Sean O'Neill

Enabling aftermarket service for complex industries to Plan. Price. Service. Syncron’s Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) Platform centralizes the management of all aftermarket sales and service processes. We offer integrated AI/ML-powered solutions, predictive analytics, and configurable automation to drive a comprehensive service transformation. Enabling you to capitalize on the new service economy.

I have been painting and sculpting art as a creative outlet and hobby. Here is my art portfolio website https://www.seanoneill.com

GfK (‘Growth from Knowledge’) is one of the world's largest consumer market research and industry insight companies, and is a KKR portfolio firm. Successful multi-billion € PE exit to Advent/NielsenIQ (NIQ) in 2023. Key Responsibilities: • Led GfK’s product innovation, strategy, design, and proposition development (100+ people), working directly with tech and data sci squads to build and deliver the software, self-service user experience, and data insights to clients. • Operated as a Member of the top executive team with regular Board and KKR Investor interactions Key Achievements: • As a member of the C-Suite, played a key role in the business and product transformation, outpacing the industry by returning the company to growth and more than doubling profitability. • Extensive involvement in a broad, multi-suitor PE sell-side and due diligence process, successfully resulting in a multi-billion Euro deal for the company to be acquired by NielsenIQ/Advent. • Developed gfknewron, an industry-leading client platform that leverages AI/ML and big data to empower brands and retailers in the consumer space. Users can self-service answer key business questions across sales, channels, consumers, and competitors. This platform approach also enables GfK to develop and launch the next new proposition in a fraction of the time and cost as before. Active users up 300%, module revenue up 400%, Net Promoter Score +45. • Transformed and up-skilled product development, design, and analytics capabilities, with processes and career frameworks including criteria for job levelling, recruiting, and career development steps. • Established multiple new governance processes for transparency and managing the entire company portfolio of product and tech investment budgets and outcomes, as well as industry benchmarking and competitive analysis.

Transformed Product Management functions and pace of value delivery across Tesco. Built up a world-class product development and data organisation for Tesco (200+ people) covering Global Core API Services (identity, customer, transactions, payment, search & recommendations); Retail Store Experiences (customer transactions, colleague productivity, and data); Fulfilment & Logistics (customer last mile, transport, fulfilment systems, customer post-order management); and Data Platforms (data science, AI/ML data tools, business intelligence). Defined the vision and platform for the future of retail, at the intersection of supply and demand data signals. Our brilliant teams delivered +£100m annual revenue and +£50m annual margin commercial impacts, created industry-leading apps and processes for reducing food waste, were awarded Retail Week’s Consumer Innovation of the Year with Spoon Guru for search & recommendation improvements for allergen and dietary needs, deprecated legacy tools through global & scalable enterprise applications, laid the groundwork for recognising and serving ROSI needs (Research Online Shop Instore), and materially expanded data science as a primary lever for driving intelligence and optimisations throughout the strategic service stack. Established and led Portfolio Program Management function to coordinate visibility, priorities, and governance across the entire £750m annual technology budget. Transformed the calibre of product thinking, focused on Outcomes & Key Results, and increased the pace of value delivery across all of Tesco. Steward of the Product Job Family. Collaborated with Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) for Tesco-specific workshops and trained 1000+ people across all Tesco regions. Created a product coaching function to continue product team training and development at higher levels, always raising the bar. Operated as a regular industry speaker on digital innovation and disruptive trends.

World’s largest online grocer and a top 10 global ecommerce retailer by revenue • Led 100-person org for product management, design, and analytics to build out world-class online shopping for Tesco globally (UK, Ireland, Asia Pacific, and Central EU). • Replatformed the core business. Created the product vision, strategy, and credible roadmap to transform legacy domains into more relevant, scalable and performant customer experiences. Increased revenue per visitor by 8% through helping customers find more items in less time on smaller screens, saving customers over 3 million shopping hours per year. • Restructured all product ecommerce teams into outcome-based product management, focused on strategic customer and business needs with stakeholder transparency. • Transformed Tesco’s vision of Research Online Shop Instore (ROSI); delivering the experience, technology and tracking to give customers a glide path from online into stores. • Frequent industry speaker on digital innovation and disruptive trends.

The olloclip brand includes a growing line of groundbreaking tools and accessories for the mobile photographer. The core product, the olloclip lens system, connects to the smartphone in seconds, allowing the user to instantly and easily capture photographic images and use various photographic effects. olloclip has attracted a legion of passionate users, not to mention distribution through the major retailers worldwide, amassing over 1 million lenses shipped. Leveraging this phenomenal success, the company continues to innovate with new products that push the parameters of what’s possible in mobile photography.

Business owner of global ecommerce/cost-per-click performance advertising platform • Tripled Product Ad revenue within 3 years to US$100MM run rate through new ad targeting methods, placements, user interfaces, and data-driven feedback loops. • Devised senior exec strategy and optimization plan for intercompany channel conflict between ads and ecommerce cannibalization. Built consensus for profit trade off of off-site ads versus on-site ecommerce, enabling smart growth and max combined profits. • Launched into new countries (UK, Germany & France) and new Amazon categories only served by Product Ads (Wine & Prescription Contact Lenses), serving rapid profit growth. • Certified Amazon Bar Raiser (< 1% of Amazon employees, who are hiring experts on interview loops to uphold high standards and find great talent). Conducted 700+ interviews. • Built and led a team of 10 for product, account, marketing, analytics, and ad operations.

Led PayPhrase payment method adoption and transaction share (Jeff Bezos patent for novel payment account access and allowance product). • Interim director of Consumer Payments team through VP vacancies and planning cycle, needed to address splintered strategy; shut down my Payphrase business unit to move the resources and products to a peer Payments business unit, to fund strategic needs that had better growth options. Amazon encourages managers to ‘think like an owner’. • Developed analytics (SQL) to track adoption and insights for cutting edge payment features.

Member of the Board of Directors for a cause that is very close to my heart, children’s literacy. Page Ahead is a non-profit that gives new books to at-risk kids to promote literacy and a love of reading. Since 1990 Page Ahead has delivered over 2 million books to kids in Washington State. • Rewrote the Board Charters to clarify the governance process and update it for current needs • Advised on program strategy and focus, following up on ground-breaking work on literacy to combat the ‘summer slide’ in reading skills. Piloting and then adopting a shift of book distributions from the school year to the summer to make a greater impact.

Top-tier online market research survey platform with millions of global consumer survey panelists • Improved cashflow and internal controls through survey incentive and tool optimizations. Reduced incentive operational expenses as % of revenue by 32%, enabling first firm net profits in 5 years. • Stepped into product development void, establishing processes and re-organizing team. Owned strategic roadmap, focusing program managers on agile/scrum milestones to support plan. • Developed core platform for real-time consumer session management via data-driven algorithms, increasing the number of billable surveys completed per respondent by 37%. • Implemented data warehouse, reporting, and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to track business.

Consumer loyalty rewards startup for credit card and online shopping; raised $4mm in funding • Defined user experience/specifications, managed implementation of 5 vendors to launch the entire site. Launched site on time and on budget, 105 days after joining the company. • Instrumented database schema changes to tie full visibility of member online/offline shopping. Linked online and Visa physical points of sale for complete picture of household purchases. • Created analytics dashboard for clear visibility to the member base activity. Defined key performance indicators and wrote extensive SQL queries to track analytical insights.

Managed teams across 3 continents for vendor management, fraud detection, & credit approval • Built and managed global operations organization from 14 up to 80 employees with multi-level reporting structure and $4mm cost center. Launched full-time India location for 24/7 coordination. • Established product roadmap and requirements for fraud investigation processes and tools. Chargeback claim rate declined 29% while speed of detecting the worst sellers improved 65%. • Launched department Six Sigma quality program, mentoring 12 Green/Black Belt candidates while completing my own Green Belt certification. Projects generated $2mm in free-cash flow.

Defined strategy and product requirements to enable 3rd party merchants to sell through Amazon • Defined vision and functional specifications for Amazon’s next generation Transaction Feedback system (buyer satisfaction and seller reputation). Redesigned user interfaces eventually launched on all Amazon global sites with billions of page views to date. Increased feedback completion rate by 25% while making it easier to evaluate seller quality. 3 patents granted on reputation system. • Redesigned buyer dispute program (Guarantee Claims) and wrote product roadmaps and specs. Recovered $2mm in bad debt over 2 years. Reduced dispute duration from 4 weeks to 7.5 days for higher customer satisfaction.

Responsible for setting customer shipment pricing and creating new shipping services. • Developed analytical models to gauge price elasticity and cost structure. Segmented and repriced export markets; 90% margin increase in high-cost and 30% volume increase in low-cost regions. • Created new guaranteed-delivery shipping service and drove buyer demand for key holidays (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas). Generated $1mm in incremental margin. • Managed $10 million giftwrap program. Conducted pricing experiments for elasticity. Changes to giftwrap material specs resulted in over $1mm in annual net margin and labor improvements. • Worked directly with Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, on physical 'Last Mile' initiatives for getting products to customers faster. Evaluated concepts through data mining, mapping software, and primary research.

Drove customer behavior through user interface changes, validated through data mining and A/B tests. • Redesigned Books Search user interface and functionality with extensive customer testing. Increased customer conversion drove $15 million lift in annual revenue. • Drove and launched Smart Continue Shopping feature that resulted in a $20 million increase in revenue. • Managed cross-functional team to launch a revised Bargain Books category and to create the infrastructure to handle non-replenishable products. Increased category conversion by 38%.

• Creator and Product Manager of SimZine. Managed 15 people and outside contractors from concept to launch of innovative Java-based management simulation game created for Kellogg Tech Conference; wrote and co-taught case study at Kellogg Executive Programs with Professor Mohan Sawhney. • GMAT score in 99th percentile.