VP Product
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
-
- Co-Founder / VP Product at StoryJumper
- Past
-
- Sr. Director of Product and Community at Topix
- Director of Product Management at Topix
- Program Manager at PayPal / eBay
- Sr.Technical Project Manager at AOL/TimeWarner
- Project Manager - International at AllAdvantage.com
- International QA Test Lead at Apple Computer - FileMaker, Inc
- Education
-
- Stanford University
- Colorado College
- Recommended
-
3 people have recommended Blake - Connections
-
323
connections
- Industry
- Internet
Blake Williams’s Summary
+ Proven ability to manage complex, business-critical products and deliver on schedule and within budget.
+ Proficiency in training and mentoring others in industry-standard processes and practices.
+ Certified PMP in Project Management.
+ Experience implementing standards for Product, Project and Software Development Lifecycles.
+ Diverse background; well-balanced approach to resolving technical and business problems.
+ Japanese language skills; considerable experience with software development for Japanese and European markets.
Blake Williams’s Specialties:
Technical Product, Program and Project Management of Internet and Software products, SDLC implementation, PMI member, PMP Certification, fluent in Japanese language.
Blake Williams’s Experience
-
Co-Founder / VP Product
StoryJumper
(Internet industry)
March 2009 — Present (5 months)
-
Sr. Director of Product and Community
Topix
(Privately Held; Animation industry)
June 2007 — March 2009 (1 year 10 months)
Responsible for product strategy and planning for Topix.com -- a Top-20 news site with more than ~10M unique users and ~100M page views, monthly.
+ Developed partner-strategy for forums, culminating in over 160 community integrations, accounting for ~30M monthly page views on Topix.
+ Owned monetization and development strategy for all 32K local vertical pages (cars, real estate, jobs, etc.).
+ Co-developed strategy and feature-set for Local Directory product.
+ Managed Community team responsible for all customer, partner, and legal interactions.
+ Panel speaker at Industry Conferences, such as Search Engine Strategies, Newspaper Association of America and the Online Newspaper Association. -
Director of Product Management
Topix
(Privately Held; Animation industry)
April 2005 — June 2007 (2 years 3 months)
+ Led product and development for web-scalable, syndicated forum system that processes over 4M comments and 65M page views per month.
+ Instrumental in closing several high-profile licensing deals including CNN, ESPN, AOL, IAC and Sprint.
+ Worked with engineering teams to refine and develop industry-leading eCPMs from Google’s Adsense for news and user-generated content.
+ First hire after Series-A investment; Reporting directly to CEO. -
Program Manager
PayPal / eBay
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; ebay; Internet industry)
February 2004 — April 2005 (1 year 3 months)
Program Manager for PayPal’s Small-Medium-Business (SMB) suite of products – one of PayPal’s most critical strategic business initiative in 2005.
+ Led several teams, comprised of over 100 engineers and 30 QA, for an on-time launch of the initial SMB program in April, 2005.
+ Managed team of 5 project managers, with emphasis and coaching on industry-standard PM methodologies, such as risk, communication, and change management.
+ Initiated and developed the Advanced Portfolio Management initiative for planning optimization at PayPal.
+ Created in-house training materials for Project Management topics, including team building and PMP certification process. -
Sr.Technical Project Manager
AOL/TimeWarner
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; TWX; Internet industry)
March 2001 — January 2004 (2 years 11 months)
+ Lead Project Manager for “AOL Alerts & Reminders” product – a platform serving millions of daily online, wireless device, and email notifications (stock, news, weather, sports, etc.) to AOL customers.
-
Project Manager - International
AllAdvantage.com
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Internet industry)
January 2000 — February 2001 (1 year 2 months)
+ Managed web application and content engineers for major product releases. Acted as internal International consultant/evangelist for Product Development, Product Marketing, QA, IS&T, and Legal departments.
-
International QA Test Lead
Apple Computer - FileMaker, Inc
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; aapl; Computer Software industry)
June 1997 — January 2000 (2 years 8 months)
+ Lead tester for US, Japanese, and 9 European language versions of FileMaker Pro Database software, including core applications, networking, installers, ODBC integration, and Web Publishing features.
Blake Williams’s Education
-
Stanford University
MA , East Asian Studies , 1997
-
Colorado College
1987 — 1991
