Chinwe Onunaku
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Romford, United Kingdom
Toptal member since August 7, 2020
Chinwe is a global technology business operations leader, Agile project expert, people developer, and coach with 15+ years of experience leading and delivering software development and cross-functional projects across three continents, particularly in the edtech, retail, and AI sectors. With a project portfolio of $200 million, she is a certified professional agile leader and change manager who has led and delivered 29+ global projects and programs. She coaches people and teams to adopt agility.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Project Management
- Business Processes
- Change Management
- Design Thinking
- Digital Transformation
- People Management
- Program Management
- Stakeholder Management
Work Experience
BizOps Program Manager
Usable Machines, Inc.
- Led the agile delivery of the MVP of an AI assistant builder, defining and refining product roadmaps, backlogs, and stories using AI (ChatGPT, Claude); organized and managed agile events and ensured teams' adoption of Agile methodology.
- Partnered strategically with the C-suite leadership team to design and implement OKR, cadence, and people operations initiatives that improved transparency, leadership effectiveness, and employee satisfaction by over 70%.
- Coordinated product operations, agile delivery, and the continuous development of the AI product owner assistant, including managing a multi-diverse team across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
- Guaranteed alignment with product goals and delivery focus by managing the backlog, engineering team, and all scrum ceremonies to keep all stakeholders in the loop.
Head of Talent & Program Management
TtT
- Led the end-end delivery of over five projects specifically designed as solutions to problems within the edtech and jobtech sectors.
- Developed the organization's "discover-train-deploy" framework with clearly defined pathways, informing strategic goal setting, planning, partnership requirements, and all work activities across the board.
- Built and deployed 4+ online programs, trained 60+ individuals, set up an online community of 120+ individuals, and coached high-achieving mid-level professionals to unlock growth and flow to accelerate their careers.
- Ensured consistent, scalable delivery by defining client segments and developing artifacts, success plans, coaching plans, roadmaps, and templates.
Edtech Project Manager
Bibliu Limited
- Set up the project management office from scratch, delivering over 90 active implementation projects worth over $21 million and ensuring the seamless transition of all legacy operations to the PMO.
- Managed and successfully delivered 20+ active implementation and fulfillment projects worth $12 million on time and with minimal post-go-live support required. (Implementation projects: Delivering e-textbooks access to tertiary institutions).
- Developed the operational framework for the PMO, artifacts, templates, reporting dashboards, and communication channels. Set up, integrated, and rolled out a new project management tool for the entire organization.
- Led the documentation and certification of all as-is and to-be processes for the entire operations team comprising PMO, fulfillment and QA, content and publisher operations, and customer success and support teams.
- Enabled the company’s expansion to the US by setting up the scalability and profitability framework and roadmap, laying the groundwork for a seamless and effective transition from startup to scale-up.
Product/Project Manager - Edtech
General Assembly - Main
- Led a $350,000 project to redesign and rebuild a flagship course with two work streams, the content rebuild stream and the go-to-market stream. The rebuild ensured that the enterprise client was satisfied and thus renewed the contract.
- Optimized the course launch process for the organization and led the $400,000 project to build and launch a new data analytics course.
- Coached the five project and learning teams to pivot from the waterfall model and adopt the Agile framework for delivering projects. Coordinated communications across the teams and management to ensure a flawless delivery.
Head of Customer Experience
TradeDepot
- Established the customer experience business unit from the ground up, achieving a 75% customer satisfaction rate within the first year. Led initiatives that improved customer engagement and service quality and contributed to increased customer loyalty.
- Captured and tracked 100% of business support issues by implementing a comprehensive CRM and ticket management system, resulting in streamlined case management and faster response times. Enabling precise data tracking and analysis for improvement.
- Migrated 60,000 customers to a new Customer Data Platform (CDP), integrating with existing software to create a foundation for personalized services at scale. Thus improving the quality and relevance of customer interactions and experiences.
- Captured and tracked 100% business support issues data, case management reports, as well as response and resolution timelines through the implementation of a CRM and ticket management system (Freshdesk and Intercom).
- Developed and executed a compliance mechanism utilizing service level agreements (SLAs) that reduced $505 million in potential lost sales across two quarters. This resulted in a 10% increase in quarterly revenue and improved CSAT by 10%.
- Reduced first response time by 90% and average resolution time by 70% by establishing clear metrics and customer success objectives. This improvement was achieved by aligning goal-setting, monitoring, and proactive incident management with core goals.
- Transformed underperforming employees across teams into high-performing "customer champs" through targeted coaching in customer journey management. This boosted productivity and service quality and delivered a consistently positive customer experience.
Program Director: People Operations
TradeDepot
- Strengthened the organization's people culture and transformed the employee experience by building solid People systems, processes, and programs.
- Designed, developed, and rolled out the TD Tribe system - a people engagement program that significantly boosted employee productivity, morale, and engagement post a COVID-19-induced pivot from onsite to remote working across the organization.
- Developed and launched the 1st employee experience assessment for 800+ employees with a 75% completion rate. This helped to measure employee experience for the first time and set a baseline for subsequent assessments.
- Developed and launched quarterly activations and events (recruitment fairs and career workshops) that improved the employer branding proposition of the organization by 64% amongst young graduates.
- Introduced, implemented, and rolled out a people operations automation tool (SeamlessHR) to optimize the people process function of the organization.
Product Lead
Edacy
- Owned the product, managed three cross-functional projects and coached a remote team of 20 software developers across four countries using agile.
- Inherited and transformed an under-performing software development team into a hyper-productive agile team through the delivery of scrum training and coaching.
- Created the EDACY scrum playbook to be used for company-wide scrum training and the on-boarding of new talent, thereby ensuring the adoption of agile practices beyond the software team.
- Managed the entire product development process and successfully released the product, an online learning experience web platform, mobile application, and administration dashboard.
- Owned and managed three projects-the content creation and delivery project, product launch projects, and the post-release technical support project.
Commercial Lead
Babybliss
- Set up and launched alternate revenue channels, the OEM division of the startup for a category of maternal products, thereby increasing annual revenue by 27%.
- Developed detailed sourcing plans and implemented procurement strategies to maintain a secure supply of products even during unstable periods.
- Reduced overall loss incurred from inherited products by 31% by analyzing cost, mark-up, and turnover rate of said products and created and managed the execution of a sales campaign to sell off all inherited products within 60 days.
- Created all procurement documents to ensure standardization of processes-standard operating manuals, the impact of Chinese holidays on retail operations, procurement process flow, online fulfillment process flow, and pricing.
- Developed marketing strategies, coordinated marketing campaigns with sales activities, and leveraged both online and offline platforms to expand market reach. Managed the conceptualization, implementation, and review of all marketing communications.
Agile Project Manager
L5Lab
- Served as agile project manager, scrum master, and program manager. Managed all software development projects and increased the software development team's delivery rate by 53% using agile principles.
- Led the agile transformation project for the organization and its (three) portfolio companies. Trained and coached all portfolio company teams. Deployed change management principles to ensure agile adoption.
- Handled the setup and launch of the pilot cohort of a software engineering institute. Screened over 2,000 candidates and selected 40 for the pilot. Managed the development of the website, stakeholders, and partners.
SAP Business Process Consultant
ALOK Consulting - An SAP Implementation Partner, Management Consulting and Outsourcing Company
- Facilitated discovery workshops to gather and analyze clients' business requirements, drafted functional mapping to SAP applications, functional GAP analysis, detailed blueprint design, process documentation, and detailed functional specifications.
- Developed and configured the client pipeline network solution in the SAP system. Created and executed unit test scripts, user acceptance test scenarios and scripts, and provided direct support for user testing.
- Developed and delivered SAP plant maintenance processes training to over 200 end users in 12 States on design, application functions, and configuration.
- Developed an end user training (EUT) manual using SAP Productivity Pak (SPP). Designed and delivered SAP sales and distribution end-to-end training content (on the client's business process) to over 50 end users.
Project History
E-learning Web and Mobile App for Corporates and Governments
Developed, launched, and managed an e-learning experience web and mobile platform that facilitates online learning for corporate organizations and governments at scale.
I inherited and managed 19 developers across three teams and four countries (Nigeria, Senegal, Ukraine, and Switzerland) to build, release and support the e-learning experience web/mobile platform and admin dashboard in one year. I collaborated with all key stakeholders from the design, learning, engagement, support, and business teams to successfully release several versions until final go-live and post-go-live support.
Mastercard Wellness Month
Led over 15 people to launch the Mastercard Wellness Month, an initiative comprising a series of activities focused on helping people attain their wellness goals by providing them exclusive discounts when paying with a Mastercard debit card.
The goal was to source healthy food and beverage, fitness, and lifestyle vendors willing to give a discount on a service or create a special offering/package for the duration of the wellness month. This offering/package/discount would only be available to clients who paid with a credit or debit card from Mastercard.
I led project discovery and recruited the project team, coordinated the sourcing of over 70 vendors, and onboarded 50 of them. I managed the design and development of the website and coordinated and managed all the events, marketing communications, and PR campaigns.
Software Engineering Institute Launch for Africans
Inherited and led a small team of ten that set up and launched a software engineering institute in six months.
I led the project discovery and drafted launch strategies for the pilot program. Coordinated a rigorous recruitment process that saw over 2,800 applications and selected the top 1% of candidates (30 students). Provided strategic direction for the institute's digital presence, external relations and communications, and marketing for corporate placement. I managed the development of the institute's website through several iterations, drafted a report highlighting all assumptions, and validated hypotheses for future cohorts.
Community for Tech Entrants
Built a community for early to mid-level career professionals seeking to transition to non-technical careers in Technology.
Education
Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics
Obafemi Awolowo University - Nigeria
Certifications
Change Management
APMG
Professional Agile Leader
Scrum.org
Learning Experience Design
NovoED
C_TPLM30_66, Application Associate, Enterprise Asset Management (ERP 6.0 EhP6)
SAP
C_TSCM52_66, Application Associate, Procurement (ERP 6.0 EhP6)
SAP
Skills
Tools
Google Docs, Jira, Google Sheets, Asana, Slack, Zoom, Miro, Trello, Google Workspace, Figma, Salesforce
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile Project Management, Agile Leadership, Design Thinking, Organizational Change Management (OCM), Implementation Project Management, Kanban, Change Management, Management, Agile Product Management, Team Development, Agile, Agile Delivery, Instructional Design
Platforms
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Productboard, Zendesk, Mixpanel
Industry Expertise
Logistics, Education Technology (Edtech), Retail & Wholesale, Digital Marketing
Other
Project Management, Sprints, Scrum Master, Stakeholder Management, Technical Project Management, Project Management Office (PMO), People Management, Program Management, Innovation, Project Coordination, International Projects, Enterprise Project Management, Business Transformation Project Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Operations Tools, Business Transformation, Notion, Strategy Planning, Freshdesk, Program Design, Leadership Development, Remote Team Leadership, Sprint Ceremonies, Google Drive, Organization, Standard Operating Procedures Development, Stakeholder Analysis, Consulting, Customer Service Support, Documentation, Certified Project Manager, Project Scoping, Training & Training Content Development, Program Management, Client Management, Team Management, Stakeholder Management, People Management, Digital Transformation, Product Management, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Project Discovery, Agile Coaching, Budgeting, Startups, Estimation & Planning, ClickUp, User Research, Data Analysis, Complex Program Management, Business Analysis, Client Success, Customer Retention, Customer Journeys, Web Platforms, PMO, Operations Management, Agency, Technical Product Management, Dependency Management, Learning, Process Optimization, IT Project Management, Best Practices, Web Applications, Delivery Management, Customer Experience Management, Operational Excellence, Process Improvement, Learning Experience Design, E-learning, eCommerce, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Client Delivery Management, Client Management, Resource Management, Business Process Analysis, Business Process Improvement (BPI), Business Process Optimization, Change Impact Assessment, Commercially Aware, Reporting, Delivery, Product Ownership, Business to Business (B2B), Learning & Development, Software Development Management, Software Development, Change Management, Business Transformation Project Management, Web & Mobile Applications, Distributed Team Management, Backlog Management, Business Processes, SAP, Economics, Curriculum Development & Delivery, Planning, Scope, Product Owner, Marketing, Customer Acquisition, Evidence-based Management, Emergent Software, Organizational Design, Product Value, Customer Success, People Development, Facilitation, Events, Change Leadership, Educational Platform Design, Education, Agile Product Delivery, Negotiation, Communication, Leadership, Project Planning, Project Management & Delivery, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Project Management Professional (PMP), PMO Development, Risk Management, Process Flows, Conflict Resolution, Cross-functional Collaboration, Training, Stakeholder Engagement, Community Growth, Organization Building, Event Planning, Operations, Talent Management, Community Management, Coaching, Team Building, Mentorship, Vendor Management, PILOT, Recruitment, Portfolio Management, Human Assessment, Forecasting, Culture, Research, Business Operations, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Sales, Artificial Intelligence (AI), ChatGPT, Prompt Engineering, Cadence, Inventory Management, Agile Program Management, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Ticketing, Release Management, Benchmarking, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Engagement, Customer Feedback, Customer Data Platform (CDP), Performance tracking, Customer Advocacy, Intercom, Domo, Employee Experience, Employee Engagement, People Operations, SAFe 6, Cloud Migration, Software Development
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