Mark V. Smetanin

Unlock Success for Airbnb and Short-Term Rental Business. Recently by Improving the Product - Increased Engagement by 42% , conversion rate by 74%, and acquired 2.5M new users.

As a product management leader with over eight years of experience in payments, e-commerce, Airbnb business, property management, I am a fan of technology and its application to drive business growth.My expertise lies in product management, agile coaching, portfolio management, and strategic planning.I have experience in increasing user engagement, optimizing technical processes and leading high-performance teams.

Key Highlights:

Director of Product Management: Enhanced user engagement by 16% and improved product value description by 14% through strategic market research and collaboration.

Senior Product Portfolio Manager: Managed a $1.2M project, leading to an $8M revenue projection and a 17% increase in Net Promoter Score. 
Risk assessment methods were applied, which reduced project disruptions by 24%.

Head of Product Strategy: Increased customer engagement by 42%, improved conversion rates by 74%, and acquired 2.5M new users—reduced marketing expenses by 28% by addressing critical pain points.

Skills and Expertise:

Product Management/Product Owner: Agile Frameworks, Scrum, Kanban, SAFe
Technical Proficiency: Jira, Asana, Hubspot, Salesforce
Industry Expertise: Fintech, E-commerce, Property Management, Vacation Rentals
Certifications: PMI-ACP, PMI-PMP, CSM, CSPO

Professional Experience:

Nine years in product management, agile transformation, and strategic planning
I have experience in leading cross-functional teams to deliver high performance products.
Skilled in negotiating and managing key partnerships and stakeholders

Interests:

The God's Flow State, Coffee, Stand-up comedy, Kite surfing, Skiing, Music, martial arts (2 black belts), Reading, and Hiking.

Technology Stack:

Jira, Jira Service Desk, Hubspot, Asana, Zoho Projects, Microsoft Project, Basecamp, ClickUp, Todoist, PipelineCRM, Freedcamp, Hive, Monday, Trello, Time tracker, Pivotal Tracker, Slack,Excel, Powerpoint, MS Sharepoint, MS Visio, MS Project, MS Access, Prezzi, Numbers, Pages, Photoshop, Lightroom, Planview, Linux, FreeBSD, Quality Center, ZohoCRM, ZenDesk, Zoho Desk, Fresh Desk, Vivantio Help Desk, FreshService, Salesforce Service Cloud, Hootsuite, WordPress, HTML, CSS, OBS, Mindmaps, Focus Matrix, Dropbox Paper, Skitch, Insightly CRM, Payment Gates (Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Square, Braintree, Stripe, Paypal, Authorize.net, 2checkout, Payoneer, Bitpay, Shopify Payments), Google Analytics, Google Search Tool, Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, MCP, Rentals United, Avirato, Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb, VRBO, PMS, Glovebox, Coterie, Risk Advisor, AWS, Crowe CRM, Salesforc

Lead Product Manager / Product Owner / Consultant

•     Improved a Product using a customer journey map, understanding and prioritizing the most critical pain points in the most profitable segment. Provided clear concept and design strategy. Collaborated with Dev and UX teams. Increased customer engagement by 226%, Improved conversion rate by 74%, and acquired 2.5M, new users.

•     Planned and facilitated an extraordinary spike for (AI) Artificial Intelligence tools and prompts. Fixed and resolved seven major issues when team members just felt stuck. 

•     Raised team confidence after the last check-in. Positive emotions and gratitude are on our happiness radar. The current sprint is 100% happiness VS 78% at the previous sprint. 

•     Organized the most efficient communication with stakeholders and implemented advanced product backlog refinement, reducing the backlog by 16%.

•    Stepped forward with special coaching from our Unique Coach and very advanced Scum Master. Differentiated workflow steps, business rule variations, variations in data, and interface variations, polished and deepened INVEST criteria. Dramatically improved the slicing of our vertical stories. Delivered value ~20% faster with the smallest increments to our customers. 

•   Implemented automated test script, additional smoke test after the build is released to QA, and code review by peers. Armed new Definition of Done (DOD) for our dev team. Changed Sprint Planning Agenda. Raised team confidence level in delivering the sprint goals to 94%. 

•    Implemented automated test script and code review by peers. Armed new Definition of Done (DOD) for our dev team. 

•     Collected the data via Web-tracking and customer interviews,  tested and validated assumptions with the development team. Provided much precise anatomy of personas. Redesigned current marketing campaign reducing waist by 28%

Spikes:
Sustainable and environmentally conscious business practices
Enterprise Agile: Changing your culture

Angel Investor

I have been supporting multiple ventures within the e-commerce, fintech and tech industries in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia) and Europe (Italy)

Investor

Nana Bianca

I have been a mentor for several startups that joined the Hubble Accelleration Program of Nana Bianca (Italia Rimborso, Sfridoo)

Mentor

Lifepal

(Exited, merged with Roojai)

Due to my passion for digital distribution and fintech I started Lifepal, the #1 Marketplace for Insurance in Indonesia. In less than 4 years, Lifepal became:
#1 in terms of D2C MV retail monthly GWP
#1 in terms of monthly online traffic (4+ million visits/month)
#1 in terms of social media followers (1+ million)

I have been responsible to design and build Lifepal own Content Management and Order Management Systems to host the Indonesia’s biggest inventory of insurance products online. Together with 100+ talented team players, we launched in less than 3 year 20+ insurance partners online and processed 50K+ policies, offering the best customer experience in the country (highest Google rating).

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer

Lazada Group

Reporting to the Group CCO and working directly with the regional CPO and the product and tech teams. I lead the design and implementation of the product roadmaps with the CEOs and CCOs of the 6 countries of Lazada group (SG, TH, ID, MY, PH, VN).

As I played an important role during the process of sale and integration with Alibaba Group, I was selected to be part of the team that launched the first integrated project between Alibaba and Lazada, under the direct supervision of Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group CEO.

Main Achievements:
- Designed product roadmap with c-level teams across 5 countries
- Launched Alibaba Seller Center for 60K sellers and 10+ million SKUs
- Launched Online flagship shops for 10+ Global brands generating 100+ million in GMV
- Restructured the group sales department (200+ people regionally & 1000+ people locally)

Vice President of Product Strategy

Reporting to the Country (TH) COO. I oversaw developing the logistics department for the company to fulfill 60K orders/day across Thailand and serve as a pickup provider to 1K+ online sellers. I was also heavily involved in the development of a warehouse facility and system that could store 200k+ SKUs and fulfill 20k+ orders/day.

Main Achievements:
- Managed a team of 200+ people in logistics and operations
- Scaled up Lazada logistics, from 10K to 60K orders/day across Thailand
- Developed partnerships with logistic partners, including the digitalization of Thai Post
- Supported the development of LEX, Lazada own logistics, to 100+ delivery trucks and 1K+ motorbikes

Head of Logistics

Reporting to the Country (TH) CCO, I lead the development of the category of home appliances in Thailand with a team of 6, increasing GMV by 3X in 12 months.

Main Achievements:
- Increased the revenues of the category by more than 3 times
- Launched 20+ global brands online (Philips, Haier, Nestle, etc.)
- Developed and launch 10 white label products, with production in China
- Developed SOP for marketing and onsite best practices across 5 countries
- Coordinated multimillion dollar budget campaigns on Google, Facebook and Mobile

Category Manager

Westwing

As a supply chain manager in Westwing, I contributed to reduce costs and delivery lead time while improving cross-docking processes for fast moving and bulky products.

Supply Chain Manager

Experienced VP of Product Strategy & COO | Fintech & E-commerce Expert | Founder & Investor | Driving Growth in SEA & Italy

🚀 VP of Product Strategy (5 Years) | 🛍️ Chief Operating Officer (5 Years) | 🔍 Fintech & E-commerce Expert (12+ Years)

I am a fintech and e-commerce investor and mentor, with over 10 years of experience in leading and scaling innovative companies in Southeast Asia and Europe. I have a deep understanding of market needs, product strategy, and operational excellence, as well as a passion for digital distribution and financial inclusion.

I co-founded and led as COO Lifepal, the #1 marketplace for insurance in Indonesia, until we successfully exited and merged with Roojai in December 2023. We achieved remarkable growth and customer satisfaction, becoming the leader in online traffic, social media followers, and D2C monthly GWP. 

Latest accomplishments:
# Launched 2 companies in SEA
# Raised USD 15 million with 2 seed and 2 Series A investments
# Part of the team that built Lazada, the 1st unicorn in SEA (exited)
# Launched 20+ global brands online in SEA (Philips, Nescafe, Ray-Ban, etc.)
# Launched the Alibaba Seller Center in SEA, to serve more than 60K sellers
# Managed a team of 200+ people to run warehousing and logistics for Lazada Thailand

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