Daniel Stoler, Product Manager in Toronto, Canada

Daniel Stoler

Product Manager

Location
Toronto, Canada
Toptal Member Since
July 9, 2020

After starting his career as a developer, Daniel became a strong leader in various technical and client-facing roles. Working for startups and enterprises for over 17 years, he has built great products that delight users and create value. Daniel is known for identifying opportunities, accelerating growth, providing real value, and exceeding expectations—taking products from the whiteboard ideation stage to go live while ensuring adoption and growth.

Daniel is available for hire
Hire Daniel

Project Highlights

Turning a Small Startup Product into a Global Leader
Served as the only senior product manager and led three engineering teams to turn the startup's standalone MVP into an enterprise-grade fully integrated market leader.

Expertise

JiraKanbanMinimum Viable Product (MVP)Product LeadershipProduct ManagementProduct OwnershipProject Management Professional (PMP)Scrum

Select Certifications

Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)

Work Experience

2020 - PRESENT

Group Product Manager

Evisort
  • Drove the vision, strategy, and roadmaps for the company's product suite, communicated product roadmap and progress to stakeholders internally and externally.
  • Enhanced and improved business and operational processes while driving the vision and priorities across various functions in the company, including engineering, sales, marketing, legal, licensing/compliance, operations, customer success, support, and more.
  • Led a team of product managers across multiple product areas to identify potential opportunities, conduct market research, generate product requirements, manage production timetables and time-integrated plans for product releases.
  • Managed product lifecycle from end-to-end, including requirements, user experience, product and operations roadmaps, go-to-market strategy, and launch across multiple domains and products.
  • Helped set up a culture of research over opinions and a methodical approach to Agile product management to reduce risk, increase delivery velocity, and elicit actionable data from our customers in particular and the market in general.
  • Defined measurable product objectives to fulfill the company's vision and aggressively meet customer acquisition and retention goals by building and delivering great products to dominate our market.
2019 - 2020

Director of Product Management

Book4Time
  • Defined the company's long-term product strategy in alignment with corporate vision.
  • Rebuilt and led a team of seven product professionals to accelerate growth; redefined the hiring process; coached and mentored the product team into a successful and independent team.
  • Positioned the product team as the ultimate subject-matter experts and rebuilt credibility internally and externally.
  • Educated and informed all departments in the company about product management practices and how we can drive growth.
  • Identified metrics and built up a plan to increase product adoption and help identify new opportunities.
  • Redefined product release processes to ensure the successful delivery of new product lines and features.
2018 - 2019

Director of Product Management

Freckle IoT
  • Designed and prioritized the product roadmap. Used data and user research to drive innovation and new product features according to product vision and market demands.
  • Managed a global team of eight engineers while owning the product backlog and daily cadence, writing user stories, prioritizing feature development, planning iterations, and keeping our engineers unblocked.
  • Monitored and measured the development and launch of new features, gathered user data and feedback for further innovation while increasing the user base from 0 to 150,000 in one quarter.
  • Supported the product strategy and reassessing product/market fit by developing an understanding of market trends, needs of prospective and existing users, as well as how consumers used our app and our competitors’ products.
2017 - 2018

Senior Product Manager

Medallia
  • Owned the product backlog and strategic roadmap, continuously prioritized and scoped user stories and PRDs in accordance with new understandings and validations of market needs and positioning.
  • Managed multiple products and competing priorities for over 25 engineers in three software development teams in an agile environment, without formal authority, delivering on tight deadlines in high levels of uncertainty.
  • Established solid agile practices and mentored the product and development teams to drive innovation, higher quality, and faster delivery in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
  • Defined product metrics and analyzed data in order to take product decisions based on user behaviors.
  • Reinforced customer success, marketing and sales activities with global customers and prospects.
  • Became the subject-matter expert of the company's digital offerings. Planned, documented and conducted training sessions to dozens of sales, product and marketing professionals as well as prospects and customers worldwide.
  • Led the transformation from kanban to proper scrum while maintaining high product quality, increasing go-to-market velocity and improving the product's measurable added value.
2016 - 2017

Product Manager

Centrical
  • Designed and planned new product features, improved retention and upsell while taking ownership over the company’s key products with Fortune 100 companies worldwide.
  • Conducted market research to advise product strategy, vision and product/market fit.
  • Gained a deep understanding of customer experience, identified and filled product gaps and generated new ideas that increased market share, improved customer experience and drove growth.
  • Worked closely with technical and non-technical teams, managing competing priorities to deliver with quick time-to-market and optimal resources.
  • Led product implementation while maximizing satisfaction and alignment with customers’ goals and metrics and creating new business opportunities.
  • Conducted proactive in-depth analysis and modelling to enable better understanding of user behaviors.
  • Assisted customers in identifying and meeting their KPIs to create impact and ensure customer satisfaction.
  • Facilitated the definition of projects scope, goals and deliverables while controlling their successful execution.
2013 - 2016

Technology Solutions Project Manager

Dell-EMC
  • Responsible for the full delivery of multiple competing complex projects from conception to product, on time and under budget, satisfying both internal and external stakeholders, locally and worldwide.
  • Analyzed, planned, and managed project budgets of over $1 million at any given time in compliance with corporate regulations and reporting principles.
  • Successfully delivered competing complex projects by breaking them down into smaller manageable parts.
  • Maintained positive relationship by acting as the point of contact for customer.
  • Conducted training sessions to dozens of local and international participants locally and abroad.
  • Controlled and monitored implementation, project reporting, escalations, and change control processes.
2011 - 2013

Team Leader

IDF – Central Computing and IT Unit (MAMRAM)
  • Assembled, led, and managed a team of about 15 cyber security specialists to strengthen the organization's information security defenses.
  • Formulated and implemented organization-wide changes concerning information and cyber security.
  • Determined and directed the development of ad-hoc solutions for immediate technological problems and threats.
  • Managed enterprise infrastructure upgrades while seamlessly migrating users and systems.
  • Worked with senior executives, provided current updates during crises, and assisted in high-level decision making.
2009 - 2011

Product Manager

IDF – Central Computing and IT Unit (MAMRAM)
  • Managed, scoped, prioritized, and coordinated product development for real-time enterprise systems to be used by high-ranking decision-makers.
  • Gathered insights from potential users and subject-matter experts and analyzed the problem space to scope and prioritize new features.
  • Worked with in-house and outsourced development teams to achieve product goals and maintain high-quality standards.
  • Presented project management reviews to high-ranking officials and executives.
  • Examined bid proposals and ascertained contractors' compliance with signed contracts, regulations, and applicable laws.
  • Simultaneously managed multiple large projects, coordinated, motivated, and led matrix teams in a complex organizational environment.
2006 - 2009

Software Engineer

IDF – Central Computing and IT Unit (MAMRAM)
  • Developed, planned, and implemented custom solutions using ASP.NET, reducing service calls by over 70%.
  • Designed, planned, implemented, and administered large-scale computer systems for tens of thousands of users.
  • Designed and implemented system architecture, data redundancy, and recovery plans.
  • Planned and managed infrastructure upgrades and large-scale seamless migrations.
  • Provided Tier III support for escalated issues with enterprise organizational systems while communicating status to various stakeholders and minimizing downtime.

Project History

Turning a Small Startup Product into a Global Leader

Served as the only senior product manager and led three engineering teams to turn the startup's standalone MVP into an enterprise-grade fully integrated market leader.

I joined the company as the only product manager, and the product's concept had been proven by that time. The startup had also just been acquired by a larger company. Still, our three software development teams were working on a poorly prioritized Kanban list, an enormous constantly-changing backlog, and an unclear roadmap. To scale up successfully and compete with the leading solutions in the market, we needed to become an enterprise-grade solution while maintaining our differentiated selling points.

My Product Roadmap:
• Integration with leading products in our ecosystem
• Localization and internationalization
• Robust and customizable reporting and analytics
• Keeping our innovative edge

We couldn't scale up without changing our development practices. I led our transformation into fully agile teams and helped to improve our throughput, our product quality, and scaling up the product team. Collaborating with cross-functional teams was imperative, along with gathering feedback from clients, understanding technical challenges daily, and providing clarity to internal and external stakeholders. When I left the company, our product became a market leader in its category and used by leading Fortune 500 companies.

Education

2011 - 2012

Master of Business Management (MBA) Degree in Business Management

The College of Management - Rishon Le-Tsiyon, Israel

2003 - 2006

Bachelor of Science (BSc) Degree in Computer Science

Bar Ilan University - Ramat Gan, Israel

Certifications

FEBRUARY 2015 - PRESENT

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Project Management Institute (PMI)