Tony Palanca
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Toptal member since September 6, 2022
Tony is a growth and strategy specialist. He is an ex-CEO, co-founder, product manager, and industrial sales leader who worked at IBM and Sun. He is experienced in industry verticals, including banking and finance, insurance, life sciences, telecommunications, construction, and agriculture. In each vertical, Tony has brought new ideas to market around the themes of self-service, supply chain creation and management, eCommerce, and big data.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Competitor Analysis & Profiling
- Growth Strategy
- Lean Startups
- MVP Design
- Pricing Strategy
- ProductPlan
- Sales Strategy
- eCommerce
Work Experience
CEO | Co-founder
HiveXchange
- Created a trust-based B2B eCommerce model for wholesale trade for farmers in a technology incubator, built the MVP, and started the company. Hired the team, secured company funding of $5 million, and led the business for six years.
- Acted as product owner for a B2B agriculture marketplace that merged payment assurance, logistics, insurance, order and inventory management, document and regulatory management, Freshcare certification for food and safety, and community engagement.
- Designed the workflow using story mapping, empathy maps, and customer interviews. The feature set allowed users to innovatively set up private and public trading rooms and markets. It integrated regulatory compliance into the workflow.
- Provided sales leadership to the company's sales team, which grew trading volumes to $4 million per quarter at a rate of 25% quarter on quarter.
- Managed the sales, marketing, and CX team. Installed and managed the CRM and social media infrastructure, oversaw the marketing strategy, and created a well-known trademarked brand name.
- Outsourced the build of the business's first mobile app, HiveXpress, which was integrated into the back end via new APIs. Built an in-house Flutter team that delivered a new eCommerce and social app version.
- Managed the product plan and set the OKRs and metrics. Designed and led the building of a metrics dashboard that took data from our client touchpoints. That data was used for sprints and stand-ups with sales and development teams.
- Used influence maps to design industry and customer engagement. Secured trade grants, influenced the Freshcare certification terms, and gained founding membership to the Food Agility co-operative research center.
Product Manager | Co-founder
China Direct Partners
- Established the product vision, creating a 4PL bridge for Australian construction firms to find, source, and manage building material supply chains from mainland China.
- Created a quality control index that benchmarked Chinese factories against 16 markers of factory performance and output. This tool was used to predict supply performance and manage project risk for major construction firms.
- Led supply chain projects managing quality audits, export documentation, delivery times, and local storage. Created the ecosystem to bring multiple containers of complex building materials into high-rise construction projects in capital cities.
- Used market research to identify targets on both sides of the two-sided marketplace. Converted the research into short engagement sprints with OKRs. Captured some of Australia's largest construction firms and many of the best manufacturers in China.
- Visited over 40 factories in China across many material verticals, including kitchens, tiles, bathware, curtain wall, hotel furniture, and stone. Assessed cultural and manufacturing workflows and created a quality audit tool for the Chinese team.
Life Sciences ANZ Region Manager
IBM
- Led a new life sciences division for Australia and New Zealand, grew the business to $40 million per year, and introduced new solutions based on open-source software to manage research pipelines and workflow.
- Hired a team of domain specialists and sales and marketing professionals. Created the product and sales strategy for the new business unit and managed weekly sprints and progress reports back to executives in New York.
- Used influence mapping to develop the marketing strategy and mix. Developed the business case for IBM to allocate $1 million in marketing funds in year one. Was media trained and became the lead evangelist in the press and industry associations.
- Developed a business proposal for IBM Watson Labs to invest $4 million in Queensland University's mRNA research. It was the first time any Australian research organization was awarded the coveted investment and partnership with IBM research.
Sales Manager
Sun Microsystems
- Helped Sun become more solution-focused and grew the business from $20 million to $70 million per year in three years via a new sales model that included OKRs for customers and distribution channels.
- Collaborated with many third parties to grow the local Sun ecosystem. Led customer needs analysis with salespeople and used data to find a recruitment program for software and solution providers.
- Refreshed the team while employing new professionals that could meet business objectives. Managed stakeholder engagements with service and product areas in Sun to improve outcomes for customers. Developed new relationships with solution providers.
- Helped reposition Sun as a strategic supplier with the top three telcos in Australia and managed significant performance and delivery issues Sun experienced during a critical failure with high-end server components.
Project History
Build and Launch of New Mobile App
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVbsyJCBYkProduct owner for a new mobile app integrated with a custom-built eCommerce back-end. The video is from the product launch at a major AgTech event in Australia. It was a key pivot point for the business, which grew at over 25% per quarter.
I used the lean canvas model to create and drive product design and find market fit. I also developed the product strategy, used design thinking to create minimal viable products, and tested it in the market. I used various techniques to find a market fit and differentiation, including story mapping, customer journey mapping, Kano, and scorecards. While running scrum teams following Agile methodologies and tools such as Jira and Trello, I set up the business development model and sales methodologies. I also implemented CRM and dashboards in the business to track engagement, created investment memorandums and pitches, and raised funding.
The business I co-founded took on the massive challenge of creating a digital trading framework for Australia’s multi-billion dollar fresh produce industry. Over six years, HiveXchange created a new kind of eCommerce trademarked as T-eCommerce or trust-based eCommerce. It was built in-house from the unique requirements of perishable produce supply chains.
The attached short video was used to launch the app’s new version, giving clients streamlined access to the marketplace.
Go-to-market Plan for a Social Enterprise
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXqWnGDa0Wi8qrAGDK0gUCxg-nnu-6vf/viewDeveloped the go-to-market strategy for a service delivery program helping long-term unemployed and disabled people find work.
This social enterprise won a government contract to deliver a hybrid education and reverse marketing service to unemployed and disabled people. They needed to develop a new go-to-market model and review internal workflows, competitive substitutes, best practices, customer engagement models, and business development strategies.
The COO contracted me to create the strategy and present it to the organization’s board, which adopted the strategy in 2022. The attached document is a redacted sample of the interim report. It highlights my ability to take a complex challenge, break it down into a meaningful roadmap, and create a board-level presentation and white paper.
Perspectives on Global Agriculture Supply Chains
Created a current strategic perspective on opportunities and issues in agriculture.
Identified the value chain and the major change drivers affecting stakeholders. Those change drivers were broken down into man-made change drivers and earth-driven change drivers and concluded with considerations about how these change drivers are creating new industry-wide innovations.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Psychology
University of Western Sydney - Sydney, Australia
Bachelor's Degree in Economics
Melbourne University - Melbourne, Australia
Certifications
Advanced Product Management Certificate
RMIT
Mindfulness Practitioner
Academy of Modern Applied Psychology
Skills
Tools
Trello, Canva, Board Reporting, Jira, Slack
Paradigms
Marketplace Platforms, Agile, Mobile App Design, Design Thinking
Platforms
ProductPlan, WooCommerce
Industry Expertise
Marketplaces, Agriculture, Legal Counsel
Other
Economics, Business Cases, Marketing, Storyboarding, Personas, Research, Sales Strategy, Tech Sales, Sales Pitches, Sales Growth, Sales Funnel, Growth Strategy, Ideation, Pricing Strategy, Channel Strategy, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Lean Startups, MVP Design, eCommerce, Business Model Canvas, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Product-market Fit, Product Strategy, Roadmaps, Business to Business (B2B), Leadership, Sales Operations, Product Owner, Business Consulting, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Intercultural Competence, Team Leadership, Pitch Decks, Market Opportunity Analysis, Market Research & Analysis, Value Proposition Design, Opportunity Maps, Opportunity Assessments, Business Development, Budgeting, Two-sided Marketplaces, Startups, Product Roadmaps, Product Vision, B2B Partnerships, User Personas, SWOT Analysis, Market Fit, B2B, Business Plan Consulting, Conceptualization, HubSpot CRM, WordPress, Corporate Law, Management Accounting, Statistics, Psychology, Philosophy, Kano Model, Customer Success, CX Strategy, Technology, Risk, Supply Chain, eCommerce Design, Prioritization Frameworks, Cost Modeling, Distribution Strategy, Metrics, Impact Assessment, Lean, Startup Funding, Lead Marketing, Marketing Mix, Marketing Communications (MarCom), Legal Technology (Legaltech), Websites, Pricing Models, Client Reporting, Product Evangelism, Software Sales, Mindfulness, Strategy, Board Presentations, Business to Government (B2G), Go-to-market Optimization, Monetization Models, Monetization, Miro, eCommerce Payments, Risk Assessment, Community, Project Scoping, Revenue Strategy, Product Management, Hootsuite, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), User Metrics, Investments, Venture Funding, Public Relations (PR), New Product Development, Direct/Indirect Sales & Distribution, Ad Networks, Billing Systems, Mobile Apps, Web UX, Dashboard Design, UX Wireframes, Social Marketplaces, User Empathy, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Digital Marketing, Multi-sided Marketplaces
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