Bill Ott Email & Phone Number

Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area

Global market leader of transportation safety equipment for mobility devices with significant market share in over 70 countries. They have led the industry in innovation and distribute a mass customizable product lines offering manual through fully autonomous systems. Led global product development team including Product Management, Advanced Technology, Industrial Design, Product Management, Project Management and R&D & Sustaining Engineering, and Application Engineering functions.• Established the Product Management function and recruited, trained and integrated new resources for the role.• Worked closely with the sales team to develop 50+ new product variants to meet the needs of our channel partners, OEMs and transportation agencies.• Mapped vehicle Bid Specification process to identify opportunities for new product communication.• Implemented a market driven product development process that focused on quantitative, qualitative and Ethnography insights to identify unmet needs that drove new product USPs.• Developed and deployed a pricing tool that leveraged market-based assessments and validated elasticity through Van Westendorp and Conjoint analysis.• Deployed Agile product development methods focused on reducing risk through short development sprints and MVP driven customer validation improving concept development speed.• Developed a Market Launch plan process enabling marketing materials, demo systems and sales training to be delivered at least 2 months prior to market launch.• Developed an integrated QFD driven Product and Market Requirements document that included defining the unmet needs, critical sales points, competitor SWOT analysis and line structure.• Leveraged the company 5-year strategy, technology trends, geographic trends, market trends, regulatory trends, market insights and competitive analysis to develop a Product and Technology Roadmaps by category.

Greater Denver Area

Led multi-site, product development team including Advanced Technology, Innovation, Industrial Design, Project Management, Mechanical/Electrical/Software Engineering and Quality functions in support of the $400M North American market.• Led efforts to transform the organizational structure, internal processes, new technology development, resource competency and engineering automation tools to deliver +$213M of incremental new product offerings.• Improved multi-site project staffing by 175%, skillset improvements by 40% and redundant resource elimination of 15%; increased engineering capacity by +325% while reducing R&D/Revenue by +11% and Revenue/Head by 28%.• Implemented a product portfolio management system that leveraged “Open Innovation” methods to initially identify 350+ new product ideas with a potential incremental annual revenue of +$450M.• Developed an Opportunity Assessment tool to quickly evaluate project market potential and resource prioritization to go from 120 active projects delivering $12.5M annually to 28 active projects delivering $53M annually.• Implemented a resource capacity planning system and process to ensure focus of critical technical resources to improve Time-to-Market (TTM) by 33% and schedule attainment from 78% to 93%.• Reorganized product development team to align across locations enabling common methods, processes, policies and tools allowing elimination of redundant resources saving 18% of annual personnel budget.• Implemented Lean/Agile innovation methods using rapid iteration, “Build, Measure, Learn” cycles, risk burn-down and a learning based approach that resulted in winning 2 prestigious international innovation awards and 2 “Good Design” awards.• Diversified Intellectual Property interests to include robotics, fleet management system and IOT apps and filed 35+ patent applications with 20 granted patents.

Bowling Green, Ky

Leadership team member of a $120M business for market leading products. Instituted new strategic thinking, clear objectives, team structures and key performance metrics across the product development lifecycle. • Transformation of global resources from a functional operating structure to a value stream orientation organizing across U.S and Asia and aligning competencies to cross-functional teams to create a global matrix organization.• Industry expert on LED technologies and capabilities and established key partnerships with LED manufacturers and technology providers to establish industry best lumens/$, efficacy and expected lifetime.• Assembled and led retail line review efforts that led to a 10% increase in SKUs and placement of initial LED products that ultimately enabled HeathCo to win “Vendor of the Year” at Lowes.• Led efforts to launch successful lighting program in Australian market that produced 50% growth in total sales in first year.• Promoted to Strategic Business Unit manager of the $80M Intelligent Lighting business that yielded a global Net Sales CAGR of 6% and Contribution Margin CAGR of 13% in a down market.• Established strategy and drove product execution to grow LED and solar lighting business from 2 to 20% of total revenue. • Garnered widespread distribution to 10K home centers, hardware stores and mass merchant retailers. Strengthened exclusive relationship with Home Depot by launching 55 custom SKUs generating $23M in revenue in the first 6 months of launch.• Led efforts to successfully win a patent infringement case against a major competitor that resulted in the competitor pulling their product from the market and enabling an additional 5% market share shift.• Led Intellectual Property efforts to garner strategic market advantages and filed 30+ patent applications with 24 granted patents.• Led efforts to develop a custom ASIC to incorporate all digital circuitry and functionality that enabled an annual $2.3M in cost savings.

Hampton, Va

Recruited by the Chairman/Founder to transform a niche R&D company into a commercially viable, fully integrated business. Member of a 3-person senior leadership team with oversight for establishing cohesive R&D, engineering, product management, product development, contract manufacturing and global supply chain disciplines. • Recruited, organize and led a 40-person cross-functional team from program management, electrical, mechanical, chemical, test and materials engineer¬ing disciplines. Supplemented technical expertise with 3rd party consultants.• Assisted in the development of a new business model and strategic plan to capitalize on +$50M of emerging market opportunities and position PAR as a niche market leader in high volume, global component development and manufacturing.• Established organizational structure and staffing model, lean product development processes, performance management systems to improve organizational throughput by +35%.• Oversaw 76 US/foreign filings for smart material applications and engineering/technical procedures. • Completed the feasibility and concept cycle of 8 products/applications on average per year offering higher performance and durability.• Substantiated the viability of proposed R&D and business development initiatives to increase customer base by 37% based on inherent feasibility, cost and potential market value.• Developed business opportunity modeling tools, which put discipline and structure into development and partnering activities that improved quote turn-around time by +50%.• Transformed advanced technology concepts into a comprehensive, commercially viable, scalable, adaptable product portfolio that led to a YOY sales growth of +25%.• Established an CAE strategy, automated test equipment capabilities, reliability methods, technical documentation to improve operational efficiency by +150%.

Syracuse, New York Area

Member of the Product Development management team responsible for driving the Engineering function on new products, sustaining and innovation. Activities included:• Reorganized engineering function to enable full support of all new product development activities including hardware, software, mechanical, systems, packaging, test equipment and production processes.• Implemented Product Data Management system, a more efficient, integrated product planning and development approach. • Developed resource capacity planning tool that provided proactive allocations of resources to ensure schedule attainment.• Aligned global engineering processes and developed templates to improve time to market and accuracy of engineering deliverables.Established Engineering Automation function and implemented a PDM, system software CM and virtual team collaboration.

Master Of Business Administration (Mba), Business Administration And Management, General

Master'S Degree, Mechanical Engineering

Bachelor'S Degree, Mechanical Engineering