Launching Local Social Lab
London, United Kingdom
- Current
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- Partner at Local Social Lab
- Past
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- Product Manager at FAST, A Microsoft Subsidiary
- Programme Manager at Platefood Ltd
- Board Member / Part-time Product Director at MTS
- Product Director at Soltek Group
- Head of Client Services at WinWin Technologies
- Producer at Petspark
- Producer at LineOne
- Web Development Editor at Africa Online
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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 market development that is creative, flexible and focused on delivering products that succeed in a competitive landscape.
Core Capabilities include:
Market Insight Leadership
• 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 and Contextual advertising system that resulted in the first seven figure deal for a start-up
Proven Delivery Success
• As the result of leading four teams, including external partners, in the implementation of my strategy, we were able to raise a Series A of $6M for an e-commerce/social media 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
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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Partner
Local Social Lab
(Internet industry)
August 2009 — Present (4 months)
Early days but as the result of the success of Local Social Summit '09 (the platform for knowledge sharing and networking for the thought leaders driving innovation in the intersection of Local and Social Media), we're launching Local Social Lab
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Product Manager
FAST, A Microsoft Subsidiary
(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)
November 2006 — October 2009 (3 years )
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 -
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 -
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. -
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 -
Web Development Editor
Africa Online
(Privately Held; Internet industry)
July 1996 — July 1997 (1 year 1 month)
At the time Africa Online was owned by Prodigy, I worked at the Ghana subsidary.
I had sole responsibility (from HTML programming to Editoral) for publishing various Ghanian newspaper online.
