Lydia Varmazis

Lydia Varmazis

Vice President, Product Management Ning, Inc.

San Francisco Bay Area

Current
  • Vice President, Product Management and Product Design at Ning, Inc.
Past
Education
  • Pepperdine University, The George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management
  • Ryerson University
Connections
500+ connections
Industry
Online Media
Websites

Lydia Varmazis’s Summary

•Creative business leader who is comfortable with change and with an eye towards emerging trends in technology, specifically related to SaaS and Social Media software.
• Passionate product manager who's expertise focuses on the intersection of software, experience design and business strategy.
•Strong leader with a proven track record of hiring and developing top performing teams.
•Proven ability to develop a customer centric strategy and translate it into business results with market leading products.

Lydia Varmazis’s Specialties:

Product Management
Business Development
Marketing Management
Social Media
SaaS
OpenSocial
Web 2.0


Lydia Varmazis’s Experience

  • Vice President, Product Management and Product Design

    Ning, Inc.

    (Privately Held; Internet industry)

    October 2008Present (10 months)

    Manage, lead and grow the Product Management team comprised of Product Managers, User Experience Designers, and Web Developers to contribute to the continued growth and success of a rapidly growing online platform for creating your own social network for anything.

    Define, execute and iterate on Ning’s existing social networking platform while formulating the product roadmap for our next generation products.

  • Director of Product Management, Emerging Creative Technologies

    Adobe Systems Incorporated

    (Computer Software industry)

    February 2007September 2008 (1 year 8 months)

    Defined and operationalized the roadmap for transitioning of Adobe’s creative professional business from desktop applications to on-line hosted applications and communities.

    Designed and deployed Adobe’s first online creative communities—Adobe kuler and Adobe knowhow.

    Defined new product, analytics and monetization models for hosted applications and SaaS that were incorporated into the BU’s strategic imperatives for new market growth and new customer acquisition.

    Recruited and managed a cross-functional team of product managers, software developers and quality testers to develop a series SaaS focused on the Creative Professional and built on Adobe AIR, Flex and Flash.

  • Group Product Manager

    Adobe Systems Incorporated

    (Public Company; ADBE; Computer Software industry)

    20032005 (2 years)

    Defined the product roadmap and strategic direction for Adobe’s market leading illustration software—Adobe Illustrator, mobile applications and new product and market opportunities for the creative professional.

    Managed and mentored a team of product managers in the definition of the existing product line while leading a diverse cross-functional team through multiple product life cycles.

  • Senior Product Manager

    Adobe Systems Incorporated

    (Public Company; ADBE; Computer Software industry)

    20012003 (2 years)

    Responsible for product management of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe SVG as well as mobile technology. Created product definition documents for multi-generational products and led the development team through multiple successful product releases.

  • Product Manager, Cross-Media Workflows

    Adobe Systems Incorporated

    (Public Company; ADBE; Computer Software industry)

    19982001 (3 years)

    Defined the product specifications and strategies for a series of desktop software applications, SaaS applications and licensed technologies based on Adobe Acrobat and PDF technology.

  • PDF Evangelist

    Adobe Systems Incorporated

    (Public Company; ADBE; Computer Software industry)

    19971998 (1 year)

    Recruited to lead the adoption of PDF technology, identifying business opportunities and build a developer network. Increased the number of partner by 145% is less than 1 year.

  • Manager, Digital Workflow Integration (Contract)

    Arthurs-Jones/Print-Net Inc.

    (Printing industry)

    19951997 (2 years)

    Established formalized workflows that supported the publishing of Financial Reports to print, the web and interactive and online media.

  • Digital Content Management (Contract)

    First Marathon Securities (now National Bank of Canada)

    (Public Company; NA.TO; Banking industry)

    19971997 (less than a year)

    Defined cross-media publishing workflows and standards for electronic document delivery into corporate on-demand print center and intranet/Internet site.

  • Regional Sales Support Manager

    Scitex America Corp. (now Kodak Graphic Communications Group)

    (Computer Hardware industry)

    19931995 (2 years)

    Recruited into a sales management assignment to direct a team of six systems specialists and to promote the value of the product through executive level and industry association presentations, and ROI-based cost/benefit analysis.

  • Instructor, Part-time

    University of Toronto, School of Architecture and Design, Digital Media Studios

    (Educational Institution; 11-50 employees; Graphic Design industry)

    19921995 (3 years)


Lydia Varmazis’s Education

  • Pepperdine University, The George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management

    MBA , Strategy, Finance , 20002002

  • Ryerson University

    BSc , Graphic Communications Management


Additional Information

Lydia Varmazis’s Websites:

Lydia Varmazis’s Groups:

  •    Pepperdine Graziadio School Alumni
  •    TED Conferences

Lydia Varmazis’s Honors:

Crazy Ivan Award: for delivering an outstanding, unexpected, out-of-the-box accomplishment (2007)


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