Jessy Hanley

Product Management Executive
About Me
Experienced product management executive with extensive consumer and international eCommerce experience.

qualifications

Experienced product management executive with extensive consumer and international ecommerce experience. Passionately drives cross-functional execution to ensure overall product performance against key metrics. Proven 13-year track record of launching innovative products, ecommerce know-how and successful marketing practices that result in a dramatic increase in conversion, user engagement and revenue. Demonstrated ability to manage business needs, development and marketing initiatives. Brings an uncanny ability to build a highly motivating culture that inspires and engages team members across all departments by providing a compelling vision of the mission and ensuring all employees see how they fit into this strategy.
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core strengths

  • Agile Development (Scrum, Konbon)
  • Product Marketing
  • SEO and Analytics
  • Business to IT liaison
  • User Engagement Programs
  • Virtual Currency & Payments Services
  • International Ecommerce & Logistics
  • Roadmap Creation
  • New Product Development (NPD)
  • A/B & Multivariate Testing
  • User Interface Design (UX UI)
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Roll-Up the Sleeves, Can-Do Attitude
  • Team Leadership & Development
  • Utilization of Social Media
  • Thrives in Fast-Paced Environment
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
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Work Experience

Paltalk Social Video Chat Services

Feb. 2013 - present

Paltalk is a leading social video group chat consumer tech company. With millions of unique users around the world, the Paltalk platform powers the largest collection of live group chats via mobile, tablet, client and web based applications.
 

VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Feb. 2013 - present

 
Accountable for the Paltalk and Camfrog products across platforms. Own the strategic roadmap, brand positioning, user engagement and product marketing. Manage the following departments: product management, user experience, visual design, community management and customer support.

Key Accomplishments:

  • Identified first time user churn as a significant opportunity for Paltalk. Created a plan to systematically optimize the conversion funnel from download to first entrance into a chat room
  • Immediately created a strategic roadmap prioritized by potential impact on KPIs, ensuring the organization was maximizing development resources
  • Established clear organizational understanding of competitive factors in the marketplace, business objectives and customer needs, guaranteeing all team members understand their role in accomplishing strategic objectives
  • Manage product go-to-market delivery and product marketing. Reimaging the product positioning and brand tone of voice to differentiate Paltalk in the market and attract a younger demographic
  • Expanding virtual currency, VIP and crown programs to include personalization, additional virtual gifts and status features in alignment with paying user behavior
  • Enhancing content discovery to shift Paltalk value proposition from software offering to a content and community platform for meeting new friends
  • Utilizing the millions of members in the Paltalk community to canalizing user behavior and determine which features should be removed to improve usability
  • Creating programs to drive engagement of first time users as well as reengage dormant members via gamification, social media, message casts and email campaigns
Borderfree global eCommerce solutions

June 2010 - Feb 2013

Borderfree, formally FiftyOne Inc. empowers international ecommerce for top U.S. retailers including Barneys New York, Bloomingdale's Crate and Barrel, Gilt, Macy's, Overstock.com, Sears, and True Religion
 

Vice President, Product Managment

promoted 2012


 
Reporting directly to the CEO, accountable for the entire Borderfree product. Responsible for creation and execution of the product roadmap at both a tactical and strategic level. Managed the following departments: project management, product management and technical communication.

Key Accomplishments:

  • In response to merchants inability to effectively promote to their international consumer, created the international marketing toolkit, which enabled merchants to offer country specific marketing to consumers and allowed non-US customers to "shop like a local".
  • Created an ambitious and innovative 12-month rolling roadmap, a goal that was previously considered impossible in an agile development environment. The long term roadmap allowed Borderfree to communicate upcoming features to our enterprise merchants allowing them to secure development resources to enable new features as soon as possible.
  • The organization lacked product marketing and the ability to directly hear the voice of the merchant. Opened the line of communication about the product road map via "what's in the works" section of the documentation site, forms to allow customers to make feature requests directly to myself and participation in a customer advisory board. Resulted in more engaged merchants who truly helped guide the roadmap based upon their specific needs.
  • Revolutionized the Borderfree product by building Borderfree Services that exposed core features as public facing APIs. These APIs enabled integration with third party ecommerce platforms like Demandware and Magento and availed an entirely new customer base.
  • Identified a lack of risk oversight and establish a process to identify and mitigate risks and determine metrics of success for each new product feature, allowing us to prioritize based upon ROI and risk appetite.
  • To keep pace with the 3 fold increase in development capacity, recruited, hired and managed a top notch team of product managers, project managers and technical communicators allowing us to scale from 12 stories a sprint to 55 stories every two weeks.
  • The only member of the executive management team to ever win the quarterly CEO excellence award for living the company values.
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Director, Product Managment

June 2010 - Jan 2012

 
  • Inaccuracy in shipping quotes resulted in negative conversion impact. On-going improvements to the Landed Cost Calculator ensured the most viable and attractive quote was offered to the international consumer resulting in an increase in conversion.
  • The enterprise platform's dependency on merchant international traffic necessitated a plan to widen the conversion funnel. Designed, built, and launched Port51, an international shopping affiliate portal website, in 12 weeks in order to capture holiday learnings.
  • As international logistics innovators the need for more control over parcel processing and carriers was paramount. Designed and launched the ability to quickly add and enable international shipping carriers via a user interface and also created the international hub processing application that is operated in DHL Exel facilities. The Hub App was launched on time and processed 80% of the Borderfree package volume in the first 45 days without any operational challenges.
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MyPhotoAlbum Inc - Consumer & Professional Photo Services

Sept. 2000 - June 2010

MyPhotoAlbum is a collection of consumer and professional photo and video sharing services, MyPhotoAlbum, PolaroidStudio, and dotPhoto. Formally FortuneCity.com Inc., services included paid and free web hosting and domain services.
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Vice President, Product

promoted 2008

 
Accountable for all aspects of the three online photo-sharing services; Polaroid Studio, MyPhotoAlbum and dotPhoto, including managing technical development, ownership of the product road map, envisioning all enhancements, managing usability and the supporting marketing initiatives.

Key Accomplishments:

  • Successfully executed rapid two-month deployment of Polaroid Studio, Polaroid's online photo and video sharing service for the announcement of Lady Gaga as Creative Director.
  • Planned and executed social media strategy that included Facebook Fan Pages, Facebook Applications, Twitter and other social media platforms making the photo services appealing to a younger demographic.
  • Conceived the professional services product where photographers earn revenue by selling photos on a brand-able platform. More than 50% of all print purchases are from this user group
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Director of Photo Services

promoted 2005

 
  • Served as art director and marketing manager for all product collateral. Steered creative direction of MyPhotoAlbum, including, creating the look and feel of the member albums as well as the acquisition website and marketing materials.
  • Responsible for rapid 3-year growth of MyPhotoAlbum global customer base, 150% revenue growth year-over-year, 250,000 active members hosting over 60 million photos, and top 15 Alexa rated photo-sharing service.
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Manager design services

promoted 2004

 
  • Directed all aspects of web design service offerings including creating proposals and process documents, web site designs and code for customers.
  • Managed the department's team of designers, developers and account managers.
  • Represented FortuneCity.com in all sales and information gathering meetings.
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Product Manager

promoted 2003

 
  • Created project plans and GUI site flows for all website enhancements and redesign projects.
  • Developed testing procedures for all new projects involving ecommerce.
  • Planed and implemented a demo application for white box web hosting services and simplified purchase process, which increased free to paid service conversions by 400%.
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Senior Web Builder

Sept. 2000 - Jan. 2003

 
  • Served as senior web developer for corporate properties utilizing skills in HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, Java, ASP, and JSP.
  • Designed all corporate websites including: Fortunecity.com, Ampira.com, V3.com, AmpiraMedia.com and Hotgames.com.
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Jessy's World - web design and development

owner

Sept. 2001 - Jan. 2006

  • Built a large freelance client base including clients such as Time Warner Inc., Cosmopolitan, Food and Wine, Good Housekeeping and many others.
  • Established and maintained client relationships, created project plans, proposals and estimates for all projects.
  • Designed, developed and maintained all web sites, newsletters and ads for all clients.
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NBNTech Inc - eCommerce Solutions Provider

project manager

Sept. 1999 - Sept. 2000

  • Project Manager, Webmaster, and content writer for web sites, insured Flash and PhotoShop expectations were met. Supervised development in ColdFusion, DHTML, and JavaScript.
  • Researched and created web-hosting procedures, FAQ's, pricing, and online transactions for corporate web hosting site.
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Bivings Woodell - Online Public Relations Firm

Research & Strategy Team

April 1999 - Sept. 1999

  • Project Manager, Webmaster, and content writer for web sites, insured Flash and PhotoShop expectations were met. Supervised development in ColdFusion, DHTML, and JavaScript.
  • Researched and created web-hosting procedures, FAQ's, pricing, and online transactions for corporate web hosting site.
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Senator Tom Daschle - Minorty leader of the US Senate

Special Assistant to the Press Secretary

April 1998 - Sept 1998

  • Created press releases and media reports which represented Senator Daschle and analyzed senatorial press.
  • Analyzed senatorial press, researched, planned and organized press conferences for Senator.
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Technical Skills & Knowledge

Technologies

  • Utilized - Active X, AJAX, ASP, CSS, CGI Scripting, ColdFusion, DHTML, FBML, Flash Action Script, HTML, Java Applets, JavaScript, JSP, Jquiry, LAMP Stack, Mootools, Open Source Software, PHP, Ruby on Rails, RSS, XML
  • Managed Use of - Amazon Cloud Storage, Apache, DNS, Flex, Java, MySQL, Perl, Python, Shell Scripting, Tomcat

Web 2.0, Blogs & Social Networking

  • Created and Maintained - Facebook Applications, Facebook Fan Pages, Facebook Groups
  • Utilized - Facebook Fan Pages, Facebook Groups, Twitter, TwitPic, Cotweet, bit.ly, del.icio.us, Wordpress, Drupal, Blogging Software
  • Managed Creation Of - iPhone Application Development

Graphics, Video & User Interface

  • Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Image Ready, Adobe Illustrator, Flash, FLV Converters, Balsamiq, GUI, Macromedia Fireworks, ScreenFlow, Usability

Advertising & Marketing

  • Real Media Ad Serving Software, Instream Video Ads (.flv), Ad Networks, Search Engine Optimization, Email Newsletter Software, MailChimp, EmailLabs, Constant Contact, Topica, Hitslink, Google AdSence, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter

Project Management

  • AgileZen, Trac, CVS, SVN, Source Safe, Twiki, DotProject, Microsoft Project, Visio, Google Docs

CMS, eCommerce & Order Fulfillment

  • OsCommerce, Magento, ZenCart, Drupal, Demandware, ShopSite

Payments and Fraud Prevention

  • PayPal, Google Paymemts, Retail Decisions, CyberSource, Authorize.net

Bugs, Support & Documentation

  • Bugzilla, Confluece, Jira, Parature, RoboHelp, Pivot, MediaWiki, Sales Force, Support Wizard

Operating Systems

  • Utilized - Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OSX, Unix, Suse
  • Managed Use of - Linux, Red Hat, Mandriva, Solaris

education, awards and memberships

Education

University of Maryland at College Park

Bachelors of Arts in Communication


Awards and Honors
  • First member of the management team to win of the quarterly Borderfree CEO Excellence award
  • Winner of 17 Web Design Awards
Memberships
  • Board of Directors Member - The Encore & Live Out Loud - non-profit organization
  • New York Product Management Association & Girls in Tech
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Portfolio

Below are a few of the web design and development projects I have done "for fun" in the last few years.

  • Jessy + Melissa - my photo and travel blog site
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