Grant Hodgkins

Product Development - Use statistics and product data to roadmap new product development. Introduced a KANBAN system to communicate between product management and engineers. Production & Planning Optimization - Created a system to rank products to help planning and production teams prioritize manufacturing. Business Analytics Automation - Automated the analytics of the catalytic converter product line. Wrote scripts to update tables with the newest data. Allows for dynamic and powerful insight into product performance and coverage. Uses Python, SQL, Power BI, and Excel. Product Research - Automated the work to join all product data together, allowing us to have industry leading catalog coverage and product planning. Catalog Rationalization - created a process to identify skus that are underperforming and costly. Criteria for this is dynamic and can be reviewed easily to understand impact on the business. Executive Reporting - create reports, graphs, and slides that are to be presented to the executive team.

Product Development: Collaborate with the engineering team to design, develop, and improve products within the category, ensuring they meet quality, performance, and cost targets. Product Data Management: Harnessed LLM tools (Chat GPT & Excel) to improve Product data en mass and generate new product descriptions. This improved an entire company line of products, saved the company months worth of work, and allowed a quicker time to market. Product Lifecycle Management: Created an analysis to manage the entire product lifecycle, from concept to end-of-life, including pricing, forecasting, and inventory management. Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with marketing, sales, and customer support teams to ensure successful product launches, marketing campaigns, and customer support. Market Research: Conduct market research to understand customer needs, competitor products, and emerging trends in the automotive aftermarket industry. Quality Assurance: Ensure product quality and reliability by setting and monitoring product specs and conducting testing. Financial Analysis: Analyze product performance, pricing, and profitability to make data-driven decisions and optimize the product portfolio. Work with engineering teams on optimizing development towards the most profitable products.

Data Automation: Automated Repeatable tasks to ensure quality and repeatable results. Data Analysis: Restructure existing and design new processes to process data, leading to increased growth of catalog coverage 3x times over previous process. (ACES & PIES) Regulatory Compliance: Ensure products comply with relevant regulations and industry standards (CARB/Federal) Product Analysis: Identify new product opportunities and consolidations by leveraging internal and external data.

Identified Problems & Reduced Losses —Utilized BOM to analyze and cross check sales/COGS to identify margin & losses. • Create Sales Features — Made improvements to product order forms (UX design) which simplified the process to reduce customer drop-off. • Digital Marketing — Leverage social media and analyze data to create social media campaigns to communicate on brand with customers. Create information posters for events. Generate new interest in the company and products. Regular growth ranged from 40% - 160%. • Video Production — Create product videos that excited while also helping to improve customer understanding of products and available options. Generate sales in key products. • Technical Sales — Provide customer-centric sales with expert knowledge and friendly service. Follow up with current customers to ensure satisfaction while solving any potential problems. • Web Design — Improve user experience by communicating and directing feedback with customers and development team.

The goal of the SFSU President’s Leadership Fellows Program is to provide students with tools and resources to assist them in their preparation and transition to job-readiness. Fellows learn skills including leadership, teamwork, personal branding, interview techniques, and networking. • Participated in weekly leadership workshops to develop critical-career based soft skills • Networked with peers, SFSU staff, and guest leadership consultants • Trained in persuasive communication styles and utilizing emotional intelligence in a work place