Al Sargent

Current

Principal at Dial Partners

Past

Product Management Consultant at Archimedes, Inc.
Sr. Product Line Manager at Wily Technology
Sr. Product Manager at Mercury

Group Product Manager at ListenPoint
Senior Director, Product Management at Brodia
Product Marketing Manager at Oracle Corporation
Software Engineer at Viewpoint Systems

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4 more...

Education

Pragmatic Marketing
UCLA Anderson
Stanford University

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Recommended

11 people have recommended Al

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

Al Sargent’s Summary

I am a results-oriented enterprise software product management executive with over 15 years of industry experience at Oracle, Mercury, and leading venture-funded startups such as Wily Technology.

My specialties are product portfolio management, strategy and positioning; customer, competitor, and market research; usability and user-centered design, competitive analysis, and evangelism and sales enablement.

Having done product management for over a decade, I've learned what works and what doesn't, how to work efficiently, and how to navigate the minefields that all too often trip up product managers.

My experience includes sales and software development, which provides me with the breadth of experience required to understand and lead the members of a multi-disciplinary product development team.

What I look for in a prospective employer is whether it has a collaborative team environment that enables the development of products customers love.

Al Sargent’s Specialties:

15 years of software product management and marketing. Inbound and outbound. Specific skills: product strategy, market research, product concept validation, usability and user-centered design, competitive analysis, MRD/PRD development, product team management, product launches, sales enablement, and demo development.

Al Sargent’s Experience

Principal

Dial Partners

(Computer Software industry)

July 2007 — Present (1 year 4 months)

Product strategy consulting for enterprise software companies.
Product Management Consultant

Archimedes, Inc.

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

2007 — 2008 (1 year)

Archimedes seeks to revolutionize the practice of medicine with mathematical modeling. By running simulations full of virtual people, with physiologies and organs, who experience symptoms, seek care from doctors, get diagnoses, and undergo treatments, Archimedes enables pharmaceutical companies, doctors, insurance companies, and government agencies optimize the healthcare system.

- Completed product requirements for new Archimedes SaaS product in stealth mode. Product expected to greatly improve quality of care and reduce healthcare costs.
- Developed requirements, market research plan, prototype, and pricing model for Archimedes ARCHeS, a new web-based interface and delivery platform for the Archimedes model that will be built and tested over the next five years.

(This was a consulting engagement for Dial Partners.)
Sr. Product Line Manager

Wily Technology

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Software industry)

2005 — 2007 (2 years)

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

- Led and mentored a team of product managers in expanding Wily's application management footprint, in order to provide 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.
- Personally drove Wily's acquisition of TimeStock, dramatically expanding Wily's range of market opportunities and end-to-end management capabilities. Analyzed customer needs and competitive landscape, built revenue forecast, presented business case to executive team, and performed due diligence.
- Promoted from Sr. Product Manager to Sr. Product Line Manager after six months on the job.
Sr. Product Manager

Mercury

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; MERQ; Computer Software industry)

2002 — 2005 (3 years)

Mercury (Nasdaq:MERQ) is the global leader in Business Technology Optimization, enabling companies to unlock the business value of Information Technology. Mercury was acquired by HP in 2007.

- Sr. Product Manager for WinRunner and QuickTest Professional, the industry's leading software testing products with $100M in annual revenue.
- Lead both inbound and outbound product management activities, working with a team of 60 R&D staff, plus 500 sales engineers and account managers.
- Responsibilities include product strategy, roadmap, requirements, pricing, positioning, launch, sales training & enablement, and evangelism.
- Grew QuickTest Professional worldwide revenues tenfold, from $5M in 2002 to $60M in 2004, winning awards and analyst endorsements.
- Aggressively expanding into new markets, including enterprise applications, .NET, and application security testing, setting foundation for future revenue growth.
Group Product Manager

ListenPoint

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

2001 — 2002 (1 year)

ListenPoint pioneered a new enterprise software category -- product portfolio management -- to automate product marketing at Fortune 500 corporations. Investors include Sigma Partners.

- 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.
- Created and evangelized market category of product portfolio management, leading to endorsements by leading industry analysts.
Senior Director, Product Management

Brodia

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

1999 — 2001 (2 years)

Brodia was a premier provider of digital payments infrastructure software for financial institutions. Investors included Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

- Managed team responsible for defining Brodia's web, wireless, and XML products and implemented programs to conduct consumer research, competitive surveillance, and web site metrics analysis.
- Led a multidisciplinary team of 15 people in building Brodia Wallet version 1.5, improving product performance tenfold and increasing the range of supported web sites from 1,500 to over 100,000.
- Acquired new partners Discover, MasterCard and Chase, and increased distribution channel size by 200%.
Product Marketing Manager

Oracle Corporation

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; ORCL; Computer Software industry)

1992 — 1997 (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; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

1991 — 1992 (1 year)

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

- Built AccessPoint 1.0, one of the first Microsoft Windows C++ programs to enable intuitive, graphical access to Oracle, Sybase, and other SQL databases.

Al Sargent’s Education

Pragmatic Marketing

Certification, Practical Product Management, 2006 — 2006

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

MBA, Marketing Strategy, September 1997 — June 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, 1987 — 1991

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.