Mark Sones - Chief Product Officer, The human experience

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Network Power<100 people

Roles

🔥50%

Startup Founder

💸50%

Marketing

✔️50%

Geos

🇺🇸100%

United States

Work Background

The Human ExperienceCOO / CPO

Jul. 2023Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area · RemoteWorking on something new - coming soon!

BazaarvoiceDirector of Product Management

Jan. 2022 - Jul. 2023Austin, Texas Metropolitan AreaWe're building the future of automation and enablement at Bazaarvoice. I lead the platform portfolio, which spans 9 development teams focused on shared systems, tools, and processes used across the product development organization.

AmazonSenior Product Manager - Technical

Mar. 2021 - Dec. 2021Austin, Texas Metropolitan AreaI'm responsible for user authentication, SSO, and other aspects of user management for Amazon Business.

Alamo Drafthouse CinemaSenior Director of Product Management - Internal Systems

Jun. 2020 - Nov. 2020Austin, Texas AreaAlamo Drafthouse is a nationwide chain of movie theaters & restaurants. As Senior Director, I've driven a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of the tech stack for nearly every department. I've conducted thorough discovery of the company's needs, driven solution selection & approval by senior leadership, and executed on implementation and testing for each change.

Alamo Drafthouse CinemaDirector

Aug. 2019 - Jun. 2020Austin, Texas, United StatesSkills: Product Analytics · Defining Requirements · User Requirements

Indeed, Inc.Manager of Product Managers

Mar. 2016 - Feb. 2019Austin, Texas AreaOver the three years I spent in this role, I worked on multiple different teams and helped launch or drive major improvements in both B2B and internal products. This included: * managing a team of 4 Product Managers and oversaw 6 engineering teams executing on varied strategic initiatives. * driving the technical architecture, design, timeline, scope decisions, cross-product integrations, rollout phasing, and coordination for complete ERP transformation for Indeed. * launching a new data-rich presentation product for the sales department resulting in a 40% increase in revenue-per-sale for new customers. * spearheading the creation of global RBAC functionality in $2B/yr flagship product at Indeed, leading to 10% YoY decrease in churn among the 200k+ customers using the features.

Indeed, Inc.Associate Product Manager

Jun. 2015 - Mar. 2016Austin, Texas Metropolitan AreaI led the Finance Support engineering team at Indeed, where I * created a new billing summary tool for customers which reduced inquiries and complaints to Finance by over 90%. * launched a new invoicing system in under four weeks to support experimental products; ensured that all financial considerations were handled (including regulations, taxes, commission systems, and financial accounting). * spearheaded all financial aspects of a new corporate entity launch for Indeed’s APAC business, including rolling out new integrations with payment processors, migrating 150k+ accounts, and rebuilding tax & account assignment tools.

The Advisory Board CompanySenior Associate Business Analyst

May. 2014 - Jun. 2015Austin, TXAt the Advisory Board Company, I worked closely with major hospitals around the country to improve their technical systems and bring them new business. I used this role as an opportunity to develop critical new product features in our software and bring in significant new business to the company. While at the Advisory Board, I ran multiple projects implementing our software at hospital systems, and directly managed every stage of the data cleanup and ETL process.

Motion ComputingFinance Data Analyst

May. 2013 - May. 2014Austin, Texas AreaAt Motion, I had the opportunity to sit with the accounting department and really understand their day-to-day operations. By understanding the business from the detailed financial records, I was able to use my grasp of the company as a whole to drive major change: I revamped the budgeting system, customer service analytics, redefined how we calculate warranty costs, revised service contracts to protect the company, and overhauled our inventory system for forecasting needed supply of parts (saving the company over $200k in the process).

GameSalad, IncManager of Business Analytics

Oct. 2010 - May. 2013Austin, TXAs at many startups, I filled multiple roles at GameSalad. My primary roles were the creation and management of two departments: Education and Analytics. In Education, I worked closely with our clients, customer service, local teachers, university professors, and many others to collect information and refine our understanding of our customer's needs. Working with technology author Jeanie Novak and Cengage Publishing, we developed the Official GameSalad Guide to Game Development, a textbook in use today at many high schools and college campuses. I also served as Product Manager for the development of "GameSalad Cookbook", a series of online video guides walking users through the process of using the GameSalad Creator software. In Analytics, I personally handled the collection, analysis, forecasting, and presentation of all data relating to web traffic, tool use, daily performance of internal games, and records for tens of thousands of customer’s apps. This necessitated working closely with our internal game team and our software development team to collect data; I also was the sole analyst responsible for identifying issues, recommending improvements, and evaluating adjustments made for over a dozen iOS and Android titles At GameSalad, I taught myself (with some assistance from our engineers!) Postgres SQL and MySQL in order to access multiple databases; I also used complex excel formulas to chart and analyze millions of cells of data. I also had the privilege of running daily staff meetings with senior management, including C-level staff, and preparing monthly reports on the company's performance for the Board of Directors and various VC investors.

Challenge Online GamesLaw Clerk

Feb. 2009 - Jul. 2010At Challenge, I managed all of the incentive filings with the Texas Film Commission, including all stages of filing for $2.8MM production incentives; this required working directly with the senior executive team to develop and submit budget forecasts, game design documents, and other filing requirements. I also performed a wide range of other legal services, including transactional, intellectual property, compliance, licensing, and mergers/acquisitions. The best compliment I received at Challenge was when Zynga acquired the company; their attorneys informed me that the due diligence files I spent a sleepless week preparing were the best organized they had ever seen.

Texas Public Policy FoundationIntern

Sep. 2008 - Dec. 2008At TPPF, I assisted with research and writing of policy papers, including ghost-writing "The Decline in the Quality of Higher Education", a comprehensive look at major trends at public and private universities.

The Bush School of Government & PublicGraduate Assistant

Sep. 2006 - May. 2007As a graduate assistant to the Director for Strategic Communication, I developed and implemented a complete structural and content redesign of the College's website. I also assisted with the development of a major recruitment and marketing campaign, and wrote numerous articles and press releases about the school.

WisdomWorksPublic Relations Representative

May. 2002 - Aug. 2003Developed new sales accounts, managed public relations, maintained client relationships, and planned conferences Developed new sales accounts