EDUCATION

MASTER OF COMMERCE - Strategic Value Management University of New South Wales

BACHELOR OF COMMERCE Accounting and Business Law (awarded with Merit) University of New South Wales

GRADUATE DIPLOMA OF EDUCATION
University of New England

Higher School Certificate Presbyterian Ladies’ College Sydney

Experience

Senior Product Manager | Cascade

As Senior Product Manager for our SaaS platform am responsible for end of end lifecycle product management. I work with the founder and the Product team to develop the Product Vision and Strategy for the SaaS platform. I work closely with the product engineering team to design, develop and ship new features.

General Manager | Insured By Us

General Manager – managed all aspects of IBU’s business to free up the founder Ben Webster to work on other businesses. I was a key member of the leadership team. I was fiscally responsible for managing costs and was able to rapidly reduce the cost base during the COVID-10 crisis. Prior to the crisis we achieved rapid GWP growth on our travel insurance brands through aggregator integrations, affiliate marketing strategies, content and social media strategies

I was Head of Product for the SaaS platform where I developed the Product Vision and Strategy for our SaaS platform. I was developed a new Product Discover and Delivery methodology that saw the product engineering team reduce time to delivery by 37%. I was also Product Manager (full lifecycle) for our travel insurance brands – Travel with Jane, Travel with Kit, Travel By Us and Tilda Travel. During my tenure the brands grew by 330%.

Head of Customer Success – created the customer success function within IBU and lead the team of 15 CSMs and engineers to deliver SaaS platform support and customized features to large corporate clients such as Woolworths, Vodafone, Australian Seniors, Hollard and Tokio Marine. I achieved zero churn and grew MRR through proactive success planning. I created the traveler support function for retail travel insurance clients where we provided phone, email and chat services. Our team provided exceptional service even during the COVID-19 crisis where we achieved zero complaints to AFCA and 79% happiness ratings.

SME Business Advisory Experience

Andale Partners, Sydney NSW | October 2016 – March 2018 | Principal Consultant

• Provided business advisory, consulting, product management, project management and business analyst services to medium size businesses in South Western Sydney:

  • Articulated the business ideas, suggestions and problems in technology terms and was responsible for technology delivery that meets the business needs.

  • Created and re-enforced alignment between technology, business process and people in both project and operational contexts - including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Accounting and Operations

  • Worked collaboratively with senior leadership and through the facilitation of regular working groups.

  • Created story maps, user stories, user journeys and backlogs o Performed problem solving to understand the teams, systems and processes impacted

  • Identified risks and issues and provided risk management strategies

  • Delivered Change Management such as Business Impact Analysis, Business Readiness Assessment, process maps and procedure documents

  • Documentation of business processes and ability to convert business requirements into technical requirements for product engineering teams o Projects included:

A large CRM - Saleforces Sales Cloud, Salesforce Field Service and Pardot Implementation Implementation of MYOB Advanced (MYOB's new cloud hosted ERP system), Business and Technology Strategy Services Wordpress website implementations
App development project for iOS and Android

Fowlers Carpets, Sydney NSW | Jan 2014 – ongoing | Owner

Sarah is one of the owners of Fowlers Carpets and Blinds. Fowlers Carpets and Blinds is the largest flooring covering business in South West Sydney. Sarah was responsible for technology implementation, marketing, team growth and special projects for Fowlers Carpets and Blinds.

- Marketing Strategy and Implementation including print, digital (SEO, Google Adwords, Content Marketing), radio and other traditional forms of advertising. Managed social media activities
- Assisted the other business owners with Business Strategy and Direction
- Re-launched the business internally as Fowlers 3.0 and managed all Change Management initiatives
- Performed Daily Accounting processes and tasks
- Managed Human Resource and team training and enrichment
- Performed the Store Manager role ensuring store presentation, start and end of day tasks.
- Sales Management including target setting, in store promotions and customer engagement
- Customer Service Leadership including managing the After Sale Complaints and Claim process

Boutique Business Consulting, Sydney + India | September 2012 – March 2016 | Founder + CEO

• Provided Business, Digital and Web Consulting and development services to small to medium size businesses in Hong Kong and Australia. Sold the business to The Hope Factory. Became a highly rated Shopify Partner, designing and developing over 200 ecommerce + content websites:

  • Understanding customer business objectives and developing digital strategies and website solutions to meet their needs

  • Project Managed the delivery of website solutions using waterfall, Agile and hybrid methodologies

  • Specified website requirements using wire-framing and technical requirements documentation, user stories, story maps, dev tickets

  • Assisted clients with website software selection – Shopify, Wordpress, BigCommerce and others

  • Project Managed the development and release of website for clients.

  • Managed a team of business analysts and developers

  • Mapped existing business processes and developed new business processes for the introduction of online sales.

  • Educated customers on online business best practices and provided training on website technologies

Cornflower Blue Design Company, Hong Kong + India | April 2009 – August 2013 | Founder + CEO

• Established cornflowerblue, an online organic and ethical clothing business for children in Australia and Hong Kong while residing in India as an expat. Responsibilities included:

  • Product Management + Ecommerce Strategy

  • Website design, specification, development, testing and ongoing website management.

  • Sales and Marketing including managing advertising spend, developing creatives, SEO, social marketing, email marketing, blogging and web marketing.

Financial Services Corporate Experience

HSBC, Sydney + Hong Kong | September 2004 – March 2008 | Project Manager

• Managed two large projects for HSBC. The first project in Australia was bank branch process re-engineering. The second project in Hong Kong, as Product Manager was the implementation of a Wealth Management platform across Asia.

• Responsibilities included:

  • Managed the implementation timeline and resource allocation for IT and business resources across the countries and projects

  • Acted as central co-ordination point between Head Office, IT and Local Project Teams

  • Managed a team of 5 staff as well as the implementation in two countries Indonesia and Malaysia

  • Identified and specified future enhancements to the system to address critical business needs and saw them through to implementation.

  • Managed project communication and stakeholder deliverables and reporting.

  • Set up and implemented training courses for regional staff.

  • Identification and design of process changes

  • Training of process change implementors

  • Assistance with the development of a Business as Usual Process Change methodology for HSBC

BearingPoint , Sydney | 2001 – 2003 | Senior Consultant

Sarah was a senior consultant at Andersen, KPMG Consulting and BearingPoint. Responsibilities included:

• Analysing, designing and implementing financial market and business intelligence systems

• Performed the role of Project Manager and Business Analyst on projects

• Assisted with projects from strategy though to implementation and deployment

• Specalised in IT Strategy, IT systems implementation, Process Mapping and Process Improvements

• Clients included Allianz Australia Limited, Macquarie Bank, AMP, Commonwealth Bank, ESG Reinsurance, News Limited, ING

James Martin, Hong Kong | 2000 | Senior Consultant

Product Manager + Owner for the development of JF Funds Online, an internet trading application – the first in Asia at the time.

Banker Trust, Sydney + London | 1998-1999 | Business Analyst + Financial Controller

Business Analyst and Financial Controller in the International Funds Management team for BT.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sydney | 1997 – 1998 | Audit Undergraduate

Audit and Tax undergraduate – clients include GIO, Esprit, Capral