Taro Naruse Email & Phone Number

Pittsburgh, Pa, Us

Niche is the leading platform connecting students and families with colleges and schools. We believe finding the right school shouldn’t be hard, so we’re committed to making it easy for our users to discover and connect with the best ones for them. With unique ratings, honest reviews, personalized recommendations, and tools to guide users through every step, Niche is changing the way millions of people find and connect with their school.

Brooklyn, Ny, Us

Executive team member leading Product Management, Product Design and People for Series C e-commerce marketplace; also served as interim head of data and engineering.Investors include NEA, Thrive Capital, G Squared.

Tempe, Az, Us

Head of Product and GM for GoDaddy's $100M+ run rate portfolio of Do-It-For-Me marketing services for small business (website building, website management, digital marketing); also served as Head of Product for GoDaddy's portfolio of saas marketing software tools for small business (email marketing, social media marketing and reputation management).As Head of Product, helped drive 40% YoY gain ('19 vs '18) in Services revenue via significant improvements in both customer acquisition and retention. Led a geographically distributed R&D team of 60 product managers, designers and engineers.As GM, drove significant budget-beating results in 2021, setting up a path towards growth and away from the significant COVID 19-related impacts to the business.

Austin, Tx, Us

Main Street Hub was an Austin-based startup that offered tech-enabled, Do-It-For-Me digital marketing services to small businesses. Main Street Hub was acquired by GoDaddy in July 2018; investors included Vista Equity Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harrison Metal and Silicon Valley Bank. Hired as VP responsible for the core product platform, customer success and customer retention, reporting to the CPO. Tasked with step-changing customer retention and re-starting customer growth as soon as possible after a long period of stagnation. My initial mission was to:- Design a scalable new customer journey based on the findings of a successful pilot - Roll that customer journey out to all new customers within my first 6 months- Improve the scalability and measurability of our internal operations After the rollout of the new customer experience, month 6 retention increased by 1000 basis points, monthly customer acquisition improved 45% and customer count began to grow again. These results helped to catalyze the acquisition of Main Street Hub by GoDaddy.

MAKE CREATE was a platform for sourcing and hiring photography professionals and production resources for high-end editorial and advertising productions nationwide.

Austin, Tx, Us

RetailMeNot is a leading savings destination bringing people and the things they love together through savings with retailers, brands and restaurants. RetailMeNot IPO'd in July 2013; investors included Institutional Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Austin Ventures, Adams Street Partners and JP Morgan.Hired as Employee #80 and Director, Social Products; rapidly promoted to Sr. Director and then VP Product responsible for core site monetization/conversion rate optimization, social and community apps, personalization and email. Reported to CPO.RetailMeNot exceeded $265M in revenue and 700M visits in 2014 (in 2011, revenue was $80M) and per-visit monetization improved every year from 2011-2014. Recruited, hired and managed a team of 15 PMs during a period of relentless, rocket-ship growth. Worked closely with the design, engineering and SEO teams to deliver the most user-friendly and performant solution in the industry, which competitors stole from liberally. User-centric approach heavily leveraged user-centered design principles, usability testing, focus groups, a strong culture of rapid experimentation and innovative engineering work.

New York, Ny, Us

Hired to lead NBA League Pass, NBA Fantasy, NBA Social Apps, NBA Advanced Stats and NBA Community; reported to GM, NBA Digital.Oversaw development of novel and innovative products that burnished the NBA's reputation as a cutting-edge technology company (the NBA is consistently recognized as one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Companies") and created lucrative DTC and sponsorship revenue opportunities for the League and Turner Sports.Re-designed NBA League Pass to include in-app monetization, home and away announcer feeds and live scores and stats.In partnership with Meta, developed an app ("NBA Pulse") that displayed the most popular NBA news and content based on real-time trending data from Facebook. The app became a multi-season staple for sponsorship opportunities and was marketed heavily during NBA tentpole events (All-Star, Playoffs) and NBA game broadcasts. In partnership with the NBA advanced analytics team, developed a web app that supported deep statistical analysis and comparisons of NBA players and team lineup variations.Formally recognized as a high-potential leader as part of the Turner/Time Warner succession planning program. Left after 18 months to pursue a compelling opportunity at an early stage startup; the League was also in the midst of a 160-day lockout which jeopardized and ultimately significantly delayed the start of the 2011-2012 NBA season.

Beverly Hills, California, Us

Promoted to VP Product, reporting to President of Live Nation Ticketing. Selected to lead Product for Live Nation Ticketing, the most critical digital initiative for the company, intended to position Live Nation as the dominant direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform for artist goods (tickets, merch, content, etc). Hired team of 5 PMs to conduct hundreds of hours of stakeholder interviews and produce extensive requirements for all aspects of the B-to-B-to-C ticketing platform including inventory management, ticket sales, customer support, reporting and access management, as well as the customer-facing surfaces used by millions of ticket buyers on desktop and mobile web. The same team would lead our offshore development and L&D teams to successful launch, training and roll-out. Delivered Live Nation Ticketing to market, fully rolled-out in all Live Nation-owned venues in the U.S., in less than 12 months. Sold $500M of tickets in 2009. Live Nation Ticketing's success was instrumental in bringing about Live Nation's acquisition of rival Ticketmaster.

Beverly Hills, California, Us

Hired out of business school as company's first Product Director, six months after Live Nation was spun out of Clear Channel Entertainment; reported to EVP, Live Nation Digital.Helped create the initial digital strategy, created and managed the product roadmap and rapidly scaled the product management and program management teams. Delivered the first iterations of LiveNation.com in 2006 and 2007, which quickly became the #2 live event web site in the world behind Ticketmaster, while selling $60M of Live Nation-owned tickets (2006).Initial strategy focused on making the Live Nation consumer brand synonymous with live events; accordingly, we launched the most comprehensive live event content and ticketing portal online, where fans could purchase tickets to any event and get personalized recommendations for upcoming events in their area.PM’d many of the initial core site features including search, ticket purchase funnels, core landing page experiences (event, artist, venue) and personalization. Hired and managed a team of 10 product and program managers.Oversaw implementation of leading web analytics solutions of the time (Omniture, WebTrends, TeaLeaf).Ran extensive user experience / usability labs in partnership with Nielsen Norman Group.

New York, Ny, Us

Product/project management lead for consumer web application projects for Fortune 500 clients including P&G, Capital One and Novartis; worked closely with design/UX, engineering and account management with a focus on quality, efficiency and on-time/on-budget delivery.

Audio engineer at Mixed Nuts Recording, the first all-digital, non-linear audio post-production facility in New York City.Recorded and mixed projects for NY-based ad agencies and record labels.

Mba

B.S., Television, Radio And Film Production