Benjamin Cole Email & Phone Number

United States

San Francisco, California, Us

Over the course of roughly five years, oversaw product management for every area of the company, including the entirety of the Credit Passport, the company’s core product, which enables immigrants to use their foreign credit history in their new country. Earned the promotion to Group Product Manager based on contributions to the business’s growth and survival during the COVID-19 pandemic.• Drove double-digit increases in conversion rate and company revenue by launching user-research-backed improvements to our core product• Increased our coverage of the U.S. immigrant population by 15% by launching API integrations with credit bureaus in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines, opening the door to financial access for approximately 140,000 newcomers annually• Launched and worked with cross-functional stakeholders to grow our direct-to-consumer business, which, accounted for over a third of overall company revenue at its height• Led the company-wide software roadmapping process, synthesizing inputs from cross-functional stakeholders, including members of the C-suite• Managed the consumer product and user research functions, and mentored other PMs on topics including product strategy and user experience design• Provided pivotal support to enable international expansion to serve immigrants to the UK, Singapore, UAE, and Canada• Implemented business intelligence processes and tools including dashboards and metrics reports to enable stakeholders across the company to make informed business decisions

Led the campaign's finance team, comprising dozens of full-time staff, vendors, and volunteers across fundraising, compliance, human resources, and media spend.• Raised an unprecedented $1.6M, wildly exceeding expectations and enabling our candidate to run a competitive campaign against an entrenched incumbent• Oversaw a $1M+ budget, balancing unpredictable revenue over the course of several months against enormous variable expenditures in the final weeks of the race

Palo Alto, California, Us

Served as the company’s product leader, crafting and executing product strategy, conducting user-centered needs analysis, and determining how to apply emerging machine learning techniques to solve customer problems.• Created the company’s product strategy by conducting interviews with customer stakeholders and identifying opportunities to apply machine learning techniques to critical business problems• Prototyped and launched the company’s flagship machine learning feature, anomaly detection AI, which transformed the product's value proposition and exponentially increased its addressable market• Designed the user interface for our customers to engage with machine-learning-generated data, allowing our users to interpret the data and make informed decisions to improve their manufacturing processes• Raised the bar for the company’s product development process by introducing best practices and frameworks including Jobs to be Done, personas, and prototype usability testing

New York, Ny, Us

Spent weekends and evenings teaching product management to professional students in the New York Metropolitan Area. Topics included customer development, competitive analysis, and modern software development models.• Taught introductory and intermediate product management courses at General Assembly• Received top marks in student evaluations and retained many students from the introductory to intermediate courses

As the company's product lead, devised a product strategy to refine the product’s user experience and improve engagement.• Managed professionals across UX, data analysis, and content strategy to create a coherent product experience• Supported the CEO in pitching to potential acquirers, ultimately finding a corporate home for the company

Work From Anywhere, Us

Led product management for the company’s consumer user experience, improving the product’s user experience through a combination of design improvements and the application of machine learning techniques, such as collaborative filtering recommendation systems.• Created the product strategy for the consumer-facing side of the product, combining data analysis, industry insights, UX research, and strategic input from stakeholders• Launched a number of improvements to Kickstarter’s checkout, discovery, and social experiences, including the company’s first ever machine-learning-powered project recommendation engine, that resulted in substantial increases in revenue and engagement• Conducted dozens of interviews with Kickstarter’s most engaged consumers to determine user needs.• Spearheaded the introduction of a number of industry best practices, including agile and lean software development models and user research, to accelerate product delivery and enable rapid iteration.• Led a cross-functional team of nine engineers, designers, and data analysts, often standing in for tech and design leads

Mountain View, Ca, Us

Led product management for Google.org’s foray into consumer products and infrastructure to enable users to donate to nonprofits.• Launched Google’s internal donation infrastructure, which has channeled millions of dollars to nonprofits, as well as Android and iOS apps to make social causes more accessible and engaging• Led the definition of product strategy, working with stakeholders in product, engineering, user experience, and marketing• Defined, prioritized, and launched features and improvements, positively impacting key metrics, such as user engagement and dollars donated• Routinely presented to executive leadership at the Director, VP, and SVP levels on topics like product strategy, user research, and industry trends

Mountain View, Ca, Us

Worked in over a dozen countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America to build products and evangelize technology for emerging-markets-based users.• Created the company's strategy for emerging technologies on low-end phones, including SIM Toolkit and USSD, and negotiated deals with mobile operators around the world to launch new services built on these technologies• Worked with cross-functional teams of engineers, marketers, and business development professionals to build and launch new products for small businesses in emerging markets• Led a team of business development professionals to negotiate deals with mobile phone operators in emerging markets across the globe

Devised and answered high impact research questions through large-scale data analysis. Also created internal business intelligence tools to allow other Facebook employees to explore data and make more informed decisions.• Investigated the effects of social influence on behavior adoption through the acts of page fanning and app adoption using a combination of the Hive, Hadoop, and R• Aggregated data about friend requests broken down across a number of dimensions and created a simple frontend dashboard in Python to enable internal clients to analyze the information• Provided data-driven design consultation on a new user flow for event creation• Stayed on part-time after returning to college to continue my research

Ithaca, Ny, Us

Served as a teaching assistant for three courses in Computing and Information Science.• Assisted with teaching, grading, and administration for five courses, including Object-Oriented Programming, New Media and Society, and Culture, Law, and Politics of the Internet• As a sophomore, was the youngest person to teach section for CS 211, the intermediate computer science course• As a junior, was the only undergraduate to TA for a graduate-level information science course

Mountain View, Ca, Us

Conducted user experience research for multiple product teams to identify user needs and provide insights that informed product roadmaps and launch decisions.• Planned, executed, and analyzed 12 in-lab usability tests• Assisted fellow researchers with card sorts and cognitive walk-throughs• Completed a competitive analysis with the help of other Google researchers

Master Of Philosophy, Computer Science

Bachelor Of Science, Information Science

Visiting Student, Computer Science & Experimental Psychology