including legal, finance, engineering, design, research, brand strategy, and others.
- Instructed design thinking for customer-centric innovation. Facilitated innovation sessions across lines of business, including bank, card, and investing.
- Led the creation of a conceptual prototype and internal marketing video for an AI personal financial advisor.
Founder and Director of User Experience
Smoov
- Grew the freelance business into a boutique studio serving Fortune 500 clients. Managed core business activities, including sales and finance. Scaled the internal team and freelance network.
- Created web, mobile, and console platform solutions for 2Advanced, AT&T, Disney, Namco/Bandai Games, Microsoft, Symantec, and small business clients.
Founder and Head of Product
Security Storm
- Founded a network security startup and led the core R&D activities. Hired engineers to expand development capabilities.
- Launched Microsoft Active Directory network management software with Paypal as an early customer.
Project History
Product Strategy Co
http://www.productstrategy.coLaunched the online course platform, teaching product strategy to product leaders and founders.
Innovat Labs
https://innov.at/Founded a startup consultancy and idea incubator focused on B2B and B2C SaaS.
Freeletics Journeys
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/freeletics-raises-45m-for-its-ai-powered-fitness-coach/Launched training journeys, migrating three fitness apps, including Bodyweight, Running, and Gym into one training app.
Prime Now Singapore
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/amazon-enters-south-east-asia-with-launch-of-prime-now-fast-delivery-service-in-singaporeLed the design, research, and digital product management for Amazon's first launch in Singapore.
SxSW Product Innovation Panel
Sold out panel at SxSW, discussing where teams often fail using collaborative Design Sprints to solve problems.
Klu.ai
http://www.klu.aiSecured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding for Klu.ai, enhancing its platform to streamline the design, deployment, and optimization of AI applications, accelerating AI adoption across industries.
The platform offers collaborative prompt engineering, allowing teams to explore, save, and prototype completions, assistants, and workflows.
It also provides rapid iteration with insights, enabling users to understand prompt performance and curate data for fine-tuning custom models. Klu.ai supports integration with leading LLM providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, and GCP Vertex, offering flexibility in model selection.
The platform also offers an Enterprise Container for private, high-performance AI system development, allowing organizations to host models, fine-tune them, and scale seamlessly.
Klu.ai is trusted by thousands of innovative AI teams and has secured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding, reflecting its commitment to advancing AI application development.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Portland State University - Portland, Oregon, USA
Certifications
Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Stanford University
Artificial Intelligence Nanodegree
Udacity
Design Sprint Masterclass
AJ&Smart
Ideas to Action
IDEO U
Product Management
General Assembly
Skills
Tools
Basecamp, Google Workspace, Jira, Confluence, Trello, Slack, Looker
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, Human-centered Design (HCD), Design Thinking, DevOps, B2C
Industry Expertise
Health & Wellness, Telecommunications, Video Gaming, Music
Platforms
Mixpanel, Productboard
Other
Product Growth, Product Management, Product Strategy, Design Sprints, Hiring, eCommerce, Digital Product Design, Lean Experiments, Analytics, Growth Strategy, Dual Track Agile, Customer Research, Product Discovery, Fundraising, Video Streaming, Consumer Behavior, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Cryptocurrency, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Mobile, Fitness, Strategy, Innovation Labs, Consulting, B2B, Training, Product Strategy Consultant, Leadership, SaaS, Enterprise SaaS, Notion, Amplitude, Salesforce, International Growth, Marketing, AIOps, Large Language Model Operations (LLMOps), Large Language Models (LLMs), User Experience Design, UI Design
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