David Bruce, Project Manager in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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David Bruce

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Project Manager

Location
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Toptal Member Since
May 11, 2020

David is a strategic technology leader with strong agile project management and executive partnering skills. He brings an entrepreneurial mindset to large, complex organizations, focusing on delivering real consumer value. Having delivered end to end projects within SalesForce, SaaS and eCommerce, David is adept at managing all stages of the project lifecycle and leading cross-functional remote teams. Freelancing allows David the flexibility to regularly apply himself to new challenges.

Project Highlights

Custom SalesForce Application for External Suppliers
I product managed this from concept to global launch, a custom application built on SalesForce that was the first of its kind within the industry.
eCommerce Replatforming for Multi-Country Food Brand
Delivered a full technical replatforming from Demandware to Shopify, reducing operating costs by 90%.
Integrated Hub for Marketing Operations
Released a significant integration hub providing relevant and timely information to the hands of 8,000+ marketers, improving decision making and saving administrative time.

Expertise

Work Experience

Senior Technology Platform Lead - Marketing Services

2018 - 2020
Unilever
  • Managed end to end product management of seven custom internal applications built on Salesforce (VisualForce and Lightning), delivered through agile teams and DevOps methodology.
  • Led the application of UX methodologies and end to end process automation, resulting in product enhancements that saved 30% of the total administrative time across 8,000 skilled users.
  • Implemented agile principles across my 30+ person off-shore development teams, increasing velocity by 50% and delivering 6x more releases.
  • Handled vendor management of multiple SaaS products successfully rolled out globally for social media and asset management to 400+ brands.

Brand Development Manager, Marketing

2017 - 2018
Unilever
  • Managed the "Outdoor Classroom Day" campaign alongside global NGOs, reaching over 2 million children with a clear positive campaign message. An increase of 100% YoY.
  • Ran metrics-based consumer research on the impact of Dirt is Good's purpose activities on brand perception and purchase intent.
  • Implemented a full Adobe website providing PR material for governments and influencers, including content creation and curation.

Direct to Consumer IT Project Manager

2017 - 2017
Unilever
  • Delivered the re-platforming of a live multi-country eCommerce site onto the Shopify platform from conception to launch in less than four months and for just 10% of the existing site operating cost.
  • Built multiple high-availability MuleSoft integrations between eCommerce platforms and manufacturing/shipping providers that enabled virtually real-time stock management.
  • Managed the selection (including full RFP), procurement, and implementation of a subscription capability onto Unilever’s global enterprise eCommerce platform.

Marketing IT Innovation Project Manager

2016 - 2017
Unilever
  • Decommissioned a 20-year-old Lotus Notes system used by 8,000 marketers globally, retaining the data as a strategic value driver and realizing a €1+ million saving.
  • Created a strategic data archival strategy that retained the accessibility of key documents on the Microsoft Sharepoint platform.
  • Conducted a strategic review of the global marketing IT operations strategy, developing an approved business case for in-sourcing and embedding agile principles.

Service Delivery Lead - Information and Analytics

2016 - 2016
Unilever
  • Implemented numerous service improvements to a critical sales reporting system (SAP BI) that reduced downtime by 50% and reduced incidents by 75% over a six-month period.
  • Responsible for incident management, including senior stakeholder engagement, through the use of strong problem-solving skills and management of remote technical teams.
  • Coached an off-shore application maintenance team on the principles of ITIL Service Management and applying ITIL processes to managing analytics services.

Custom SalesForce Application for External Suppliers

I product managed this from concept to global launch, a custom application built on SalesForce that was the first of its kind within the industry.

Managed a cross-functional team including developers, testers, architects, and UX to deliver a complex procurement application available to external users (via SalesForce Communities). I was accountable for the project from creating the strategic concept through to research, design, build, test, and launch.
To deliver this application, I scaled up a team of both in-house and vendor resources operating as an agile team. Operating from Scrum principles, the product was constantly iterated and improved throughout the development phase based on regular user experience testing.

eCommerce Replatforming for Multi-Country Food Brand

Delivered a full technical replatforming from Demandware to Shopify, reducing operating costs by 90%.

As the senior IT brand partner responsible for technology strategy, I identified the strategically incorrect platforming of their eCommerce store that was cutting into their profit margins significantly. Based on functional requirements, I built a business case for replatforming and managed the project from feasibility through to launch.
Completing the project required managing the transition of all supplier integrations (Mulesoft), product catalog, content pages, design features, and checkout. This was delivered within 4 months and successfully launched across four country-specific sites (including language translations).

Integrated Hub for Marketing Operations

Released a significant integration hub providing relevant and timely information to the hands of 8,000+ marketers, improving decision making and saving administrative time.

Created a small project team to conduct a full user experience review within a group of connected processes used by brand marketers. Engaged with over 100 users, across multiple countries, in interviews and workshops to understand their underlying goals, pain points, and objectives. Utilized this information to create true process maps and user personas that drove the future strategic direction across the global marketing business unit.
The primary strategic recommendation was to align information across systems and present it at a point it’s relevant to the user. To achieve this, I managed development resources to create a central ‘hub’ that connected data from 5 different systems and acted as a portal to access each sub-process. Providing integrated, real-time, relevant data reduced the administrative (lost) time by over 30% to free up users for value-add activities.
2011 - 2015

Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Management

Lancaster University - Lancaster, UK

FEBRUARY 2020 - PRESENT

Certified Administrator

Salesforce

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