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

RCB BANK LTD

Vice President Head of Private Banking

Expobank CZ a.s.

Vice President, Head of Private Banking & Individual Banking

Norvik Banka

Senior Vice President, Head of Private Banking

Ukrgasbank

Responsible for commercial results of Retail (180 branches across all regions of the country). 

My perimeter of responsibility described as a Head of Retail and includes these business lines:
- SME
- Individuals  
- Premier Banking (Mass Affluent and HNWI customers)
- Digital and Alternative Channel
- Contact Center

For the nearest future the main goals set by shareholders:
- to build an experienced Retail management team;  
-  to create a vision and long term strategy (2015 – 2020) to reach leading positions in Ukrainian Retail banking;
- to improve customer service;
- to continue Bank Transformation Strategy 
- to implement new IT solutions for Retail business line;
- to launched and create SME business as a main channel for the bank 
- to transform and develop Premier Banking across all regions of the country

Board Member. Deputy Chairman. Head of Retail

UkrSibbank BNP Paribas Group

Member of Ukrsibbank BNP Paribas Group Management Board responsible for the Private Banking & Wealth Management business Strategy:
- issues of marketing, 
- business-strategy, 
- products offer, 
- sales and brand promotion strategy, 
- staff business training strategy,
- business relationship with ultra HNWI,
- relationship and strategic cooperation with HQ (Wealth Management & Private Banking BNP Paribas) and off-shore offices (more than 30 countries).

 Throughout my career in Ukrsibbank I was also responsible for implementation of several large scale projects within the Transformation program (Global corporate policies/procedures, technologies and standards introduction and implementation at Ukrainian Bank).  

As a Head of Private Banking & Wealth Management, before and after acquisition by BNP Paribas Group took responsibility for overall development strategy and business promotion in Ukraine from scratch:
•	Creation of ideology, products and strategy for 3 years with following annual budgeting, development of main instructions, Private Banking manual in Ukraine;
•	6 specialized Private Banking offices in Ukraine, more than 2000 active clients, appr. USD 0,5 bln AuM;
•	Lifestyle management program development (more than 70 partners );
•	Development and implementation of training course for internal “Private Banking University”;  
•	Development and implementation of credit risk procedure for Private Banking business;  
•	Development of onshore/offshore business relationship with BNP Paribas offices; 
•	Financial products range creation and implementation for Private Banking business;
•	Approval of strategy and communication with Head Office Management in Paris;
•	Directly reporting to the Сhairman of the Board and Supervisory Council on monthly basis.

Board Member. Deputy Chairman. Head of Private Banking

The first bank in Ukraine which organized VIP-clients servicing «UkrSibbank – Private Bank»:

 - ideology, brand, business support (april 2004). 
-  Strategy development for Private Banking business
- Communication with off-shore Private Banking offices
- Work with HNWI, Private Banking promotion.
- Full package of financial and additional PB & WM services.
- Private Banking introduction at Branch Banks in Ukraine.   

Head of the Board of  Non-State Pension Fund from 2005

Head of Private Banking, Counsel to the Chairman of the Board

During the period of UkrSibbank extensive development (from 20 to 1000 outlets) worked as Head of Middle Office. 
Main principles of riskless work and operational bank processes were developed. 

Member of Price&Delegation and Product Development Committee as a representative of Middle Office. 

As the Head of Middle Office was in charge of Operation and Back Office Division: 
•	Monitoring system development and implementation in Bank Middle Office; 
•	In charge of creation and implementation of bank financial instruments (more than 200 projects);
•	Bank correspondent accounts; 
•	Bank deposit and credit operations (corporate, SME, individuals); 
•	Investment banking.

Head of Middle-office, Back-office Department

In a period from 2001 to 2002 as the Head of Smart Card project GEO I was in charge of strategy and development of the greatest Ukrainian interbank pay system “GEO”  (appr. 500000 cards  were emitted):
•	Sales strategy and development; 
•	Staff training (IT and sales specialists); 
•	Creation of strategic plans 2001-2002 for the bank;
•	Operational model development and promotion during VISA and MasterСard implementation. 

GEO pay system was recognized as one of the most successful credit card system in Ukraine.

Head of International Payment System Division «GEO» (smart-cards),

Finance and Credit Banking Corporation

As a Deputy Director of Branch - Head of Treasury in Finance and Credit I was in charge of treasury operations development, foreign currency operations (corporate and SME businesses, individuals):  
•	Creation of annual strategic plans for treasury and currency operations block (corporate, SME, Individuals, cards emission in Kharkov branch office);  
•	Opening of new outlets: relationship with National Bank of Ukraine (Kharkov central office); headhunting, recruitment and training of outlet staff; outlet management and control;
•	Credit cards salary project and POS terminal net management (Kharkov and Kharkov region); 
•	Marketing and Image Communication issues control and management (Kharkov Branch).

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
•	Opened 6 new outlets during 1999 – 2001;
•	One of the first and largest for that time salary projects in Ukraine was launched.  First salary project on the basis of Kharkov National University of Radioelectronics (4000 cards); overall realized 10 salary projects;
•	During my work Bank occupied a leading position in Kharkov for the number of POS terminals in the  city;
•	Breakeven point of managed business was achieved in 6 – 8 month after Kharkov Branch opening;  
•	Numerous awards from Head Office, Kiev.

Deputy Director of Branch Bank,

Joint Stock Commercial  Bank GRANT”

As the leader of Credit Card Technology Development Project was in charge of international cards and interbank pay system strategy development and implementation:
•	Products and sales strategy development;
•	VISA International and MasterCard Int. technology implementation (Head Office and Branches);
•	Domestic smart-card “GRANT – CARD” project strategy development;
•	POS- terminal network creation;
•	Financial manual creation;
•	Directly reported to shareholders and Chairman of the Board.

Deputy Chief of Card technologies and Clients’ Support Department,

PrivatBank

Member of Credit Cards division team responsible for international credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, American Express) development at Privatbank – first bank in Ukraine that emitted cards.  
•	Participated in first credit cards emission in Ukraine (VISA International);
•	In charge of credit card Back – office and Operations; 
•	POS- terminal network creation.

Economist and Accountant at International Bank Cards Division

Joint-Stock Bank NADRA

Currency Division team member. Was in charge of SME and Corporate currency operations.
Currency operations, long-term deposits, current accounts.

Economist at Currency Control Department

Dynamic, results-oriented leader with a strong track record of performance in banking area.
Dedicated to maintain a reputation built on quality, service, and uncompromising ethics.

I have more than 25 years of banking experience in the area of Private Banking & Wealth Management, Retail Banking, Digital Banking.

I consider working in different cultures and markets as one of my key strengths.
My experience is based on work in large Ukrainian, Latvian, Czech Republic, Russian, Luxembourg banks,  and Global worldwide banks. 
 
Areas of expertise include:
-  Strategy & Vision Planning
-  Market Development 
-  Team building
-  Business Development and Bank Transformation
-  Sales & Marketing Leadership 
-  Change Management
-  Customer Relationship Management
-  Digital Banking 

I can mobilize of large teams to fulfill result oriented tasks, I am valued for leadership, relationship building and analytical skills. 

I am a person who can get things done quickly and profitably.

In the addition, I have more than 20 years of scientific work experience in Ukrainian and Latvian Universities and Business Schools. 
Research works (more than 100) published in Ukrainian, Russian, Latvian and UK scientific editions. 
Author of 7 scientific Monographs, one of the authors of first Private Banking anthology in CIS

taplio

The Battle

Mark V. Smetanin

Alexey Aleksandrov

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