Al Sargent

Al Sargent

Sr. Solutions Manager at Carbonetworks Corporation

San Francisco Bay Area

Current
Past
  • Sr. Product Manager at Mercury
  • Group Product Manager at ListenPoint
  • Senior Director, Product Management at Brodia
  • Product Marketing Manager, Sales Engineer at Oracle Corporation
  • Software Engineer at Viewpoint Systems
Education
  • Pragmatic Marketing
  • UCLA Anderson
  • Stanford University
Connections
500+ connections
Industry
Computer Software

Al Sargent’s Summary

- Seasoned enterprise software product manager.

- 15 years of experience in product management and marketing, business development, sales, and engineering at Oracle, Mercury, and leading startups such as Wily Technology.

- Successfully led 10 initial product releases and over 50 follow-on releases.

- Drove five new business development partnerships and one acquisition.

- Experienced in agile development, SaaS and cloud computing.

- MBA: UCLA Anderson School of Management; BS: Symbolic Systems (similar to computer science) - Stanford University

Al Sargent’s Specialties:

Inbound product management. Outbound product marketing. Product strategy, product roadmap, market research, customer interviews, competitive research, product requirements, MRD, PRD, agile, business plan, business case, pricing, positioning, project management, sales enablement, marketing plans, launch plans, lead generation, social media, demand generation, SEO, SEM, inbound marketing, sales training, sales tools, demos, whitepapers, sales presentations, webinars, screencasts, tradeshows


Al Sargent’s Experience

  • Sr. Solutions Manager

    Carbonetworks Corporation

    (Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)

    July 2009Present (5 months)

    Manage sales operations, lead generation, and field marketing activities

  • Product Management Consultant

    Sauce Labs

    (Computer Software industry)

    20082009 (1 year )

    Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based service and that slashes functional test execution times, enabling developers to deliver higher quality software in less time.

    - Led product development from conception to first customer deployment, reducing customer's test execution times by 90%.
    - Developed product requirements, defined REST API, and provided project management.
    - Generated over 350 leads using online marketing techniques, including Google Adwords and Analytics,
    recruited twenty qualified beta customers and provided initial training on how to use the service.
    - Defined product roadmap and pricing plan based on over 30 user interviews.
    - Led agile development team by managing sprints, maintaining backlog, and leading daily standups.

  • Product Management Consultant

    Archimedes, Inc.

    (Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)

    20072008 (1 year )

    Archimedes provides a SaaS application that enables health care providers, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, insurance companies, and government agencies to provide better healthcare at a lower price.

    - Developed requirements, market research plan, prototype, and pricing model for Archimedes ARCHeS, a web-based interface for the Archimedes model that will be built and tested over the next five years.

  • Sr. Product Line Manager

    Wily Technology

    (Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

    20052007 (2 years )

    Wily Technology was the leading provider of enterprise application management solutions. CA acquired Wily in 2006.

    - Led Wily's acquisition of TimeStock, dramatically expanding Wily's product line. Analyzed customer needs and competitive landscape, built revenue forecast, and presented business case to executive team, and performed due diligence.
    - Led and mentored a team of product managers that expanded Wily's application management footprint, enabling better end-to-end visibility into customer transaction performance.
    - Team responsibilities included product strategy, roadmap, requirements, pricing, positioning, launch, sales training & enablement, and evangelism. Portfolio included products for monitoring response times at browsers, synthetic transaction robots, web servers, and identity managers.
    - Promoted from Sr. Product Manager to Sr. Product Line Manager after just six months.

  • Sr. Product Manager

    Mercury

    (Public Company; MERQ; Computer Software industry)

    20022005 (3 years )

    Mercury was a global leader in application testing and monitoring. HP acquired Mercury in 2007.

    - Grew product revenues from $5M in 2002 to $60M in 2004, moved it from fourth to first in market share, and won awards and analyst endorsements.
    - Aggressively expanded into new markets through business development activities, including partnerships with SAP, Oracle, Siebel, and PeopleSoft; Macromedia (Flash/Flex); Infragistics (.NET); Intuwave (mobile); SPI Dynamics (application security testing); and SlickEdit (developers).
    - Designed and implemented free trial download program that became the biggest lead source for Mercury's inside sales team, resulting in greater penetration of the SMB market.
    - Led both inbound and outbound product management activities, working with a team of 60 R&D staff and 500 sales engineers and account managers.
    - Responsibilities included product strategy, roadmap, requirements, pricing, positioning, launch, sales training & enablement, and evangelism.

  • Group Product Manager

    ListenPoint

    (Computer Software industry)

    20012002 (1 year )

    ListenPoint provided product management software to automate requirements gathering.

    - Developed product strategy, defined requirements, built prototypes, formulated pricing and ROI model, interviewed customers, analyzed competition, refined research methodology, and created product collateral.
    - Led applications development from conception through beta, providing the foundation for 65% of ListenPoint's 2002 product revenue.

  • Senior Director, Product Management

    Brodia

    (Computer Software industry)

    19992001 (2 years )

    Brodia was a premier provider of digital payments infrastructure software for credit card companies.

    - Managed product management team responsible for defining Brodia's web, wireless, and SOA products.
    - Led product team of 15 that built Brodia Wallet version 1.5, improving product performance tenfold and increasing the range of supported web sites from 1,500 to over 100,000.
    - Helped acquire new partners Discover, MasterCard and Chase, doubling Brodia's distribution channel.

  • Product Marketing Manager, Sales Engineer

    Oracle Corporation

    (Public Company; ORCL; Computer Software industry)

    19921997 (5 years )

    - Launched Oracle8, Oracle Application Server 2.0, and Oracle Developer, facilitating over $1 billion in revenues.
    - Directed 30 person team to deliver the Oracle Technology Summit, Oracle Asia Pacific's premier technical marketing program for 2000 business partners in 13 locations across Asia-Pacific.
    - Increased Summit attendance tenfold and achieved a 95% satisfaction rating.
    - Supported sales team in strategic account engagements and delivered presentations at trade shows and seminars, leading to revenue growth of over 50% in 1995, 1996, and 1997.
    - Taught courses on Oracle database and Internet products to technical and non-technical users, attaining a 98% satisfaction rating.

  • Software Engineer

    Viewpoint Systems

    (Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

    19911992 (1 year )

    Viewpoint Systems pioneered business intelligence software for efficient access to ERP data on Unix servers.

    - Built AccessPoint 1.0, one of the first Windows apps to enable graphical access to Oracle and other databases.


Al Sargent’s Education

  • Pragmatic Marketing

    Certification , Practical Product Management , 20062006

    Pragmatic Marketing is the industry standard in technology product management and marketing education. Details: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/

  • UCLA Anderson

    MBA , Marketing Strategy , September 1997June 1999

    - Elected: Director, Entrepreneur Association, the largest student organization at Anderson.
    - Awarded: 1998 Price Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies Academic Fellowship.
    - Selected: UCLA Ventures. Developed strategy & business plan for digital media online exchange.
    - Leadership: Computer Advisory Committee, Technical Section Representative.
    - Thesis: Examined alternative streaming video markets for Emblaze, Inc.

    Activities and Societies:
    Entrepreneur Association, High Tech Business Association, Marketing Association, Black & Scholes
  • Stanford University

    1991 , Symbolic Systems. Concentration in Human-Computer Interaction , 19871991

    Symbolic Systems focuses on the intersection of computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. Details: http://symsys.stanford.edu/

    - Awarded: CSLI internship to research computational linguistics at Xerox PARC. Built C++ programs to convert regular expressions to finite state machines and implement a calculus to manipulate finite state automata.

    - Leadership: Led Stanford Varsity Sailing Team to Top-10 finish at 1989 national championships, and first place finishes at multiple west coast championships.


Additional Information

Al Sargent’s Interests:

Fatherhood, hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, sailing, kiteboarding, user-interface design

Al Sargent’s Groups:

  •    UCLA Anderson Alumni Network
  •    Club ex-Oracle.org
  •    Pragmatic Marketing Alumni
  •    Mercury Alumni Association
  •    Linked:Energy (Energy industry expertise)
  •    Green
  •    Green Corporate Network
  •    Stanford University Alumni
  •    Sales/Marketing VP's & Directors - Software & Technology
  •    Ex-Wily Technology Network
  •    Pragmatic Marketing Certified
  •    Sustainable Brands
  •    The OracAlumni Network
  •    GreenBiz.com -- Green Business Professionals
  •    Stanford Symbolic Systems Program
  •    San Francisco/North Bay UCLA Anderson Group
  •    CleanTech Innovation Forum

Al Sargent’s Honors:

- Coached Singapore's 1996 Olympic Sailing Team.
- Mountain biked 500 miles over the Himalayas.


Al Sargent’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

  • career opportunities
  • consulting offers
  • new ventures
  • job inquiries
  • expertise requests
  • business deals
  • reference requests
  • getting back in touch

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