Benjamin Faas
Freelance Product Manager, Product Owner (CSPO), Scrum Master (CSM) & Agile Coach
Experience
Nov 2021 - Present
3 years 4 months Germany
Freelance Consultant
Freelance Product Owner, Scrum Master and Agile Coach in various projects spanning from local agencies to multinational corporations in diverse industries. Last projects:
- Adevinta, Technical Project Manager: Responsible for the coordination of several sub-workstreams building the world's largest classifieds multi-tenant platform
- Aroundhome (a ProSiebenSat.1 company), Product Manager: Implementation and business-side verification of a concept for digital qualification of user requests for matching service providers
- Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf, Product Manager Mobile: Responsible for advising on and guiding the rebuild of Android and iOS Apps
May 2021 - Oct 2021
6 months Berlin, Germany
Director Product
Visual Meta GmbH
Director Product co-leading the Product & Engineering Department together with the Director Engineering
Responsibilities:
- Defining and delivering a 3-5 year horizon Product Strategy including a Product Vision & Mission connecting to existing Company Strategy and strategies from adjacent departments
- Refining an existing OKR process together with OKR Master and Directors of other departments with the goal of increasing focus and thereby outcome
- Supporting the Director Engineering in creating a Platform Transformation strategy with the goal of transforming a monolithic on-premise tech stack into a service-oriented, cloud-based architecture and establishing a domain-based organizational setup
- Accountability for a motivated and talented team of 5 Head-level colleagues as well as 17 operational team members from Product Management, Data and UX/UI design
Key achievements:
- Defined and delivered a 3-5 year horizon Product Strategy including a Product Vision & Mission
- Increased focus within OKR process by moving from 10 company-level objectives to 2 and from several hundred team-level key results to a few dozen
- Creation of a career path framework for the Product Team defining roles and responsibilities from Junior to Head level positions
Jan 2018 - Apr 2021
3 years 4 months Berlin, Germany
Head of Product Platform Innovation
HRS Innovation Hub GmbH
HRS Innovation Hub Leadership Team Extended HRS Leadership Team for Product Development & IT
Responsibilities:
- Defining and delivering a next generation Search & Book platform
- Using data, machine-learning and recommendation technology to identify the lowest and best-matching rates for customers
- People management responsibility for a team of up to 5 motivated and talented individuals from Product Management, Software Engineering and UX/UI design
- Interim lead Finance for the Product Development & IT part of the HRS Innovation Hub from 11/2018 to 06/2019
Key achievements:
- 48% conversion rate uplift on the new Search & Book platform
- Up to 450,000 USD additional monthly savings for company's largest account
Mar 2016 - Dec 2017
1 year 10 months Germany
Freelance Consultant
Freelance Product Owner, Agile Coach & Project Manager in various projects spanning from local agencies to multinational corporations in industries like finance and travel. Projects:
- Consorsbank (a BNP Paribas company), Product Manager Mobile: Creation of a financial assistant chatbot for Android and iOS
- HRS Innovation Hub (a HRS Group company), Product Manager: Returned a large rewrite project for a multi-tenant hotel booking platform into feasible timelines and a manageable scope
Aug 2015 - Feb 2016
7 months Munich, Germany
Product Lead Mobile, Search and Engagement
AutoScout24 GmbH
Responsibilities:
- Driving forward the development of a platform rewrite for the web-based applications ensuring a cutting-edge search experience
- Refinement of existing agile and lean working approaches to foster the collaboration between the Product and Engineering departments
- Strengthening the market position and economical value of the native mobile applications through conversion rate improvements and close collaboration with external partners like Google.
- People management responsibility for a team of up to 10 motivated and talented Product Managers from junior to senior level
Key achievements:
- Android App team received the Google Play Top Developer award
- Invitation by Google to the Chrome Dev Summit 2015 in Mountain View to pioneer new functionality in the automotive industry
- Invitation by Google to collaborate on attribution and customer lifetime value models
Jan 2015 - Jul 2015
7 monthsSabbatical
Rest from work to focus on personal goals and definition of next career steps
Dec 2010 - Dec 2015
4 years 1 month Kleinmachnow, Germany
Product Manager Mobile
mobile.international GmbH
First full-time Product Manager for mobile applications at mobile.de Representative for eBay Advertising in the Association of Online Research (AGOF) 2012-2013
Responsibilities:
- Ownership of web-based and native mobile applications across various form factors and platform ecosystems
- Ensuring maximum user and business value through regular user testing, usability testing, A/B testing and analysis of tracking data
- Identification and delivery of measures to increase the Net Promoter Score of products
- Conception and implementation of measures in collaboration with Mobile Advertising, Mobile Performance Marketing and Product Marketing
Key achievements:
- Rewrite of an existing iPhone app with limited functionality into a feature-complete app resulting in 57% more monthly unique users than direct competitor (AGOF mobile facts 2013-I)
- Envisioned and delivered a native Android application for both phone and tablet resulting in 107% more monthly unique users than direct competitor (AGOF mobile facts 2013-I)
- Envisioned and delivered a state-of-the-art web-based mobile website resulting in 56% and 173% more monthly unique users than the company's own iPhone and Android apps (AGOF mobile facts 2013-I)
May 2010 - Nov 2010
7 months Berlin, Germany
Junior Product Manager
Youtailor - BFB Handels GmbH
First Product Manager for a start-up in the online retail business for made-to-measure clothing
Responsibilities:
- Responsible for continued development and optimization of the tailored garments configurator
- Managing product inventory via the underlying e-commerce system
- Supporting the Marketing and Customer Support Departments through the creation of audiovisual and written content
Key achievements:
- Scaling of the existing business to further countries
- Diversification of existing product lines
Summary
Freelance product owner, scrum master and agile coach in various projects spanning from local agencies to multinational corporations in diverse industries.
Languages
German
Native
English
Advanced
Education
Oct 2007 - Jul 2008
University of Cambridge Judge Business School
MPhil · Innovation, Strategy and Organisation · Cambridge, United Kingdom · With Merit
Oct 2002 - Sep 2007