“I have an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit, which leads me to seek new challenges and opportunities for personal growth. I push myself to perform above my level and beyond expectations.”
Education & Qualifications:
- 2018; Scrum Alliance Product Owner Certification
- 2008–2011; 2:1 Business Management BA Hons
- 2006–2008; HND Business Management
- 2002–2004; 4 A-Levels, Minimum C Grade
Personal achievements:
- 2019; Crew member, Clipper Round The World Sailing
- 2018; Sign language, BSL Grade 1
- 2018; Action for Happiness Course
- 2016; Muay Thai Boxing, Grade 6 of 8
- 2007; Derbyshire Mountain Rescue
Interests:
Agile Product Manager looking for a new challenge
I have the confidence and ability to challenge the status quo, identify solutions and deliver rapid change. I bring high energy and enthusiasm to my work and team.
A creative thinker and an excellent communicator who enjoys working in a busy environment. I’m a natural, confident leader who is resilient and dedicated, especially when faced with a new challenge.
Key skills:
- Product management
- Brand creation
- Start-up launch and growth
- Proposition creation
- Omni-channel marketing strategy
- Analytics and research
- Agile business owner
- International project experience
Experience
Overview: Certified Scrum Alliance Product Owner and Manager with over 5 years experience using Agile and Scaled (SAFe) Agile. 18 months working in Start-ups in launch and growth cycles. Over 10 years working in the Digital industry with Boots and E.ON.
Thought leadership and transformation: Through my enthusiasm for learning and innovation, I stay in touch with developments across several industries. I identify how they match the business strategy to create a vision and create strategies. I pitch to create projects that accelerate growth, optimise conversion and improve customer metrics.
Project management: I thrive in leadership roles from international launches and national marketing campaigns to technical UX and journey development. These all focus on enhancing the customer experience through innovation and driving conversion.
Entrepreneurial spirit: A mindset and approach to thinking that actively seeks out change, pursues innovation, welcomes critical questioning, and drives continuous growth. Matched with high energy and enthusiasm to get a quality MVP to market faster.
Ambition: As a true believer in continuous professional development. I completed my degree part-time whilst working full-time. I regularly speak at business seminars related to digital strategy and technology (such as Brighton SEO). I am a recognised expert in the digital industry and aim to work at Board level in the future.
Recent work experience
Product Manager:
At Experian, I currently work as a Product Manager where I define launch and manage products for the Verifications Services domain. These products support Experian’s clients make the correct decisions for their consumers when applying for financial products and new roles.
In this role I manage the entire product life cycle from ideation to sunsetting with adherence to internal Innovation and Product Management frameworks.
Set the product strategy aligned to customer, market and Business Unit needs.
Take ownership of the product roadmap including identification of customer pain points and jobs to be done as well as ownership of product backlog, prioritisation and sprint planning.
Ensure product profitability to support the in business case and meet revenue targets.
Specify market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by on-going visits to customers to gain market insight to ensure market fit.
Review and understanding wider market trends, including competitive threats and opportunities.
Develop and effectively implement ‘Go to Market’ plans, working cross-functionally to ensure successful execution.
All in line with compliance with regulatory and Industry standards.
Here are some articles that featured in digital publications about this project.
Agile Product Owner:
Between March 2017 and July 2019, I was a part of an international E.ON project where I owned the delivery of a new mobile-first energy acquisition journey for E.ON in Europe. In this role, I led an international team of 20 as a Product and Epic Owner using Agile and Scaled Agile (SAFe) methodologies.
As Product Owner, I created the vision and roadmap for the customer journey then set the minimum viable product (MVP). In doing so I supported the launch of a new energy company within 9 months. Targeted at E.ON’s 5million residential customers in the UK and 8 million in Germany. The new acquisition journey delivered 10k sales in the first quarter and converted at a higher rate (>10%) than the previous journey.
To achieve this I managed 4 scrum teams across 3 international locations. I managed the backlog, created epics and refined them into features and stories for the sprint teams to deliver.
I worked side by side with system architects and developers to estimate and size the epics, features, and stories including non-functional requirements and acceptance criteria.
During front end design I managed an external agency team of 10 to create the UX, wireframes and prototypes for the journey, continually testing and learning directly with customers.
In the testing phases, I created and owned the “definition of done”, signed off the MVP and created the launch campaign to acquire our first customers.
Here are some articles that featured in digital publications about this project.
- https://diginomica.com/eon-goes-digital-attack-re-imagine-customer-engagement
- https://www.eon.com/en/new-energy/digitization/facing-digital-transformation.html
- https://www.xiiiii.co.uk/eon-digital-attacker
Start-up launch and growth:
Between July 2019 and January 2020, E.ON asked me to help them launch a corporate Start-up.
In this role, I was a “Business Owner” leading an agency team of 5 and a Product Owner team of 4.
With the agency team, I created the new brand “Socket” had it registered, created the hosting domain, secured and created the social media platforms. I also created the launch and growth plans.
Using a sequence of 2week sprints and “Design Thinking” I led the creation of prototypes then tested them with real customers in their homes.
Socket was market-ready within 6months. Unfortunately due to growing difficulties in the market and E.ON’s merger with Npower, E.ON could no longer support this venture. Find out more about Socket in this quick video.
Between October 16 and March 17 with E.ON’s backing, I led the UK market launch of a new energy sharing brand called “Ampero” which launched in London to a new and open market.
Working with leading brands within the hospitality, travel and events industries I created a new citywide network of mobile phone charging stations. Every day was like “The Apprentice” and “Dragons Den” rolled into one.
In launching and running the UK arm of this new startup I was responsible for every element of the business from PR, Sales, and Marketing to Invoicing, Logistics and Product Development. I even got to use my digital skills to launch the UK domain – https://www.ampero.com and created product videos.
In 6 months Ampero in the UK was working with over 30 new brands including major hotel and pub chains.
Following early success, I extended the London based launch to Liverpool, Nottingham and began trading on Amazon.
The founders of Ampero have since accepted a buyout for the main business in Germany.
A new Start-up “Charged-up” has now taken the London market.
Digital Marketing:
I have worked in the digital industry since 2007 in a variety of roles at both Boots (2007-2013) and E.ON (2013-2020). My primary focus has been improving customer experience, driving conversion and increasing the digital capability of these businesses.
At Boots, I owned e-commerce departments where I sourced products and negotiated prices with suppliers as a buyer for Boots.com.
I then created promotional campaigns to market and sell my listed products on Boots.com.
I later became a Digital Marketing Manager where I specialised in PPC and Google ads, achieving >2000% ROI on my campaigns.
Also responsible for SEO I led a full site audit and created the SEO guidelines for the 100+ team.
This led to us achieving page 1, position 1 rankings for many high-value terms such as “Christmas gifts” and beating Argos in the Christmas search rankings 2012 helping Boots.com to achieve it’s best Christmas sales ever!
I moved to E.ON in 2013 to bridge the gap between their offline marketing on online marketing campaigns and increase their digital offer.
Working with the IT and Marketing teams I launched E.ON’s first national Omni-channel marketing campaign linking TV ads with online experiences to drive sales, as well as reduce call demand by showcasing our online account features.
This increased account sign-up and usage by over 60%, leading to large savings in our call centres.
To further enhance E.ON’s digital capability I led MVT test campaigns to optimise the conversion of our sales funnel, increasing sales by >5%.
I also tested and launched E.ON’s first ratings and reviews campaign to capture and display the voice of the customer on the web and mobile domains.
Using my SEO skills, I again completed a full site audit and created the SEO guidelines for the team increasing traffic from natural search by over 20%.
Jim Leafe 