DENNISCOZART  
Summary Information
Employment History
Education History
Shipment History
Skip Navigation LinksEmployment History

Blackboard Corporation

Vice President Product Development, 2006-present
  • Contactless Partnership
    Coalesced the Sony contactless reader opportunity into a cohesive, detailed plan for future contactless readers and five million dollar investment by Sony.
  • Customer Satisfaction
    Attained a seven percent year over year increase in third party measured customer satisfaction of overall product functionality.
  • Employee Management
    Turned a dysfunctional, non productive product management group into a product management group effective at managing hardware products and third party products.
  • Internal Communication
    Significantly improved communication by creating the http://commerce web site which centralizes product information: 67% of Commerce employees visit it monthly.
  • Product Analysis
    Created formal analysis criteria and approval process for third party hardware product; the criteria are based on category management criteria from leading retailers.
  • Product Throughput
    Drove a 135% year over year increase in equivalent functionality product releases from a 2006 starting count of 14 releases to a 2007 ending count of 33 releases.
  • Product Planning
    Created a rigorous product roadmap with one year planning horizon and socialized that roadmap in a regular and well attended monthly planning and review meeting.
  • Product Quality
    Achieved average of two severity 1 or 2 post production defects per KLOC versus industry average of five such defects per KLOC.
  • Product Trajectory
    Reoriented product trajectory from one driven primarily by customer input to one driven by industry standards, market analysis, and customer input.
  • Project Timeliness
    Shipped approximately 95% of all products (internally developed and third party sourced) within the product roadmap committed delivery quarter.
  • Sales Training
    Consolidated training from multiple ad hoc sessions per month to a single, predictable session of live training for all new products and replayable webcasts for each product.

PatchLink Corporation

Director Product Management, 2005-2006
  • Product/program managed eight releases and two new products.
  • Leveraged competitive, industry, market, and academic research.
  • Organized and formalized product roadmap, including
    • Expected product releases by quarter
    • High level features and functions
    • Variants by brand, language, platform
  • Organized and formalized product life cycle, including
    • Product area with attributes, types, names, and versions
    • Encryption area with standard and high encryption variants
    • Release area with detailed external and internal milestones
  • Improved pre release documentation to include
    • New product features, resolved defects, and known issues,
    • Compatible products, platforms, and virtualization managers

Microsoft Corporation

Director Commercial/Partner/OEM Business Systems, 1995-2005
  • Envisioned and product managed 49 releases in 13 business applications
    • Contract processing
    • Transaction processing
    • Analytical processing
    • Content management
    • Content/file distribution
    • Email management
  • New product concept, business case, feasibility analysis, and commercialization.
  • Defined multi year product portfolio strategies and annual product plans.
  • Delivered ten version 1.0 releases across multiple business areas.
  • Completed approximately 70 business process improvement projects.
  • Rolled out multiple sales/marketing/channel programs to 58 subsidiaries.
  • Extensive experience in global business practices and internationalization.
  • Invited speaker at regional and worldwide channel partner conferences.

Egghead Software

Retail/Merchandising Systems Manager, 1994-1995
  • Designed data warehouse and decision support system for retail and corporate areas.
  • Supported logistics analysis, promotion effectiveness, and ad hoc queries.
  • Owned retail systems for 166 store chain, including point of sale, merchandising, and inventory.
  • Created innovative in store kiosk for high touch, low cost product information.

Pioneer Electronics

Marketing Manager, 1992-1994
  • Analyzed and forecasted sales by product and market.
  • Evaluated venture proposals and performed competitive analyses.
  • Developed cluster and media analyses for major product lines.
  • Sponsored buyer behavior and patterning research studies.
  • Developed data warehouse for large national retailer.

Acquisitions, Inc.

Transaction Specialist, 1990-1992
  • Brokered California manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution companies.
  • Solicited, negotiated, and coordinated relationships between sellers and buyers.
  • Analyzed, valued, packaged, and marketed companies on a national basis.

Xerox Corporation

Financial Planning Manager, 1986-1990
  • Operating and capital budgeting, cost accounting, management reporting.
  • Automated telecommunications/data processing inventory and chargeback systems.
  • Developed state of the art decision support models to forecast supply and demand.

Bank of America

Sales and Marketing Analyst, 1984-1985
  • Supported business and technical analysis functions for major account sales.
  • Needs analysis, proposal preparation, product demonstrations, client training.
  • Developed telemarketing group, direct mail program, CPA public relations campaign.
Resume and Contact
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dennis@denniscozart.com