Ash Welsh Email & Phone Number

Vancouver, Bc, Ca

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Key Achievements:• Spearheaded the implementation of the Shape Up methodology, resulting in a remarkable 200% surge in developer output and an evident increase in developer satisfaction, fostering a positive and motivated work environment.• Orchestrated the development of an industry-specific document management solution, akin to DocuSign, drawing significant attention and recognition within the industry.Key Responsibilities and Current Activities:• Lead the strategic direction of product development by conceptualizing and aligning the product roadmap with company goals and market demands, leveraging a keen understanding of industry trends and customer needs.• Coordinate and oversee cross-functional teams, ensuring effective communication, collaboration, and timely execution of project objectives.• Collaborate closely with key stakeholders to identify, assess, and prioritize initiatives based on their alignment with strategic goals and customer requirements.• Utilize PLG concepts and customer feedback to prioritize initiatives that align with customer expectations and market trends.• Strategically classify and prioritize features based on their alignment with overarching goals and strategic initiatives.• Define and communicate the value proposition of solutions, ensuring they effectively address market needs and solve identified problems.• Analyze successes and failures to refine product strategies, leveraging lessons learned to enhance future decision-making processes.• Conduct thorough assessments of the competitive landscape, identifying market opportunities and potential threats.• Oversee the entire product development process, ensuring adherence to best practices and timely delivery of top-quality products.• Provide strategic oversight to ensure the efficient and successful execution of the product development process, maintaining a focus on quality and timeliness.

North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

• Designed a big data analysis interface that compares anonymous client data with masses of national and industry data to assist clients with optimizing their operations.• Provided leadership through a company-wide transformation of product development processes that moved us to data-driven product development decision making and a new metrics system.• Translate business needs from clients into user stories and acceptance criteria, work with the design team on mockups, then see those features through all development stages to deployment.• Directed a 10-person team of designers, front-end and back-end system engineers, and quality assurance specialists.• Conveyed product releases clearly and compellingly through live and virtual presentations.• Implemented strong problem solving abilities and outside-the-box thinking. • Analyzed qualitative and quantitative data to determine the highest value features to develop.• Led cross-functional collaboration to align the product roadmap with the objectives of the business.• Defined the product vision and strategy, and on an ongoing basis exercised strong decision making to ensure that all feature development aligned with our vision.• Tracked the business case and ROI on each feature.• Actively participated in annual strategic planning sessions to ensure the roadmap remained aligned with corporate goals and the vision of the organization.• Constantly analyzed internal processes for opportunities to improve operational efficiencies. An example of this is a feature I envisioned, designed, and got built that reduced an internal task time by 80% and removed the potential for human-error.

North Vancouver, Canada

• Managed all product development for the Equestrian SaaS product.• Integrated the product with the primary Equestrian Insurance provider in Canada.• In collaboration with subject matter experts, such as our CFO, I designed and deployed wide ranging solutions, including financial systems that split revenue and posted deferred revenue, API integrations for real-time member verification, and certification tracking systems.• Analyzed qualitative and quantitative data to determine the highest value features to develop.• Translated business needs from major provincial and national clients into requirements and mockups, and saw those designs through all development stages to deployment.• Worked collaboratively with project managers, UI/UX designers, front-end and back-end coders, the QA team, and the deployment team to bring features to life that met or exceeded internal and external stakeholders’ needs.• Managed the entire backlog and current development of the Equestrian roadmap which made up between 40% and 60% of product development company-wide.• Prioritized user stories to maximize value while addressing and balancing the needs of all stakeholders: clients, end-users, staff, investors.• Actively participated in regular strategic planning meetings to ensure planned product epics and features were aligned with medium term business goals and the vision of the organization.• Managed a variety of projects including: major feature development, API development, data migration projects, and client implementations.• Provided bi-weekly roadmap status reports to all stakeholders and presented solutions to clients as desired features were deployed

Squamish, Bc

• Primary contact for all internal and external stakeholders on the District-wide ERP roll-out of Unit 4 Business World and successfully built relationships with impacted departments and external vendors.• Coordinated the Unit 4 Business World ERP roll-out (the largest IT acquisition the District had ever made), including project planning, requirements gathering, solution development, functionality and business process testing, and facilitating collaborative decision making throughout the project.• Ran virtual meetings with consultants, vendors, and other stakeholders.• Identified, investigated and resolved system configuration issues and implemented system improvements and optimizations.• Lead technical meetings to integrate District systems into the fully-fledged ERP.• Defined, documented, configured and tested functionality such as complex workflows in collaboration with all 16 District departments.• Developed and provided presentations to the Senior Leadership Committee on key project updates and escalated risks to the project governance committee when needed.• Created screen-captured tutorial videos and documentation to facilitate self-service staff training on UI, financial processes, workflow approvals, and timesheet entry.

Vancouver, Canada

• Was the lead implementation consultant (onsite and remote work) on SaaS registration solution projects for: - Montgomery County, Maryland - The City of Winnipeg - George Washington University, Washington D.C. - Virginia Beach Parks District - The School District of Palm Beach - Northwestern University, Illinois - The University of Guelph, Ontario - The City of Palo Alto, California - And many others• Actively logged bugs and product improvements using JIRA and joined product department meetings to push for edits to the software development roadmap to address high-impact issues and build high-benefit improvements.• Delivered rapid, on-the-fly software, hardware, configuration and networking issue identification and resolution while remaining calm, professional, positive, and client-focused during all consulting sessions.• Routinely performed business process reviews for organizations which covered requirements gathering, software integrations, strategizing data migration, risk identification and mitigation, business process optimization, and financial discussions. These multi-day meetings were often with C-level executives and financial directors.• Performed onsite and remote training for up to 30 attendees at a time.• Developed an exceptional ability to solve complicated organizational and technical problems to exceed client expectations.• Documented custom training manuals and technical materials for clients to ensure their long term success.• Received an average net promoter score (customer satisfaction metric) of 9 out of 10 across all of my implementations and developed strong client relationships which routinely resulted in recurring client work.• Led financial discussions to ensure our sub-ledger software would work with our client’s general ledgers and to identify the client’s revenue recognition practices

At RewardStream I managed the development and deployment of loyalty-marketing websites for clients such as Nestle, T-Mobile, and AT&T.

Myself and four other Master’s degree alumni developed a gesture recognition technology company aimed at providing interactive advertising, information delivery, and entertainment. I managed internal stakeholders, clients, and projects in a rapid-paced, start-up, innovation-driven environment. We pitched VCs and received investment to develop projects for Vancouver International Airport and retailer Jugo Juice.

Master Of Digital Media, Business, Management, And Technology

Ba, Cognitive Systems