Diana Birsan

Co-Founder

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada12 yrs 9 mos experience

Highly Stable

Key Highlights

Co-founder of Downpay, enhancing payment flexibility.
Pioneered partial payment APIs at Shopify.
Recognized as Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 in 2025.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech and E-Commerce product leader with a focus on payment solutions.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

E-commerceProduct Management

Other Skills

PartnershipsPhotoshopOS XMicrosoft OfficeWindows 7VMware ESXMac OS XAtlassian JIRAJAMF CasperOktaGsuiteJamf ProMDMDEP

About

I didn’t start in tech. I started in film, working in sound design before shifting into IT, security, product management, and eventually, running my own startup. At Shopify, I pitched the idea of partial payments and helped build the APIs that now make more flexible buying possible. That work inspired what I’m building today. I’m the co-founder of Downpay, a flexible payments app for Shopify brands selling made-to-order, high-value, and custom products. We make it easy for merchants to offer deposits and partial payments and store cards on file without relying on Buy Now, Pay Later tools that don't fit their needs. Over 1,100 merchants use Downpay to improve conversion, reduce cancellations, and give customers a smoother way to buy. Our best results come from industries with longer lead times like furniture, jewelry, and wellness. In 2025, I was named one of Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 and Bootstrap Awards Founder of the Year. I write about product thinking, sustainable growth, and building in public as a woman founder in tech.

Experience

12 yrs 9 mos

Total Experience

3 yrs 8 mos

Average Tenure

Current Experience

Jamf

2 roles

Director of Product Management

Promoted

Mar 2023 – Apr 2023 · 1 mo · Remote

Product Lead

Aug 2021 – Feb 2023 · 1 yr 6 mos · Remote

Downpay

Co-Founder & CEO

Sep 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 8 mos · Ontario, Canada

Increasing online sales for over 1300+ brands on Shopify with partial payment experiences on custom, bespoke and made to order preorders and bookings.

E-CommerceProduct Management

Shopify

4 roles

Senior Product Manager

Promoted

Jan 2021 – Aug 2021 · 7 mos

Led, prototyped and pitched new product offering to enable partial payment APIs on Shopify's ecosystem.

E-CommercePartnershipsProduct Management

Product Manager

Apr 2019 – Jan 2021 · 1 yr 9 mos

Building products to help grow entrepreneurship around the world in the merchandising and subscriptions space.
Developed & Launched:
Prepaid subscriptions including web + mobile end to end flows, backend foundation, GraphQL API support, public documentation
Shopify scripts support for use with subscriptions
3D Secure support & public documentation for recurring billing
Filtering and sorting for Shopify Admin mobile app (iOS & Android) across Products and Orders indices
Search relevance and UI improvements and error states to Shopify admin search and reduced empty results

Technical Program Manager

Promoted

Jan 2017 – Apr 2019 · 2 yrs 3 mos

Managed security and authentication products at Shopify including merchant OAuth 2.0 services
Shipped web authentication (WebAuthn) as a 2-factor authentication method for merchants
Shipped 2-factor authentication opt in screen during account merging flow that doubled 2fa adoption across merchant accounts
Cross-team collaboration with engineering, UX and other product teams to build long term vision and strategy for merchant authentication
Developed security awareness including employee security onboarding, learn to hack workshops and CTF competitions
Developed strategy for password management adoption at Shopify and shipped to all employees with exception adoption across the company
Deployed two-factor authentication for third-party applications company wide
Developed the security workflow for missing devices and recovered stolen laptops
Presented at Connectfest Conference (Portugal, 2019) on Security in Product, European Women in Tech (2018), Women in IT Summit (2018), MacADUK (2018), Mac DevOps (2018) on Security Culture and Zero Trust.

IT Lead

Aug 2015 – Dec 2016 · 1 yr 4 mos

Built and lead IT teams for Toronto, Montreal and Waterloo offices
Mentored team in technologies including scripting, Okta configurations and Jamf Pro
Handled all software licensing and agreements, reduced costs across third party solutions
Deployed company wide device management for 1k+ devices
Implemented zero touch deployment using DEP, VPP and self service models

Bell media

2 roles

Systems Specialist

Mar 2012 – Aug 2015 · 3 yrs 5 mos · Scarborough

Nationwide support for 500+ devices in multimedia departments.
Server management, automated software and device deployment and inventory reporting
Lead internal team on best practices and trained new coworkers
Onsite Systems Specialist for high profile offsite events like the CTV and TSN Upfront presentations.
Building OSX, CentOS and Windows virtual machines using VWWare, supporting servers including Dolby Encoder, Soundminer, Wiki, Cinema4D licence management

Associate Post Production Sound Engineer

Jun 2010 – Apr 2013 · 2 yrs 10 mos · Scarborough

Voice over recording with talent across Canada for daily CTV, TSN, Discovery and London 2012 Olympics.
Pro Tools work including VO Recording, Laybacks on HDSR tapes, Stem creation for Discovery shows such as Mighty Ships, Nerve Centre, and Megaworld.