Chris Smith Email & Phone Number

Menlo Park, Ca, Us

Product Management Lead / Group Product Manager for Instagram & Facebook Commerce, looking after the buyer & seller post purchase experience. In my current lead role, I directly support multiple teams and PMs.

New York, Ny, Us

Zype was the leading online video content management and OTT infrastructure & distribution platform. We helped broadcasters & video publishers build amazing direct-to-consumer video streaming products through powerful easy to use software.As SVP Product Management, I reported directly to our CEO and was responsible for roadmap, shipping new products and features, and product marketing. I supported the product management and UX functions, and had dotted line support of engineering and infra teams. We shipped tons of impactful features, leveling up our live streaming, core CMS, and launching new product lines like Playout (resulting in significant contribution to topline revenues).I was also a founding member of Zype's Sales Enablement and Professional Services teams, engaging with customers and prospects on solutions architecture, integrations, and custom feature implementation, which resulted in a dozens of new customers and turned into a multi-million dollar line of business for the company.We won the NAB 2019 Product of the Year Award in the B2B Streaming category for the launch of Zype Playout! Shortly after I left Zype, the company had a successful "exit" to a PE firm.

I was promoted from Director Product Management to co-CEO, head of Product & Engineering during the last few years of Zerve's independent operation. As co-CEO, I oversaw all product, engineering, content, marketplace and e-commerce teams, supporting a team of 16 in product / eng.While these last few years were a wild ride of ups and downs, I got deep first-hand exposure in new professional areas like partnerships and corporate development, team leadership and development, and overall strategic planning. We eventually divested the company's assets during our wind down, but I'll always look back at this time as my first "success" in tech.

Zerve was way ahead of its time as a commerce platform for tours and activities merchants, bringing online an industry stuck in phone/pen & paper bookings. This was my first professional "tech" experience and how I got my foot in the door in product management. I was initially hired as a business analyst, where I became an SME in ecommerce, SEO, and web usability and used that knowledge to lead hundreds of hours of consultative sessions with the SMB merchants who used our platform to sell their activities online.Within a year, I found myself identifying problems our sellers were facing, ideating solutions and translating those into requirements and lightweight PRDs. Ta-da, I became a Product Manager! I spent the next several years going into the deep end of Product Management, developing my skills and building my toolkit. Along the way I launched dozens of releases containing hundreds of high impact product features.Eventually I was promoted from PM to Sr. PM to Director of Product Management, overseeing all of our Product functions (across PM, UX, and Business Analysts). I hired and grew a high functioning product team.I also helped the company secure our first round of venture funding. This was my first experience with Sand Hill Road and I learned a lot about pitching to and interacting with VCs as part of a fundraise.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

During my tenure I was promoted from management trainee to Assistant Vice President / team leader for a top 3 branch within a region of 20+ branches. I was among the youngest AVPs ever in the history of the bank.This was my first chance to lead a team professionally, and my team consistently delivered top performance within the region across areas like sales referrals volume, compliance audit ratings, low operating losses, and net operating income (in the range of multi-millions of $'s).