I get results at work

Whatever the workplace — in media, in banking, or within an agency — I've excelled despite any initial lack of domain knowledge. I work best when I can empower people to achieve more with less and approach their job with confidence. I've done this through effective software products and services, or clearing the path for others to focus on their outcomes.

I've worked for startups with under ten employees, all the way up to enterprise companies employing tens of thousands. The how of product and services development has been my focus, with technical roles as a software developer, team lead, and solutions architect. It's the why and what of digital products which now interest me more, through product owner, product manager, or similar roles.

• In my most recent role as Senior Technical Product Manager my team was tasked with increasing adoption of the company's internal design system. I ran discovery interviews with developers and designers and, along with my team, isolated some pain points that were limiting adoption. Using off-the-shelf products, we were able to create a more modern design system that wowed users.
• I've saved people hundreds of hours spent troubleshooting QA environments within a Canadian bank by managing Agile development of a product to verify and visualise host and service configurations.
• I'm happiest on cross-functional teams. I have successfully collaborated with developers, enterprise architects, data scientists, information and UX architects, quality assurance, designers, business analysts, and other stakeholders.
• Because of my ability to drive change, a department of one of Canada's largest newspapers not only retained unsatisfied business clients and improved the client experience, but also increased demand and developer productivity.

People say great things about me

I leave a positive impression everywhere I go. Here's what people have said about me and my work:

"Ian is one of the best Technical Product Managers I have had the pleasure of working with. Ian is humble, engaging and works tirelessly to ensure his team has everything they need. Ian is very attentive to clients' needs and works closely and transparently with them to deliver optimal outcomes. He is a true team player and collaborates easily across internal and external teams." Idris Tavassoli, my manager at Intersect

"Ian needed to collaborate with multiple stakeholders with varying degrees of technical competency, both within the organization as well as with external vendors — an activity he achieved with unfailing diplomacy and professionalism." Paul Kennedy, to whom Ian reported while at The Globe and Mail

"I came to trust [Ian's] opinion and instincts regarding the development of the UI elements I was designing and wireframing. Ian is both honest and industrious and willing to extend himself and prototype new ideas. […] I also appreciated Ian's ability to recognize opportunities to innovate the project and programatically build a better solution." Vergel Evans, Information Architect at Syncapse

"Talking with another software architect about the work Ian did on the project, he said that what was most surprising was that Ian was able to make [Apache] Pig do things that he didn't think the language could do — all the more remarkable given that Ian was being asked to learn on the fly. If you have hard things that need to be done well, I would definitely recommend Ian." Gordon Edall, Senior Manager, Intelligence Systems at The Globe and Mail

I'm a lifelong learner

Ever curious, I enjoy finding the reason — the why — behind a topic or practise. It allows me to explore other possibilities to meet that why.

• I've recently completed a Digital Product Management Specialization with courses in: Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals, Hypothesis-Driven Development, Agile Meets Design Thinking, and Managing an Agile Team.
• Because I believe in growth and exploration, I've also completed courses in Data Analysis and Statistical Inference, Machine Learning, and Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies.

My weekly Toronto startup newsletter reaches thousands

Since 2018, I've curated and written over 150 issues of a newsletter on startup-related news for Toronto. I feel there are many people who might want to turn their idea into a startup, but shy away from taking their first steps. I think about those people when I write my newsletter, which I send out to 4500+ subscribers every week, and whose open rates I grew by half, from a fifteen-week moving average of 20% to one of 31%. If you know someone in the GTA who could do with some encouragement delivered to their inbox, get them to sign up.

I even designed this site

Using stock templates for this website would have been far too easy. Instead, I designed and coded it from the templates to the CSS so that I could have the exact look I wanted.