Regional Head Of Product - Ecommerce
Seek Asia (jobstreet.com & jobsdb.com)
Total years of experience :15 years, 11 Months
Manage 6 Product teams to deliver a world class experience to companies hiring candidates across 7 markets (MY, SG, ID, VN, HK, PH & TH).
Key Achievements
Improved Online Revenue Contribution From 24% to 40%
Increased Hirer LTV by 36% YoY in FY 19
Increased Our Relative Market Share (Candidates) Against Major Competitor By 21%
Increased SME Hirer Avg Order Value by 29% YoY
Increased Mobile App Conversion Rates By More Than 30% in Hong Kong
Increased Our SEO Visits Share Against Major Competitor To 3.2x
Regional Head of Product - E-Commerce (Jun 2018 - Present)
In this role, I am responsible to create scalable products & platform for hirers. Reporting to the Chief Product Officer and dotted to Head of Product & Technology, Melbourne, I oversee 2 direct reports and project-manage 2 teams consisting of engineers, analysts, product managers and UX specialists across Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong & Shenzhen. Overseeing these teams, I am responsible to set the business requirements and Objectives and Key Results (OKR). I am responsible for the Company’s online revenue growth - in FY19, the contribution of online revenue (To total revenue) grew from 24% to 40%.
Strategy & Planning - Being the market leaders, we need to consistently evolve our strategy to be able to defend the market leader position. My role requires me to partner with the Chief Strategy Officer and the strategy team and help them come up with a realistic strategy-to-market deployment.
Acquisition - In extension to the 2 core-projects’ team, I work with multiple teams to design strategies for hirer acquisition using different channels such as SEO, SEM, Social Media to name a few to build products to be able to offer an unmatched experience to hirers and onboard them.
Conversion Optimization - Monitor different conversion funnels through which hirers go through and consistently try to improve the conversion rates. I oversee the research initiatives to understand why the users are not converting and then the teams come up with hypothesis to solve those problems followed by A/B tests.
Re-Activation - Being a market leader for over 20 years, a large source of our customers are existing customers hence re-engaging and re-activating our existing customers is critical to our business. I oversee the project teams which build efficient re-engagement channels/content. This team is also responsible for managing our CRM and Marketing Automation tools.
Wholistic U-Ex - One of the key requirements of my role is to be able to understand the problems my customers are facing and solve them through better UI and improved processes. I partner with the sales and customer care teams to help interpret the customers’ feedback and experience and create customer-centric solutions.
Dynamic Pricing - We are a highly diverse business and we have a very broad range of customers who use our services. Their needs differ significantly from each other and how they perceive value. Part of my scope includes overseeing data scientists who are responsible to design algorithms which show dynamic prices to our customers.
Manage 6 Product teams to deliver a world class experience to Job seekers across 7 markets (MY, SG, ID, VN, HK, PH & TH).
Acquisition - New user acquisition through multiple channels was one of my key responsibilities including SEO, SEM, Direct and Social. Knowing that aggregators were becoming stronger in this space who depend heavily on search (paid and organic), my job was to ensure that we develop and execute an SEO & SEM strategy which improves our visibility in the search space and maximize our real estate on SERPs. Another key metric for me was to improve our brand consideration impacting our traffic through direct channels.
Engagement - One of my key responsibilities was to ensure that we are making it really easy for our candidates to find jobs and apply to them. The Top level metric for this was our conversion rate to applications. My job was to ensure that our design suits the different needs of candidates who come to our site and improve our visits to applications conversion
Re-engagement - By nature, Job search is not a one day process. On average candidates spend 3-6 months looking for a job and they are usually the most active during this period. As part of my responsibilities, I was supposed to make sure that the candidates who come to our site once, come to us very frequently during their job search process. I developed a very comprehensive re-engagement strategy based on channel innovation and content diversification which increased our “avg sessions per user month” quite significantly.
Search Experience - Candidates who come to our site, come to us because they think we have the most jobs but they also expect us to show them the most relevant jobs. A part of my responsibilities was to ensure that i work with our AI teams (Based in Melbourne) to develop highly efficient matching algorithms to personalize the jobs we are showing to our candidates.
Mobile Apps - considering the fact that the likes of Google and Facebook are venturing into this space, it was critical for us to reduce our dependence on browser initiated journeys and migrate our users to our mobile apps as much as we possibly could. My job was to Deliver a more comprehensive and intuitive mobile app experience to acquire and retain users.
Stakeholder Management - Being a highly product led organization, there are multiple stakeholders which need to be engaged while working on product roadmaps and then communicated to after delivery of different products. As part of my responsibility, i was supposed to ensure that all the stakeholders ( Strategy, Sales, Operations, Country Operations etc) are onboard with our product plans and offer full support in rolling the products out.
Plan and execute all digital operations across 7 countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong & Thailand. As part of the leadership team below are my major responsibilities
Digital Strategy: Work closely with the strategy team to put in place digital strategy for Seek Asia. I am mainly responsible for coming up with bigger picture digital initiatives for jobstreet and jobsDB across all the countries we operate in. I also work on analyzing future trends and our competitors to ensure we are always 2 steps ahead. Another key aspect of this role is providing annual KPIs to country marketing teams and get a buy-in from them.
Product Development & Rollout: Work closely with the product teams to help build the product roadmap based on consumer sentiment and expectations. I act as a lobbyist for consumers during product planning. Once a product is tested and ready, I help to release it in across 7 countries.
Digital Advertising: Plan and execute the paid digital strategy and framework for both brands across 7 countries. I have built in-house capabilities to manage our paid advertising along with some support from agencies depending on the country's capabilities. I work directly with Google & Facebook for most media buying.’
SEO: Execute & manage the organic search strategy for jobstreet & jobsDB across all 7 countries. Analyze competitor rankings and conducting detailed forensic studies to figure out the reasons which influence our organic rankings followed by a detailed execution plan. I work on analyzing our link profile in relevance to our competitors and ensuring that its enhanced on a regular basis.
Marketing Automation: I head a cross functional team which is responsible to hack non conventional methods of marketing. I have recently implemented a fully automated browser notification tool which automatically segments users and sends them precisely targeting notifications through their browsers. Other than this I am working on creating on a Chat bot which will help all seek users to subscribe their job alerts through Facebook messenger.
CRM & Database: Jobstreet & Jobsdb being the market leaders have a tremendous database of users in every country and i help them make sense of it. I work with the technology teams to enhance our CRM and integrate that with our messaging system to improve deliverability and visibility across different channels. I have actively been involved in a “behavioral data collection” project to improve customer segmentation.
Digital Analytics: Work closely with the analytics team to churn out meaningful data for the entire marketing organization across 7 countries. Implement new analytics tools for testing and provide reports on the success of various experiments. Quite comfortable with search metrics, Google Analytics, Omniture & Google Design Studio etc.
Content Marketing: I lead a team of content writers and content strategists who work on producing engaging content for our stakeholders. I mainly play my part as a coach and an SEO expert to add value to the team. I am involved in various content platform and design uplift projects across 7 countries.
Achievements
Increased Email Revenue By More Than 200%
Increased Organic Revenue Significantly
Increased Overall Revenue Significantly
Increased Recurring Traffic Significantly
Increased Average Order Value By More Than 150%
Increased Organic Traffic By More than 200%
Responsibilities
Customer Acquisition - One of my major responsibilities is to ensure a constant flow of new customers for the business and it includes all the channels such as SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Partnerships, Programmatic advertising, ASO, Mobile App Acquisition just to name a few
Product Development - A big part of my role is to understand user value and offer an exceptional experience to our customers. This core function requires me to think about different products/features which would enhance the experience of our users and work with our engineering teams to bring the product to life. Prioritization, based on user value maximization, of new products and features is one of the most important parts of my job.
CRM & LTV Enhancement - Being a subscription business, it is critical for us to maximize our customers’ Lifetime Value (LTV). It has three major parts, the first one being around a very granular segmentation, the second one is around designing an omni-channel comms plan (Triggered emails, push notification, in-app notifications etc) and the third one is around creating real user value. The measure of success for this domain is the retention rate of our customers.
Ui/UX - hide.me being a purely digital business, relies heavily on design thinking ensuring that our product is the easy to use and we make our users’ experiences as intuitive as possible. The remit of this work is quite diverse as we have to cater a very diverse set of user base ranging from new customers who interact with us through our website/app stores to existing customers who rely on us to ensure their online privacy. The key measure of success for our UI/UX work revolve around conversion metrics
Strategy - One of the most exciting part of my job is to define a strategic vision for the product and try to analyze where we want to be in the short, medium and long term. Competitor analysis, industry analysis, SWOT analysis, Objective setting are just a few things which i look into as part of my role.
Achievements
Improved conversion rate by more than 300%
Increased lead generation by more than 600%
Increased traffic by 277% in a short period of 6 months
Increased organic traffic by 488%
Reduced Cost/lead by more than 200%
Created Content Partnerships with global publications including Yahoo! (managed content for Yahoo’s education channel my.news.yahoo.com/education)
Increased user engagement by more than 50%
Responsibilities
Develop an integrated Marketing & Communications strategy to achieve the corporate goals of the organization
Closely monitor the performance of the website through Google Analytics & suggest improvements
Develop Brand Strategy through online & Offline Mediums
Drive traffic on the website through online & offline mediums
Develop & implement the content strategy for the website and improve content value
Develop & implement the marketing budget of the company
Develop Marketing capacity within the organization
Monitor Visitor behavior and improve the visitor journey
Liaise closely with Creative, PR, Social Media & Media agencies to achieve the set objectives
Work closely with the technical teams to improve the User Experience
Engage with relevant media to enhance the brand perception
Engage with relevant bloggers across the globe to highlight the brand
Key Achievements
Increased traffic by 100+%
Increased Lead Generation by more than 200%
Reduced Cost/Lead by 100%
Increased Conversion Rate by 100%
Increased page views by 85%
Expanded Company’s presence in 34 new countries
Reduced Marketing Budget by 56%
Digital Transformation - I was mainly responsible for transforming the business side of the company from all aspects. I put in place completely new digital programs for user acquisition and transformed the entire user journey from discovery to a closed sale.
Marketing Automation - Put in place various tools to automate 70% of the processes to re-engage our users & built a conversion funnel to nurture the leads making it easier for the sales teams to close deals. Based on their position in the funnel, i created automated email campaigns to re-engage the users & push them down the conversion funnel.
CRM - Evaluated multiple CRM options and deployed Salesforce to streamline the entire lead process and segment the customers in a highly intuitive manner to respond to our users better.
Digital Assets - Developed a new website for the company repositioning it across the globe. I did a very intensive user journey mapping and designed the new website to address each of the phases of the user journey. Eventually our website became the major source of leads for the sales funnel and it contributed to 90% of the sales of the business.
SEO & SEM - We made sure that we optimize the website for all search engines & ensure that we are found when customers are searching for companies like us. I successfully increased the website organic search traffic by 100%. to cater to keywords and markets where we were not ranking well organically, i implemented a paid search strategy which brought in the most qualified leads.
Digital Analytics - Setup automated reporting/dashboards and data analysis using google analytics.
•Managing Product Roadmaps/Lifecycle, pricing and launch processes
•Market Research & Analysis
•Enhance Product portfolio in Channel Sales.
•Competitor pricing and product review/benchmarking/comparison
•Taking weekly & Monthly Reports
•Aid Sales team for effective Sellout through Differential Marketing Campaigns.
•Effective In-Store Communication in all Channel Sales
•Support Increase Top of the mind, Aided & Unaided Awareness of the brand
•Regular coordination with Retail channels.
•Analyze Consumer Insight
•Managing retail stores on sell in and sell through programmes
•Responsible for Marketing budgets
•Support in conducting regular CRM activities with Key partners, retailers and Dealers.
Clients:
ICI, P&G, Nestle, Emirates Airlines, Toyota, Barclays, Microsoft, Pepsi & Dubai Islamic Bank.
Major Projects
TOYOTA : Made an online and offline communications strategy for Toyota before the budget was announced. It was expected that the government would announce policies which would not be in favor of the local manufacturers. With the help of this campaign TOYOTA was able to influence the government and its policy makers which resulted in policies in favor of the local assemblers.
P&G : complete consultation on Head & Shoulders digital communications strategy. Identified high value bloggers who wrote about cosmetics and hair care were taken on board and were made the ambassadors for the brand. We were able to reach 124000 consumers in a span of 6 days through 8 bloggers.
NESTLE: initiated a viral marketing campaign through social media, which focused on the CSR initiatives taken by the company. The video got 1 million hits on the very first day.
Key duties & Responsibilities:
•Develop, manage and execute an annual strategic marketing and communications plan for the given portfolio, to span across all communication media and reach appropriate target audiences, based upon specific performance goals.
•Evaluate the success of various strategies and provide and implement recommendations for improvement and corporate image building.
•Develop, manage and produce materials to create a cohesive image and message for print and all offline & online communication vehicles.
•Identify and establish relationships with key industry publications and media to leverage positive news and overcome negative image at times of crisis.
•Support around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the related issue areas of Community Relations.
•Generate, produce and review as required new communication training material for all new products to internal staff including FAQs, brand awareness information, glossaries etc
MAJOR TERM PAPERS / RESEARCH WORK / PROJECTS FINAL THESIS Effects of Internal Marketing on the Job Performance and Satisfaction of Employees in the Advertising Industry in Pakistan. MARKETING STRATEGY: 50% of the assessment of the module was on a simulation game (Markstrat) which was based on actual market scenarios. MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY: made a 360 degree campaign for breast cancer awareness for National Health Services UK. MAJOR PROJECTS DURING THE COURSE Cadbury PLC UK: we were sent to Cadbury PLC UK for 6 weeks to assist them on a consumer research project. During the project we implemented techniques and theories which we were taught during the course. Land Rover Jaguar UK: we were sent to Land Rover Jaguar UK for 6 weeks to assist them on their digital marketing campaign for the corporate brand. Vodafone UK: As part of our course we were placed at Vodafone UK for 6 weeks to assist them on their consumer satisfaction enhancement project. NHS UK: to assist NHS on their Breast Cancer awareness program we were placed at National Health Services UK for 6 weeks. Specialized Modules: Marketing Management, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Psychology, International Marketing Management, Marketing Research, Strategic Management, Services Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications, Accounting For Non-Financial Managers.
MAJOR TERM PAPERS / RESEARCH WORK / PROJECTS Business Ethics: Report on “Unethical Marketing Practices.” Methods in Business Research: Business research on “Development of infrastructure in Karachi.” Human Resource Management: Conducted a detailed survey on the oil sector of Pakistan, and focused on the human resource strategies in P.S.O. Brand Management: Made a presentation on “Brand Image, Persona & Associations.” Entrepreneurship: Prepared a pre-feasibility of an “Entrepreneurial Consultancy Firm.” Advertising: Made a 360 Degree Campaign for “Household servants Pakistan” (virtual brand). Consumer Behavior: Made a presentation on “Ad Appeals.”
