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Work Background
Santander UKSenior Product Owner - My Home Manager
Feb. 2021London, England, United KingdomI've led My Home Manager from an idea to launch. We’re just getting started, and have a vision to make it the one-stop shop for homeowners. When we launched to customers we achieved a series of firsts; a product on AWS cloud, that is truly customer/data led and iterative, with new business models, that is beyond banking. It combines data and a marketplace of home service providers. The goal is to educate customers to make informed decisions and take action all in one place. From the start, research told us buying, owning and moving home is fragmented. We took time to understand customer groups and their needs, follow the flow of money, learn the business models, observe incumbents and track proptech. Using this insight we wrote a strategy on the customer journeys and pain points we’d focus on, how to create value for Santander and where to start. This thinking was adopted by Santander Group forming the OneEurope Homes strategy. With the strategy and insight we secured Exec sponsorship and funding to get started. We formed a product team and established ways of working and culture (agile, self managing, collaborative, empowered, curious) and got buy-in from key teams (legal, compliance, risk). Agile development began -> Ideation. Wireframes. Customer testing. Iteration. Design. Copywriting. More research. Validation. Spikes. User stories. Prioritisation. Testing. Build. (Re-platform). Deliver. To prioritise; a scorecard. Finding the balance of value for customers, the bank, the product team, technical complexity, speed to market and defensibility. We increase confidence by starting lean before investing in integrated solutions. Alongside this, partner development. Identifying partners, building relationships, negotiation, onboarding and due diligence, and contracting. And making sure it lands well. Developing colleague comms and training, and a customer engagement plan. Now it's in market and we continue to learn, improve and evolve.
Santander UKSenior Innovation Partner
Aug. 2016London, United KingdomI lead a team who work on a portfolio of projects supporting the banks strategic priorities. I'm responsible for development of new business models, new propositions and services (specifically related to home and mortgage), and de-risking investment in large strategic projects. I do this by ensuring everything we do is meeting real customer needs and commercially viable. I joined the team designing and building our first chatbot which enabled customers to see and interact with their Santander accounts through Facebook Messenger. Our Beta users could ask about their transactions and balances, and set notifications. Cambridge Analytica happened and the bank decided not to launch to market, although the technology and learnings evolved into the chat service on our website and online bank. Next I spent 6 months co-located with WhatIf Innovation running an R&D project on home buying. I led the development of a portfolio of ideas of which some are in market, some didn't scale, and some were future strategies. WhatIf is where I honed my research skills. I used what I learned to develop a new framework and toolset for how we deliver Innovation and new ventures across the Santander Group. Next I worked with Thought Machine to ideate the future of financial education - Money Monsters, a moneybox that makes 'digital' money tangible to help kids learn about money. It connected digital banking to a physical product and was the first of its type for the bank and the UK market. The project delivered a number of firsts for Santander including gathering a waiting list and building our own physical device. Unfortunately it never made it to scale (happy to share why). The next idea was a Homes Innovation proposition - My Home Manager, a marketplace for homeowners, and it's now launched. I'm focusing on growing the user base and taking it from a minimum lovable product to a scale marketplace. I'm focusing on this for now, before I get back to designing more new ideas.
Santander UKDigital Channel Manager - Mobile Product Owner
Sep. 2015 - Aug. 2016Triton Square, London / Santander House, Milton KeynesI joined the Digital Servicing team to define the strategy for Santander’s mobile proposition, on both app and responsive web. Working backwards from the longer term customer vision, we identified the transformation required to move from the existing app portfolio to meet the future customer needs. Once the strategy was in place, I worked to deliver Santanders' new mobile banking app as one of the first agile projects in the bank. I joined as part of the process design workstream, before being appointed Product Owner delivering some of the core features you see today in our app including the Home screen, account screens and payments journeys.
Santander UKCustomer Experience Manager
Oct. 2014 - Sep. 2015Triton Square, LondonI designed (including wireframes, process design, email comms) and simplified end to end journeys for customers to process applications for key products, Credit Cards and UPLs, and designed payments journeys for the mobile app. I managed the customer testing process for prototypes gathering feedback to improve the usability and design of key components.
Santander UKGraduate Retail Bank Manager
Sep. 2013 - Oct. 2014Canary Wharf, London
InditexDeputy Manager Menswear
Feb. 2013 - Sep. 2013Knightsbridge, London
House of FraserDeputy Manager
Nov. 2010 - Feb. 2013Menswear
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