Proven Product Manager who delivers resutls
London, United Kingdom
- Current
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- Product Manager at FAST, A Microsoft Subsidiary
- Past
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- Board Member / Part-time Product Director at MTS
- Programme Manager at Platefood Ltd
- Product Director at Soltek Group
- Head of Client Services at WinWin Technologies
- Producer at Petspark
- Producer at LineOne
- Recommended
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- Websites
Simon Baptist’s Summary
A strategic leader with strong entrepreneurial drive, recognised for delivering exceptional results. An innovator with an approach to the reality of product development that is creative, flexible and focused on delivering products that succeed in competitive markets.
Customer Insight Leadership
• As Customer Advocate for the FAST Local Search Summit customer group, I organised four summits that provided the platform for sharing tactical and strategic requirements
• As part of understanding a customer’s requirements to enable PPC advertising for their specific vertical, I created new Intellectual Property, which is currently being patented at Microsoft
Passion for Building Successful Products
• Led the development and evolution of a Pay Per Click Search advertising system that resulted in the first seven figure deal for a start-up
• I managed the end-to-end creation of one of the first UK centric Search Engines on top of the Inktomi core. I was personally responsible for the initial programming of the front-end and the API
Proven Delivery Success
• Led a globally distributed v-team to release a significant version of a Search and Contextual ad platform, resulting in a customer launching a German Local ad network
• As the result of project managing four different teams, including two external partners, I was able to build a launch website that resulted in a Series A being raised of $6M for a dotcom
Strong and Able Communicator
• As a Subject Matter Expert in Search and Advertising, I communicated the value of the market opportunity to the FAST Sales organisation, resulting in a 150% achievement of revenue target
• By pioneering a social media approach to communication across globally distributed constituents, I was able to ensure the success of a relationship with a critical customer
Simon Baptist’s Specialties:
Product Management, Project Management, Team Leadership, Strategic Development & Implementation, Programme Management, Digital Advertising, Product Marketing, Search, Digital Advertising, Web2.0, Social Media
Simon Baptist’s Experience
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Product Manager
FAST, A Microsoft Subsidiary
(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)
November 2006 — Present (2 years 9 months)
FAST was a leading Enterprise Search vendor that Microsoft acquired in 2008 for $1.2B
I have been responsible for the product management of AdMomentum, FAST's private-label search and contextual advertising solution for digital publishers (including: local search portals, IYPs, newspapers, magazines & mobile operators).
Duties Include:
• GTM strategy and plans, including pricing structure
• Advocate to ensure product feature development meets customer requirements
• SME for company, market and product evangelism internally and externally
• Advanced Commercial support, including contract negotiations -
Board Member / Part-time Product Director
MTS
(Public Company; Telecommunications industry)
November 2003 — November 2006 (3 years 1 month)
ASP media evaluation and tracking platform for PR agencies. Was responsible for initial product development (MRD, PRD and front-end coding) and was a board member.
Customers included: Athena Medical PR, Ogilvy, Ruder Finn and Novartis, GSK, Boehrinnger. -
Programme Manager
Platefood Ltd
(Internet industry)
December 2005 — November 2006 (1 year)
Platefood provided advanced advertising and search solutions for online businesses and was acquired by FAST for €8.1M in 2006
Duties Included:
• Control balance between the deal driven and broader market product requirements
• Managing outsourced engineering team in Australia of 40
• Leading customer communication innovation process
• Delivery of customer engagements from pre-sales to software implementation -
Product Director
Soltek Group
(Management Consulting industry)
April 2004 — December 2005 (1 year 9 months)
Soltek Group was a boutique technology consultancy
Duties Included:
• GTM strategy and execution, resulting in ROI being exceeded by £100,000 in Year 1
• Product development for a digital PR solution, enabling a customer to close a 6 figure deal
• Cross-functional delivery of consulting results from Executives to Call Centre teams -
Head of Client Services
WinWin Technologies
(Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2001 — April 2003 (2 years 4 months)
WinWin was a pan-European audience segmented, multi-channel ad network
Duties Included:
• Strategy creation and execution to ensure the transfer of consumer profiles from customers to the network
• Team management of ten direct reports, including resource deployment
• Managing and developing key client relationships, including: Buongiorno and digital@JWT -
Producer
Petspark
(Internet industry)
July 1999 — December 2000 (1 year 6 months)
Petspark was an early iteration of social media, consisting of networking, games, authoritative content and e-commerce
Duties Included:
• Specifying requirements for website and technology, including e-commerce engine and CMS, including Launch site that raised $6M
• Recruiting and managing cross-functional launch team(9) and internal development (5)
• Provide operations support to CEO during fund raising and sustain investor relations as first hire and Internet SME -
Producer
LineOne
(Internet industry)
July 1997 — June 1999 (2 years)
1997 - 1999 LineOne – Producer
LineOne was joint venture ISP between British Telecom and News International
Duties Included:
• Running news content production, including the daily publishing of digital editions for: The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The News of the World
• Managing partner relationships, including: Autonomy, Inktomi and Engage
• Leading Quality Assurance activities on all major website launches
