Blake Watts Email & Phone Number

Santa Rosa, Ca, Us

Santa Rosa, Ca, Us

• AI Initiatives: Founder of the AI working group and co-author of the position paper on AI experimentation, applying a risk-based approach to GenAI and process automation, minimizing toil by up to 97%.• Leadership: Senior leader of 50+ product and development staff, increasing velocity by 27% and cutting lead times by 50%.• Budget Management: Oversee a multimillion-dollar budget, optimizing staff, software, licenses, vendors, and implementation partners, realizing a 22% cost reduction through contract renegotiations.• Efficiency Improvements: Streamlined meetings and communications with a stakeholder engagement model, liberating 200+ hours monthly.• Strategic Partnership: Partner with executive sponsors to align project goals with organizational strategy, enhancing communication and collaboration, generating an 11% improvement in stakeholder satisfaction.• Creative Contributions: Serve as the exclusive in-house voiceover talent for brand and communications teams, producing content for internal podcasts and customer phone messages, refining turnaround times by 67%.

Santa Rosa, Ca, Us

• Core System Migration: Directed product and development teams in building and migrating a core transaction processing system and APIs, boosting performance by 33% and reliability by over 250%.• Platform Launch: Guided product owners in launching a new online banking platform, enriching customer experience and raising satisfaction scores by 17%.• Compliance Monitoring: Created reports and dashboards as a member of the workforce protection team, collaborated with senior leadership to monitor safety metrics, ensured compliance with health regulations, and eliminated policy violations by 99%.• Stakeholder Engagement: Cultivated relationships with key stakeholders, converting vision into actionable product strategies and successful deliveries, yielding 7% higher stakeholder satisfaction.

Palo Alto, Ca, Us

• Strategy Redevelopment: Redeveloped strategy and key initiatives for brokerage and gifts business lines, causing a 300% lift in user engagement and a 15% revenue uptick.• Cost Reduction: Balanced maintaining legacy products with upgrading to next-generation features, lowering maintenance costs by 35%.• Customer Insights: Conducted customer interviews, testing, focus groups, and feedback reviews to identify new features and partnerships; ran product share-outs to demonstrate new features company-wide, driving internal adoption up by over 500%.• Development Efficiency: Defined requirements, wireframes, and prototypes in collaboration with engineering and design; coordinated QA/UAT, resulting in a 50% drop in development time and a 70% decline in escaped defects.

San Francisco, California, Us

Product owner for the trade engine and proprietary platform used to onboard new clients and manage existing accounts for the investment division. Prioritized new initiatives that drove efficiency and reliability for clients and employees by automating several manual workflows, and drove new initiatives for both client-facing and employee-facing features.Built a new identity verification product making use of machine learning image analysis, as well as an income verification product combining multiple third-party service providers.Led multiple other enterprise-wide automation products and projects focused on enhancing several workflows within operations, lending, mortgage, accounting, risk, compliance, AML, and other teams.

New York, Ny, Us

Assisted clients with financial and investment advice. Developed and reviewed financial plans for individuals and families, and implemented investment strategies to meet client objectives.

New York, Ny, Us

Oversaw retail branch with direct responsibility for sales and operational performance. Opened new accounts and assisted customers with bank transactions as needed. Managed and improved branch performance, including Branch Profit & Loss, Service Scores, Sales Campaign Results, and regularly communicated branch performance and priorities with all employees. Supervised and coached Personal Bankers to acquire and deepen customer relationships, and also met with all new account customers. Interacted with existing customers, and engaged with every account close request.Grew the business by understanding branch performance, diagnosing any issues, building a Branch Action Plan, and inspecting with thorough follow-up. On a daily basis, conducted huddles and debriefs to recognize success, share best practices, and set the focus for the day. Responsible for hiring and retaining employees and ensured the right mix of sales and service positions. Developed and coached employees and held employees accountable for overall performance. Responsible for ensuring that all employees followed policies and procedures.

Dallas, Tx, Us

Assisted the Store Manager in the daily operation of a retail store. Scheduled employees, maintained inventories, conducted physical inventories, maintained store appearance, and completed day-to-day paperwork. Assisted Store Manager in the development, training and management of assigned team, and supported sales personnel.

Career Certificate, Fire Technology

Business Administration