May 2022 – Jun 2024 · 2 yrs 1 mo

• Led the Digital Product, Personalization, Customer Insights & Data teams as Head of Department to create seamless, personalized experiences for all our customers’ digital journeys incl. inspiration, shopping, payment, trip management and loyalty. Growing the value derived from web & app through new products and continuous enhancements. Achieved new records across all key success metrics.
• Build, coach and manage a diverse team of product managers so they can lead 25+ cross-functional squads through discovery, development and go-to-market of value-creating products used by a global audience along a roadmap with clearly defined objectives.
• Scaled my team and integrated Personalization, Customer Insights & Data into the structure and ways-of-working to pursue a deep understanding of customer needs through establishing customer feedback loops, customer research and data analysis.
• Designing & recruiting for the Product, Customer Research and Data Insights organizations, optimizing team topologies and providing opportunities for talents to grow
• Evolve and socialize key product frameworks, playbooks, rituals and principles, cultivating a transparent approach to prioritization and impact assessment on P&L, contributing to achieving lifetime records for customer satisfaction, product and commercial metrics.
• Oversaw and continuously refined product vision and strategy across the complete digital product and platforms portfolio and established buy-in and consensus for strategy within the team and with internal stakeholders.
• Drive and lead key company-level strategic and large-scale initiatives, business cases and procurement for centralized tools.
• Partnering with domain leaders in Design, Tech, DPO, Cyber Security, Data Science, Finance to establish cross-departmental frameworks and best practices to facilitate idea intake, design reviews, regulatory compliance, continuous delivery, and shared understanding.
• Budget planning responsibility of $xxm+ annually.

Sep 2020 – Apr 2022 · 1 yr 7 mos

• Led the Loyalty & Payments digital product portfolio which included digital payment methods and payment experience for Qatar Airways Group, loyalty currencies and platforms, digital experience and integration of partnerships (air, nonair, financial), identity and account management. My work had a demonstrable impact on key success metrics like acquisition, activation, spend rate, adoption of alternative payments, payment acceptance rate and customer satisfaction.
• Selected achievements:
• ✅ Introduced multiple new collect & spend options, the student loyalty program, a new global payment gateway, multiple payment options including BNPL / instalments and the Qatar Airways own digital wallet.
• ✅ Introduced Instant Rewards, an industry first and to date unmatched instant credit of Avios at check-in, resulting in extremely positive customer feedback and industry praise.
• ✅ Led the adoption of Avios as the new Loyalty currency for Qatar Airways’ Frequent Flyer program, including Avios A2A transfer and the innovative approach of combined virtual balance.
• Responsibilities included:
• Defined and championed the digital product vision and portfolio strategy for Loyalty & Payments, designing longterm flexible product roadmaps and initiating the productionization of all Loyalty APIs.
• Led five cross-functional agile teams in a portfolio that included large-scale platforms, across the product lifecycle (discovery, design, delivery, evaluation) and guided teams to track meaningful product and success KPIs.
• Synthesized insights from quantitative and qualitative research methods such as surveys, VoC, user testing, competitive analysis, analytics and AB testing, to drive roadmaps.
• Transferred insights into new functionalities and enhancements, increasing key success metrics like program enrolments, spend rate, adoption of alternative payments, payment success rate and customer satisfaction.

Sep 2017 – Aug 2020 · 2 yrs 11 mos

• Selected achievements:
• ✅ Led the transition of a large workforce to autonomous cross-functional digital product teams that apply product development practices. My tasks included instilling and evangelizing UX and product development processes and techniques, experimentation, outcome-focus, objectives and key results (OKRs) and scaled agile coordination.
• ✅ Spearheaded the introduction of personalized experiences on digital channels: from building foundational data infrastructure to implementing pilot experiences demonstrating measurable outcome on customer interaction & business metrics.
• ✅ Led a Digital Maturity Assessment conducted with the help of external consultants, applying tools from usability analysis to leadership interviews.
• Responsibilities included:
• Established and shaped the digital product roadmap across digital commercial B2C portfolios, personalization and digital marketing developments.
• Monitored delivery progress and communicated fortnightly status updates to leadership and stakeholders.
• Initiated, conceptualized and by working with a variety of stakeholders across Digital Direct, Customer Relationship Management, Content, Digital Marketing, Pricing & Revenue Management, IT and Analytics iteratively delivered product and design enhancements under consideration of user needs, business goals and technical realities.
• Documented user and business flows, scenarios and use cases, low-fi mock-ups to define user pain points and journeys, business objectives and requirements.

Sep 2015 – Aug 2017 · 1 yr 11 mos

• Selected accomplishments & responsibilities:
• Supported the sustainable optimization of Corporate sales revenue, including the loyalty program for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on digital touchpoints, technology development and sales innovation.
• Built the digital product strategy for the Corporate travel segment informed through conducting qualitative research (user interviews and observations), product ideation workshops and data analysis to gather requirements and integrating forward-thinking industry initiatives like the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) NDC program.
• Initiated, project managed and implemented a portfolio of small to medium-size digital initiatives with a focus on digitalizing Corporate and SME revenue and shifting customer workflows to self-servicing digital processes.
• Quantified benefits and costs to build strong business cases that were strategically aligned with the overall department KPIs.
• Joined cross-departmental problem-solving challenges & projects.

Oct 2013 – Aug 2015 · 1 yr 10 mos

• Selected accomplishments & responsibilities:
• Defined the regional digital sales and marketing strategic and tactical business plans and counselled local and regional leadership on creating an integrated digital direct sales and marketing strategy to help them achieve financial KPIs.
• Monitored and analyzed digital sales and website traffic and formulated strategic recommendations.
• Guided and assisted local teams with projects and campaigns in various scopes across several communication channels. Included generating and defining ideas to ensure markets meet the business objectives and commercial targets, ensuring on-time delivery and implementation of projects and campaigns, relevant communication, meeting of high quality standards, ensuring a focus on new business opportunities, collaborating with internal or external partners, optimization.

Oct 2010 – Sep 2013 · 2 yrs 11 mos

• Selected accomplishments & responsibilities:
• Established and implemented initial local digital sales and digital marketing strategies.
• Monitored and analysed digital sales and website traffic and formulated strategic recommendations based on data analysis, seasonality and local market conditions.
• Monitored German language IBE functionality, identified, categorized and reported technical issues and change requirements to E-Commerce & IT departments.
• UAT for German language functionalities.
• Established the fare family concept for the German and Austrian market. Involved negotiating with internal stakeholder departments (Pricing, Revenue Management, Reservations, etc.).
• Efficient planning, buying and managing of digital marketing campaigns including display advertising, mobile advertising, SEM, Facebook and other performance advertising, affiliate, emailing and metasearch marketing.
• Managed and briefed media agencies to achieve timely delivery of collaterals and cost-efficient media buying.
• Generated reports on digital marketing activities, evaluated and effectively optimized the activities along key metrics to ensure efficient budget utilization and optimized ROI.
• Proactively identified and coordinated several partnership marketing activities with tourism boards, hotel chains and other leisure or corporate travel related partners.

Feb 2009 – Sep 2010 · 1 yr 7 mos · Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, Deutschland

• Selected accomplishments & responsibilities:
• Defined flysaa.com activity plan for Continental Europe highlighting technical issues, usability issues, content issues, legal issues, marketing issues related to the respective market and recommended action steps.
• Assisted with implementation of mobile website m.flysaa.com in German language and website management of asksaa.com.
• Developed digital sales and digital marketing of flysaa.com for Continental European countries.
• Coordinated functionality improvements and content updates with e-commerce department in head office (Johannesburg) to ensure high quality localized content and functionality
• Collaborated with Pricing department to ensure availability of fares as well as correct routes / connections / codeshares / add-ons display on flysaa.com.
• Successfully completed the projects of introducing ‘Rail & Fly’ (train ticket) booking functionality as well as ‘Avis Drive and Fly’ to the German website.
• Implemented online bank transfer as an additional payment option for the German market.
• FIFA World Cup 2010: Group offers (Leisure and MICE), creating and managing tour operator allotments, observing compliance of sales and pricing rules, maintaining statistic sales reports.

May 2008 – Jan 2009 · 8 mos · Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, Deutschland

• Executed general airline marketing activities, including preparations for road shows, events and fairs, creation of marketing collaterals like e-newsletters and booklets, executing of various advertising campaigns, handling inquiries of journalists and marketing partners, etc.
• Established performance reports on marketing activities
• Copywriting, layout and general project management for website asksaa.com

Jan 2006 – Jan 2006 · 0 mo · Oslo, Norway