Kurt Van Etten Email & Phone Number

Lake Forest, Ca, Us

New York, Us

Responsible for leading the Product Management function for enterprise software and internal tools. Version one feature lacked customer engagement. Led effort to conduct segmentation based on user sophistication. Redesigned end-to-end user experience to improve user engagement by over 40%.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Providing coaching to mid level Product Mangers looking to move into PM leadership roles. Mentoring included skill gaps assessment, resume review, and mock interviews.

New York, New York, Us

New York, New York, Us

Menlo Park, California, Us

Responsible for Product Management, Product Marketing, Engineering, and Quality Assurance functions. A key player in helping the company be acquired by Symphony Technology Group in April 2019. Service Strategy. Renewals rates low in commercial markets due to industry-wide information security talent shortage. Launched pilot to provide RedSeal Managed Service. Recruited system integration partners to also provide service. Service offering now GA to customers with paying customers and a strong pipeline.GTM Strategy. Lack of focused GTM and referenceable customers. Conducted Analysis across several verticals and the product offering. Launched a targeted campaign and solution for Health Care vertical. Quickly had very successful accounts that are now referenceable. Process Improvement. Drive efforts to implement and continuously improve Agile SCRUM development. Establish metrics for productivity and quality. The process changes led to higher productivity and greater empowerment of small cross-functional teams that improved morale.

Menlo Park, California, Us

Implementations limited primarily to Network Security teams. Repositioned RedSeal as a platform with use cases across multiple security functions. Developed supporting product roadmap to solve revenue blocking issues and execute on strategy. Revenue grew over 100% in 3 years. Sales Enablement. Sales force sales plays too broad and complex. Conducted sales training in line with new platform positioning. Developed education, sales plays, and collateral on each target RedSeal security persona. Trained sales team on persona specific qualifying questions, customer pain points, and RedSeal features to address pain points.Product Ecosystem. RedSeal was an isolated product that lacked integrations with key third-party security tools. Created and executed on product strategy to develop apps for major SIEM and vulnerability management vendors. Developed an API strategy to allow third-party integrations. Integrations led to marketing partnerships, more sales, and successful implementations. Product Modernization. RedSeal appliance that lacked scale and capabilities to model modern data centers. Executed on a successful strategy to horizontally scale product that led to numerous multimillion-dollar expansions. Develop solutions to model AWS, Azure, VMWare NSX, and Cisco ACI all leading to new sales.

San Francisco, California, Us

Train aspiring Product Managers on the fundamentals of Product Management over a 10-week course.

San Jose, California, Us

Managed product strategy for Symantec’s Risk & Compliance Business Unit. P&L responsibility for ~$100M business line. Managed global team of 8 product managers. Direct activities of Product Marketing and Technical Sales Enablement.Product Strategy. Product Strategy for Risk Management was fragmented and causing confusion with sales and customers. Formed Cross-functional team to reseat strategy and create new platform vision focus on customer needs to complete key tasks. Used strategic frameworks such as Jobs Profile, Blue Ocean, and Five Forces to structure teams thinking. Vision is currently the cornerstone of larger company initiative.Refocus team on the customer. Product team focused on technical features and not customer needs. User experience fragmented and not intuitive. Formed cross-functional core teams to develop strategies in the areas of IT GRC, Architecture and Vulnerability Management. Chartered user research focused on CISO’s Risk and Compliance teams. Change PLC to include use case approach and adopt Agile processes.Change Management. Sales, Product, Marketing team optimized around IT Ops buying center. Influenced teams to refocus on upsell to new CISO buying center. Worked with Marketing to design sales training, and sales collateral to include video and web. Reorganized team around target buying centers. Influence Analyst Relations. Conducted ~20 analyst briefings globally to include both IT GRC and eGRc analysts at Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and other analysts. Achieved the highest rating from Forrester and improved rating from Gartner.

San Jose, Ca, Us

Director - Product Management, PayPal Manage staff of seven in responsibility for technical design and implementation of products for Resolutions Center platform that conducts ~2 million cases a month. Other responsibilities include Restrictions platform, Protections, and Merchant Fraud FiltersDesigned Fraud Tool strategy and implementation. PayPal Fraud Risk Filters solution has various product lines and confusing user experience. Digital goods segment not served with the current solution. Conducted competitive analysis and customer interviews. Designed plan to rationalize tools set to provide a single location on-site to control all Risk filters. Managed 3rd Party Resolution solution. PayPal Resolution Center not addressing the needs of Large Merchants and Channel Partners. Conducted interviews to understand the problem and get feedback on possible solutions. Implemented user-based solution under an extremely tight schedule with the overseas development team. Implemented Product planning best practices. Communication of business strategy, product strategy and implementations was disjointed and done in isolation. Form core teams around four product lines to include business, product, operations, development, and analytics. This resulted in uniform agreed-upon strategy, metrics, and KPIs that led to quicker implementations and reduced churn. Designed and advocated for a decentralized planning model that has sped decision making and increased flexibility while maintaining governance model. Rapid product planning and leadership. Led and drove cross-functional effort to define eBay Germany Resolutions strategy and product implementation. Required coordination across several geographies and in-depth knowledge of unique business and legal conditions by region. Personally organized and drove product definition workshop that led to PRD creation and approval in only 8 weeks after initial ideation.

San Mateo, Ca, Us

Vice President- Product Management, FixYa (start up), Developed and maintained product roadmap. Wrote PRDs and drive rapid execution in rapidly changing environment. Work closely with off shore development and QA teams.Reduced churn of top contributing users by 25%. Lack of customer focused caused top “experts” to leave the site after one month. Conducted focus groups in coordination with community manager and customer support to identify top issues, create business case, write PRDs, and implement new features.Program Managed implementation of two major 3rd party integrations. Business deals were in place with no detailed requirements or execution plan. Conducted requirements analysis, worked closely with development to proposed solutions and created schedule and metrics. Both implementations delivered on time and in budget.Improved Conversion rates over 100%. Conducted continuous A/B testing and changes to UI design to improve site up sell of premium offerings.

San Jose, Ca, Us

Director – Technical Product Management, PayPal (an eBay company)Manage staff of eight in responsibility for technical design and implementation of products for this $4.4B financial payments company. Work across Global Operations, Risk, Product Experience and Billing business units. Lead cross functional teams including product marketing, user interface design, development, QA, product planning and release management.Recruited hired and trained seven product managers from top schools and companies. Five of seven of moved into management positions at PayPal.Created continuous feedback loop process from customer support agents to product management. Interviewed and shadow customer support agents to identify root cause of customer and internal issues. Prioritized issues and created feedback loop back to appropriate business units.Drove implementation of anti phishing efforts that reduce PayPal account takeovers by 25%. Strategy included combination of partnerships, backend process changes, and customer facing offerings. Conducted buy vs. build analysis.

San Jose, Ca, Us

Director - Security Programs, eBay Inc, Managed staff of twelve. Responsible for program and product management of consumer and internal security programs. Managed audit and compliance function. Conducted market research through focus groups and surveys. Evaluated technological solutions including buy vs. build analysis. Managed eBay first SOX compliance audits and PayPal Visa/MC compliance. Formed Audit team to work with Internal Audit and Compliance to conduct internal and external vulnerability scans and remediate open issues. Formed close partnership with IT and Site Operations. Audit passed with no significant findings. Developed advanced ID theft reduction product, selling out all beta test units in three weeks at e-Bay. Identity theft increasingly plagued customer base and media criticized company’s lack of response. Tasked to develop a product road map for increased authentication. Led team in conducting detailed technical analysis, focus groups, surveys and usability studies. Led to both eBay and industry solutions.

Washington, Dc, Us

Director-Intelligence Analysis- Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, U.S. Marine CorpsManage staff of 12 Marines and civilians to conduct both geopolitical and tactical analysis to support anti terrorist operations in the Horn of Africa. Ranked no. 1 of 40 officers for reorganizing team and improving performance. The military intelligence section in the Horn of Africa was underperforming. Tasked by Chief of Staff to reorganize team. Implemented information management policies, conducted training at all levels, and consistently raised the standards and capabilities the unit.. The team responded quickly and became highly respected and influential for their work. Team directly influenced the course of action. Conduct detailed analysis and provided recommendations on future operations based on analysis of target market, competitive threat, and cost/benefit.Brief analysis and findings to Commanding General, US Ambassadors, Congressional delegations, DIA, State Department, and UK, Canadian, French, and German allies.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Engineering Manager, Motorola, 1996 to 2000. Managed staff of five in responsibility for development and delivery of new product launch for this $43.7B high-tech manufacturer. Led cross-functional and international team consisting of representatives from product marketing, mechanical, electrical, and software engineering. Conducted customer visits to resolve critical technical and business issues. Conducted negotiations with worldwide suppliers on price, delivery, and quality standards. Trained engineers on Six Sigma and other statistical analysis techniques. Solved product failures, mitigated exposure and saved millions of dollars for Motorola. Largest and most demanding customer was experiencing product field failures and requesting compensation. Prepared for visit to customer by becoming familiar with all possible failure scenarios and solutions. Listened to complaints and resolved product failure. Customer was pleased with solutions and dropped requests for compensation.

Mba, Marketing & Operations

Bs, Economics