Anne Botha
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Calgary, AB, Canada
Toptal member since October 7, 2019
Anne has 20+ years of experience in project management, leading various projects and implementing web, mobile, cloud, and application products for B2C and B2B organizations. She's worked with startups and large Fortune 500 companies to create inspired and innovative products. Anne is experienced in working with remote teams and is well-versed in Agile, Scrum, and Kanban.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Agile Project Management
- Analytics
- B2B
- Mentorship & Coaching
- Product Management
- Startups
- Team Management
Work Experience
Senior Project/Product Manager
Seventy Seven Energy, LLC
- Joined the team as the product and project manager to lead the discovery (analysis and development) for complex legal and financial products.
- Led the team to develop AI proof of concept (PoC) solutions to solve OCR and data extraction at scale ahead of schedule.
- Collaborated closely with stakeholders to develop product vision and scope and unpack significant details to shape a product that provides the target results and complies with legal requirements.
Senior Data Project Manager
SRAM
- Joined the data and analytics team as both the senior data product manager and the project lead, managing the team through a platform migration for data sources that included 10 million files plus documents and content.
- Managed the team on a day-to-day basis, leading all meetings, setting priorities, deciding on scope, and sequencing of work—tracking progress and reporting up and outwards.
- Managed all intake from the community of 3,000 to define the incoming work, product ideas, data assets, and coaching and training needed.
Product Manager
CGCN Group
- Joined the team as a product and project manager to lead the team's discovery of an AI government policy affairs campaign management tool using a custom LLM.
- Ran the discovery, coordinated all activity, and documented all business, product, and project requirements.
- Collaborated with the team to create the necessary estimates and identify any risks and/or concerns.
- Worked closely with the main stakeholder to properly scope and sequence the features for a well-positioned MVP.
Product Manager (via Toptal)
SRAM
- Joined the team as a product owner to investigate, uncover, and map out data and analytics product opportunities for SRAM's over 800+ OE partners.
- Handled market research, determined business strategy, engaged with OE partners, consulted on other projects, provided requirements, and worked closely with UX, development, and customer support.
- Was the point of contact for requirements intake, business object modeling, identifying community tool opportunities using ML/AI, and working closely with the engineering team to build dashboards, data extracts, and LLM-based chatbots.
Project Manager
Steady Platform, INC
- Led a team to develop, support, and maintain the cash distribution application, providing support and income-qualifying program participants across multiple states.
- Collaborated closely with product owners and project managers to manage and coordinate cross-team activities.
- Assisted with requirements gathering and testing where needed to support the team.
Project Management Consultant
Sublime Systems
- Joined Sublime Systems in a coaching capacity to work directly with the CEO and the leadership team.
- Collaborated with the leadership team to implement product roadmaps and improve reporting processes and OKRs.
- Coached individual team leads on team and project management approaches and reporting status.
Project Manager
Consumer Healthcare Products Association
- Led a Toptal Team Discovery Workshop for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (http://chpa.org) for a sales record and authorization management system.
- Provided additional support on pitch documentation and approach to help the CHPA request funding.
- Assisted with market assessment and evaluation of deployment risks and considerations around competition within the market.
Product Manager for Home Equity Fintech Company
Unlock Technologies
- Joined the team to lead product launch for the customer application process. The team was using 3rd-party tools and an Excel spreadsheet.
- Redesigned the customer application process to reduce steps required by 40% by leveraging 3rd-party data services, reducing duplication, and removing unnecessary steps.
- Led and managed the implementation of customer behavioral analytics to analyze, track, and determine the improvements necessary for the customer application process.
Agile Project Manager
Precision Drilling
- Led a team of seven on a project to build a market-leading product for Precision Drilling.
- Collaborated closely with the product owner to develop product requirements and roadmaps.
- Managed the extension discovery effort over six weeks to confirm the scope and complete technical investigations.
Senior Project Manager and Product Manager
Arcurve
- Led and coordinated four teams of developers, testers, and DevOps personnel as project manager.
- Managed government, oil and gas, fitness, eCommerce and telecom projects—ranging in size from teams of two to six and budgets from $500,000 up to $1 million per year.
- Owned product development, technical stack validation, and go-to-market launch as the product owner for startups.
Project Manager
Coursify - Academic Course Support
- Led and managed a successful Toptal Discovery workshop for a higher education client.
- Worked on the product, which was focused on the course and professor ratings for universities within the US and Canada, with revenue based on advertising.
- Coordinated and led all team activities while providing feedback and updates and ensuring all deadlines were met.
Senior Project Manager
Glacier Media Group
- Led and managed a team to rebuild a back end for a major agriculture classifieds website to resolve performance issues and build out new features to support new revenue streams.
- Engaged with business users to do a gap analysis to determine current and future states with complex process mapping to streamline print production of the largest revenue-generating product.
- Developed business cases for new projects and liaised with business stakeholders for direction and approvals.
Senior Project Manager
University of British Columbia
- Led the effort to develop and implement a governance framework for a platform service serving UBC's community across all faculties and departments.
- Reached out to the community and facilitated discussions and consensuses.
- Created terms of use, a support model, and multitier governance groups to onboard the community and ensure community input and service longevity.
- Developed business case for GitHub campus wide implementation, ITOps support and release management across all faculties and departments.
Senior Business Analyst
Colliers International
- Led and coordinated BA team activities, implemented toolset (Confluence and Jira).
- Handled a gap analysis on complex commission calculations for sales, lease, consulting (and others) which impact all outgoing payments made (weekly average of $1.5 million) to brokers.
- Analyzed a critical functionality to replace an aging system used to manage transactions for all of North America ($300 million+ annually).
- Mentored junior BAs on agile process and user research.
Product Manager
AMZ Tracker
- Served as a product manager of a keyword research tool.
- Launched version 1 within two weeks and rolled out to 9,000+ VIP customers.
- Built out onboarding and customer research sequences using YesInsights, Intercom, and Zapier ( and automated 90% of the existing process) and payments processed through Shopify.
- Managed development using agile/scrum methodology.
Project Manager
The University of British Columbia
- Led market research (outreach to 180 vendors) to determine the existing and key technology trends in the higher education market.
- Identified a major shift in the market that was then rolled into the scope of the largest IT project on campus, which is replacing all major systems such as financial, HR, student management, and more with a budget of $500+ million.
- Worked as part of the team that built business cases for the largest project on campus.
Project Lead
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia
- Led test on a critical, highly visible $75 million data transformation project.
- Worked in a highly risky and complex environment involving multiple systems, development teams, and large data sets.
- Mentored and managed the test team and provided the strategy and approach.
Project Manager
Centrica
- Led the analysis team on replacing a legacy procurement application with a SaaS alternative.
- Managed the team’s daily schedules and activities.
- Handled facilitation and engagement with user community.
- Produced requirements, impact assessments and data integration documentation.
Project Manager
Focus Forums
- Managed several projects centered on building out and deploying a new eCommerce solution leveraging Shopify.
- Retrofitted the existing toolset, including new tools to build out the process for fast and unbroken deployments, better communication within the team and clarity around requirements.
- Worked closely with senior management to ensure alignment with company goals and objectives.
Program Lead
Shaw Communications
- Led testing on a large-scale, $10 million, mission-critical platform replacement for 150,000+ business clients.
- Handled contract additions to define and mediate any and all work engagement with assigned vendor, this included defining all aspects of the test practice to be used within the program and for all projects.
- Managed four separate test teams to provide comprehensive test coverage in the following specialization areas: performance, security, functional and UAT.
Project Manager
Public Guardian & Trustee
- Worked as a project manager for a provincial government ministry that protects the legal, financial, and healthcare rights of the young and elderly that have no one to represent them. They manage over a billion dollars in assets.
- Refactored and developed over 100+ necessary test cases, scheduled users, and managed UAT from start to finish.
- Handled a time-critical UAT for 30+ users across all levels within the company to ensure the timely meeting of legislated deadlines (eliminating the potentially large fines for a late deployment).
Business Analyst
Public Guardian & Trustee
- Redesigned existing service delivery performance process measures for yearly reports for government ministry focused on providing legal and investment services to British Columbian citizens.
- Reduced process complexity for generating measures for yearly reports forby 40% and integrated previously manual activities into the CASE application.
- Engaged with business stakeholders (lawyers, investment managers, case management staff) to gather requirements and process flows.
Business Analyst
Provincial Health Care Service Authority
- Assessed the department's testing approach. This covered a set of seven teams, each averaging between 4 to 10 members.
- Evaluated the methodology using TMMI's model and provided packaged feedback.
- Facilitated quick wins for immediate implementation, a better process around testing, documentation (including checklists and custom templates), and training on communication and feedback.
Business Analyst
Fujitsu Consulting
- Analyzed the refactoring of the exam marking process used for all trade certifications serving an audience of 10,000+.
- Worked with the technical lead to simplify from 38 to 9 steps and reduce the capturing of marks from five minutes to two seconds per sheet (10,000+ sheets are processed each quarter).
- Redesigned exam inventory management to better accommodate fraud detection for both onsite and offsite storage locations.
- Engaged with business stakeholders to gather requirements and process flows.
QA Manager
Jam Warehouse Software
- Implemented test practices across 34 projects serving both local and international clients.
- Built the team, processes, hardware, and agile methodology to provide testing services to all projects within the company.
- Made extensive use of automation to provide rapid and consistent testing results.
Project History
$6 Million Revenue-Generating Advertising Platform Replacement
Led a team to rebuild the back-end platform for a critical, highest revenue-generating ($6 million yearly) company product.
Glacier Media is a leading Canadian business information and media products company. It provides news, market information, and sector-specific data within North America and internationally. The company provides news, data, and analysis across various business sectors.
Tasks:
• Served as a project manager to rebuild the back end for a major agriculture classifieds website to resolve performance issues and build new features to support new revenue streams
• Engaged with business users to do a gap analysis to determine current and future states with complex process mapping to streamline print production of the largest revenue-generating product
• Developed business cases for new projects
GitHub Governance Implementation
Developed governance structure for enterprise-level GitHub implementation for 60,000 plus users.
UBC is one of the leading Canadian universities with over 60,000 students and around 10,000 staff and faculty. Ranked consistently amongst the top 40 universities in the world.
Tasks:
• Led effort to develop and implement a governance framework for a platform service serving UBC’s community across all faculties and departments.
• Reached out to the community and facilitated discussion and consensus.
• Developed terms of use, a support model, and multitier governance groups to onboard the community.
• Ensured community input and service longevity.
• Developed a business case for a GitHub campus-wide implementation.
Skills/Domain: Project Management, Market Research, Vendor Evaluation, User Research, Rules Engine, Team Lead, Community Outreach, Road Mapping, Business Case, Scope Management, Visio, Higher Education
Financial Transaction Management Platform Replacement Project
Led an analysis team on replacing a management tool for an international property management company ($300 million+ revenue).
Colliers International is a Canada-based global commercial real estate company with approximately 15,000 employees in more than 500 offices in 68 countries.
Tasks:
• Led and coordinated BA team activities
• Implemented a toolset
• Managed the analysis on a critical functionality to replace an aging system used to manage transactions for all of North America ($300 million+ annually)
• Handled gap analysis on complex commission calculations for sales, lease, consulting (and others), which impacted all outgoing payments made (weekly average of $1.5 million) to brokers
• Mentored junior BAs on the Agile process and user research
Amazon Startup Product Launch
Led the development team and managed the successful launch of a new product to 9,000+ VIP customers.
AMZ Tracker is a SaaS provider of tools for Amazon Sellers. Their toolset, running on AWS, covers everything from product sourcing to selling. Their user base sits around 35,000 with a $500,000 monthly revenue.
Tasks:
• Served as a product manager for a keyword research tool. • Launched version 1 within two weeks and rolled out to 9,000+ VIP customers over six weeks.
• Built out onboarding and customer research sequences using YesInsights, Intercom, and Zapier (and automated 90% of the existing process). Used Shopify for payment processing.
Student Academic Systems Initiative Project
Led market research (outreach to 180 vendors) to determine the existing and key technology trends in higher education.
UBC is one of the leading Canadian universities with over 60,000 students and around 10,000 staff and faculty. It’s ranked consistently amongst the top 40 universities in the world.
Tasks:
• Led market research (outreach to 180 vendors) to determine the existing and key technology trends in the higher education market.
• Identified a major shift in the market that was then rolled into the scope of the largest IT project on campus (which was replacing all major systems such as financial, HR, student management, and more with a budget of $500 mililion+).
• Worked as part of the team building a business case for the largest project on campus.
Skills/Domain: Project Management, Market Research, Vendor Evaluation, User Research, Rules Engine, Team Lead, Community Outreach, Road Mapping, Business Case, Scope Management, Visio, Higher Education
Telco Business Platform Replacement
Managed a testing team on large scale, $10 million, mission-critical platform replacement for 150,000+ business clients.
Shaw Communications is based in Calgary, Alberta and has over 14,000 employees. The company provides services to more than 3 million customers. Shaw Business Solutions owns and operates a national fiber-optic backbone network, provides data networking, video, voice, and Internet services to 150,000+ companies.
Tasks:
• Led testing on a large-scale, $10 million, mission-critical platform replacement for 150,000+ business clients.
• Handled contract additions to define and mediate any and all work engagement with an assigned vendor.
• Defined all aspects of the test practice to be used within the program and for all projects.
• Managed four separate test teams to provide comprehensive test coverage in the following specialization areas: performance, security, functional and UAT.
Skills/Domain: Team Lead, Contract Negotiation, Vendor Evaluation, Test Strategy, Telecom
Education
Bachelor of Business Science Degree (Honors) in Information Systems
University of Cape Town - Cape Town, South Africa
Certifications
Diploma in Business Analysis
Faculty Training Institute
Skills
Tools
Microsoft Project, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio, Slack, Jira, Confluence, Trello, Visio, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, GitLab
Paradigms
Requirements Analysis, Agile Project Management, B2B, B2C, Scrum, Agile, Kanban, Testing, Change Management, Agile UX, Rapid Prototyping
Platforms
WordPress, Shopify
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, Telecommunications, Government, Retail & Wholesale, Health, Pharmaceuticals
Other
Project Management, Business Analysis, Product Management, Team Management, Process Flows, Mentorship, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Facilitation, Discovery Workshops, Product Owner, IT Project Management, Project Planning, Requirements & Specifications, Agile Sprints, Project Timelines, Web, Applications, Cloud, Analytics, Startups, Discovery Management, Microsoft Teams, Mentorship & Coaching, eCommerce, SaaS, Business Cases, Market Research & Analysis, Scope Management, Vendor Management, Roadmaps, Legal, Financial Software, Fintech, Automated Testing, Product Roadmaps, Process Design, GAP Analysis, User Research, User Onboarding, Product Design, User Experience (UX), Team Leadership, Discovery, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Legacy Software, User Stories, Staffing, Regulatory Compliance, Technical Project Management, Process Improvement Project Management, Chemical Engineering, Risk Management, Engineering, Scrum Master, Requirements, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Government Contracting, Internet of Things (IoT), Planning, Data Products, Product Vision, UX Flows, Team Mentoring, Web Analytics, Stakeholder Management, Software Development, Statistical Analysis, QA Testing, Community Management, Business Requirements, Reporting, Business Process Flow (BPF), Business Process Analysis, Product Launch, Automation, Customer Research, Vendor Selection, Test Management, Contract Review, Testing Strategy, Client Presentations, Stakeholder Interviews, Business to Business (B2B), Global Team Management, Data Migration, Content Hubs, Product Analytics, Community, Large Language Models (LLMs), R&D, OpenAI, Gemini
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