Product Leader/PM/PL/PO/BA

(Confidential), 2018-2019 The analysis conducted included their software landscape, software development, infrastructure, data strategy and information security, and further case-specific focus areas.
Sam has been part of several Due Diligence projects with targets operating in e-commerce, retail, fintech and payment. In a small team, the analyses were completed a compressed time frame of a few weeks and comprised of a current assessment, risk mapping and clear recommended actions to improve IT operations. The analyses are based on documents provided by target via VDR and management meetings and further interactions as applicable.
The results were compiled in a report and presented to key stakeholders.
Keywords: Due Diligence, Report, IT Strategy, IT Service Management, IT Organisation, Interdisciplinary Team, Roadmap, Cost Analysis, Technical Advisory, Technical Documentation, Technical System Analysis, IT Due Diligence, Business Analysis, Salesforce Engineering Manager - Loan and integration Kreditech Gmbh, Q3 2017 - Q2 2018 Kreditech is a German fin-tech company which offers loans to individuals based on their creditworthiness which is analysed using their online data instead of using traditional credit rating information. The company operates in Poland, Spain, Russia, and Mexico, with more than 500 employs, with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany As senior engineering manager Sam was responsible for developing and building new teams, payment solutions and offerings. He led a team of more than 40 developers in Hamurg and Kiev, with the main responsibility for developing the companies loan platform and enabling new digital payment solutions such as buy now pay later, virtual cards and accounts.
He was responsible for ensuring market readiness of new solutions and enable integration capabilities with key Merchants and partners. Sam was able to drive the innovative success of the loan platform, and enabled integration with partners such as PayPal, and large merchants in Europe, resulting in increased revenue growth and market share.
Keywords: Lean Management, Product Development, Agile, Scrum, JIRA, FinTech, Management, Business Analysis, Business Strategy, Leadership, Financial controlling, BigCommerce Product & Engineering Manager, Agile coach - New Development Units NetEnt AB, Q3 2016 - Q3 2017 The company needed an experienced Product Manager who could steer the game development even further. With the goal to launch new solutions and games in three new markets, develop strategic plans for future products and solutions. They also needed someone that could lead, coach, and develop a larger backend and frontend development team.
Sam worked closely with key stakeholders to develop strategic plans for future products and solutions for new and existing markets. He formed strategies, operationally managed, and formed processes with key stakeholders and created two new development teams. He was responsible for recruitment, planning and leading the two teams consisting of 12 people each, responsible for new mobile game productions and internal system development projects. The new teams showed strong results and enabled Sam to continue planning for future development and expanding the teams.
In addition to his role, Sam was responsible for coaching the agile coaches and be a driving force for continuous development and agile improvement in their work. He collaborated with managers, team coaches and self-organized engineering teams in a fast-paced environment and continuously improving NetEnt ways of working. His work resulted in effective ways of working across the organization based on agile and lean principles.
Keywords: Agile, Lean Management, Management, Business Strategy, Financial Controlling, Leadership, Mentorship, Staff Management, Budget Responsibility, Product Development, Integration, Payment SolutionsDjango, Python, Java, API Product Owner - Game Information System NetEnt AB, Q1 2016 - Q1 2016 The company needed to structure game information, which was managed internally in a range of spreadsheets, servers and locally on individuals' desktops. This resulted in a lack of control, poor information management, inefficiency and missed out opportunities.
In the role as a product owner, Sam had the overall responsibility of the product and lead a team of 7 people to design, develop and implement a sustainable solution to solve the organizations' challenges and needs. Sam formed the product goals, strategy, and product vision and managed and communicated with all involved stakeholders and parts of the organization. He was responsible for the product backlog, including writing requirements along with acceptance criteria and leading the development team to achieve the product vision. He was also responsible to drive the prioritization and development and ensuring the team to deliver the most important tasks iteratively and incrementally.
Keywords: Product Owner, Product Development, Product Design, Agile, Scrum Master, Tech Lead, JIRA, Lead Architect, Project Management, Requirement Analysis, Requirements, Django, Python, Java, Angular, React, API Senior Program Manager - Integration and development Bisnode, Q2 2015 - Q3 2015 Bisnode is the leading provider of digital business information in Europe. The company offer complete solutions - on both credit and company information - for sales and marketing. Were they transform data and information into complex knowledge that make both strategic and day to day operations easier for companies throughout Europe.
Bisnode needed a senior program manager to have the overall responsibility on behalf of the senior management team to drive several critical initiatives and projects to integrate with strategic markets and partners. The initiatives required oversight of risks, strategic planning, leading the integration and driving the projects forward for urgent deliveries.
Through his effective leadership, interpersonal and communicational skill, Sam managed to create a sense of community amongst the members of the program teams. His broad technical understanding, leadership and planning skill resulted in aligning resources, stakeholders, and external partners together. By creating transparency, detailed action plans and strategic plans he managed to lift the program and its content to a higher level. He formed strategic plans and proactively monitored the progress, resolving issues and actively handled challenges before they became critical blockers. He also managed to ensure great quality assurance and bringing overall integrity to the program- focusing inwardly on the internal consistency of the program and outwardly on its coherence with infrastructure planning, interfaces with other programs and corporate, technical and specialist standards.
Keywords: Change Management, Data Mining, Data Science, Business Development, Organization Development, Strategy Development, Leadership, Program Management, Resource Responsibility, Integration Technical Project Manager - New web mobile platform Schibsted AB, Q1 2015 - Q2 2015 Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) is a daily quality multi-channel newspaper in Sweden. Among Swedish national morning newspapers, SvD has the second largest circulation with its 150.000 copies per day. The total number of readers across channels per day is over 900 000.
Due to new IT-strategy and new web -mobile platform the company needed an experienced project manager to lead and enable SvDs new mobile platform.
Sam's main responsibility was to lead the project team and ensuring a successful launch of the new platform. He was responsible for leading and managing the project with direct report to key stakeholder and steering group.
Keywords: Quality Assurance, Leadership, Acceptance Test, System Test, Integration Test, Test Strategy, Staff Management, Test Advisory, IT-Strategy, Integration, Mobile, Heroku, React, Angular, Bootstrap Product Engineering Manager - Infrastructure Norsk Tipping AS, Q2 2014 - Q2 2015 Norsk Tipping is a government-owned company under the direction of the Ministry of culture in Norway. The company generates NOK 11.5 million per day making it to one of Norway's successful government-owned companies.
The company has since 1995 offered the scratch tickets with a great selection of cards and premiums. The infrastructure and platforms had been outdated and unchanged since the company started with scratch tickets. The business needed modernize the infrastructure and increase the usage of new modern technology framework to enable future growth.
As Product Engineering Manager, Sam had the overall responsibility for leading several prestudies to assess the needs, map out the future infrastructure and draft sustainable implementation plans. At later stages he led the execution of the transformation with multiple teams, resulting in the modernization and enablement of modern and scalable infrastructure Norsk Tipping and its business growth and technical scalability.
Keywords: System Test, Test Strategy, Integration Test, Test Advisory, Acceptance Test, Staff Management, Quality Assurance, QA Strategy, Engineering Manager, SaaS, Cloud, GCP Product Owner - Bwin Integration NetEnt AB, Q1 2014 - Q2 2014 As product owner, Sam was responsible for delivering a comprehensive solution in accordance with the operator's requirements and that the integration was carried out in accordance with the gaming operator's commercial marketing plan. He also secured that the solution was meeting the legal requirements of each jurisdiction that it was intended to be rolled out to. Sam managed to lead and communicate with all parties involved in the product, including stakeholders, the development team, and external parties.
He was responsible for owning the product backlog, writing product backlog items with acceptance criteria, and supporting the development team to achieve the product vision and meeting the expectations. Sam was an important asset for the project and the integrations progress and its success. His close relationship with the partners, internal teams and external teams and stakeholders from the gaming operator side has been of great importance for increased the interaction. He has, through his communication skills managed to provide clarity in the team's progress and meet high standards. The team has appreciated Sam's solutionoriented approach, his technical understanding, and his ability to agile-working methods Keywords: Product Owner, Integration, Scrum Master, Product Backlog, Agile, JIRA, Project Management, Product Lifecycle Management, Product Development, Steering Group Project Manager- ERP, BI, Digital invoicing solutions - VISMA solutions Q3 2013 - Q1 2014 Businesses in India and Estonia have for a longer period been using Visma Business as their primary ERP. The starting point for the project came from management's wish for operations in Sweden to be using the same ERP, for better interaction and control between the countries.
Sam had the overall responsibility of the project and responsible for changes to the project scope, project schedule, and project costs to keep the project plan accurate and up to date.
Sam had a key role where he could ensure a common understanding by setting expectations in accordance with the Project Plan, align the stakeholders and team members and suppliers.
The project resulted successfully with the implementation of a new CMR solution and VISMA ERP Keywords: PowerPoint, Offshore, Visma DCE, Visma Business, Word, Excel, Microsoft Office, Implementation, Education, Workshops, Process Analysis, Project Management, Steering Group Project Manager - ERP Implementation Swedbank Finance, Q3 2012 -Q3 2013 Swedbank Finance is a fully owned product company within the Swedbank Group. Swedbank Finance provides financial solutions to the banks biggest corporate and institutional customers.
The offering includes a diverse range of financing, cash management and payment services, investment banking, capital markets products and securities services An increased number of customers and business had brought restrictions on the ERP system, which was obsolete and inefficient with many manual processes. This became the starting point of Swedbank's largest IT-investments of implementing a new ERP solution.
As Senior ERP Project Manager, Sam drove a successful implementation of the ERP project, including integration to existing solutions and coordinate technical activities and change management associated with the complex IT project. He was also responsible for creating and managing technical project plans, ensuring effective delivery of project goals within the project's schedule, budget, and committed resources. Sam was responsible for 12 project members and the overall steering of the project. As the lead project manager, Sam had the responsibility to lead and plan the implementation of the new ERP system into the business.
He managed to have full control of changes, requirements during the project life cycle and create a common understanding by setting expectations in accordance with the business requirements and expectations.
Keywords: ERP, Agile, Scrum, Supplier Management, Project Management, Business Analysis, Test Management, Budget Control, Cost Control, Rollout, Leadership, Resource Management, Strategy, Implementation, Steering Group Project Manager - CRM Implementations Swedbank AB, Q4 2011- Q3 2012 An internal support organization with the mission to monitor the quality of the project and delivery management were heavily overworked due to current ways-of-working and uneven demands from bank offices and partners. The company needed a person who could find a new technical solution, securing the operation and managing the overall operations of the team.
Sam undertook an analysis of the current situation and developed a recommendation to transform the organization. He was responsible for leading the procurement and implementation of a new CRM solution. As lead project manager he was responsible to gather requirement from several stakeholders and groups. He was solely responsible for the project planning, leading, and ensuring meeting milestones and supporting the implementation team in various development phases.
Keywords: Change Management, CRM, IT Strategy, IT Service Management, Business Development, Organization Design, Business Planning, Leadership, Coaching, Staff Management, Resource Responsibility, Procurement Project Manager - Digital Channels Swedbank Finance, Q1 2011- Q4 2011 Swedbank Finance is a fully owned product company within the Swedbank Group. Swedbank Finance provides financial solutions to the banks biggest corporate and institutional customers.
The offering includes a diverse range of financing, cash management and payment services, investment banking, capital markets products and securities services Swedbank Finance objective was to increase market share and review both existing and new sales channels to reach end customers better. To reach the desired full market effect, a new approach was required with a new sales channel to create new business opportunities with high professionalism and quality As a project manager Sam was responsible for identifying a new sales channel primarily for car loans towards business customers. From benchmark, Sam presented a recommendation of using existing resources within the group and thus creating a new sales channel with low cost. The suggestion was to use Swedbank TIB's existing sales representatives to reach more potential customers and additional business opportunities. The new sales channel improved Swedbank Finance in terms of profitability and market presence with more transactions and new customers. The sales channel is still in use and one of Swedbank Finance most successful projects and sale channels.
Keywords: Change Management, Sales Increase, Strategy, Organizational Change, Business Analysis, New Business, B2B, Lending, Project Management, Product Development, Product Strategy Business Analyst - System Portal Autoplan Fleet Management, Q3 2010 -Q4 2010 Autoplan Fleet Management is part of the Swedbank Group and offers complete cost-effective solutions for financing and managing fleets. The company offers administration, leasing, and car sales.
The company has had several challenges with new vehicle agreement and increasing the leasing lending volume. Autoplan for some time investigating to improve the sale and lending process much more by using a suitable technical solution.
As a business analyst, Sam was responsible for reviewing operations and identifying manual processes for Aeroplan's Fleet Department. He was responsible for designing new processes and finding alternative solutions to minimize manual work and improve efficiency. Sam's analysis resulted in a technical project which he also had overall responsibility to lead. The outcome of the project was a customer portal website where the customers, unlike before, put orders and service assignments themselves Keywords: Enterprise Architect, Process Mapping, Project Management, Business Analysis, Business Development, Requirements, Integration Project Manager - X-Ray outsourcing Karolinska Institute, Q3 2009 - Q3 2010 Karolinska Institute is one of the world leading universities in medicine. The university uses the latest technology and IT solutions to be cutting edge in research and education.
The university wanted to investigate whether IT solutions would make it possible to outsource the examining of medical images to countries in another time zone. Outsourcing would improve profitability and to make x-ray divisions more efficient during call times Sam was responsible for planning and managing administration of the project and conducting implementation of associated risk and cost analysis. From benchmarking, other hospitals using this method, the pre-study showed that Karolinska Institute would improve profitability while keeping high quality of care with outsourcing.
Keywords: PowerPoint, Outsourcing, IT, Word, Excel, Risk Analysis, Cost Analysis, Process Analysis, Project Management, Technical Analysis sam.pourmand@eppsicon.com 11 LinkedIn +46 709 99 25 66 2023-08-22