About
I have 15+ years experience in Product, leading teams, validating and scaling products across consumer tech, AI, speech recognition, biometrics, fintech, and privacy. Two startup exits.
I live in a drafty, leaky 165-yo house in Cambridge, MA with my amazing partner, and a small-but-growing amorphous cloud of local-entropy-maximizing children that lay waste to all things.
Experience
-
Head of Product
- Defining and executing AI-forward operating model for PMF discovery.
- Aligning and mobilizing 20+ person organization to reach Series B.
-
Product Lead
- Led AI integration for privacy consent workflows, reducing parts of the consent design process from weeks to minutes.
- Owned redesign and synchronized relaunch of the Google DMA consent flow across YouTube, Search, Play, and Google Ads, impacting ~50M users annually across the EU.
- Invented and launched a novel false-accept mitigation feature for Google Assistant, driving a >10% reduction in false accept rate.
- Led product roadmap and expansion of biometric voice ID from a single product to all Google products including Gemini.
-
Product Development
- Conducted market analysis and go-to-market strategy to inform Samsung build/buy decision in connected hardware.
- Prototyped an SME-facing electricity use and dynamic pricing product concept for a Fortune 100 energy company.
-
VP, Digital Banking
- Led digital transformation for retail banking; established the bank's first cross-functional product team.
- First release reduced monthly payment platform fees by ~$100K USD.
- Improved App Store rating from 3 to 4 stars through user research-informed iteration.
-
Director, Technology & Product
- Invented and developed the hero app for Samsung Family Hub, from concept through acquisition by Samsung.
- Owned end-to-end product roadmap, go-to-market strategy, and KPIs from 0-to-1 through acquisition.
- Upon exit, offered Product Lead position for Samsung America Product Innovation Team.
Personal Projects
covidprotocols.org
At the onset of the pandemic, I teamed up with a friend, a Pulmonary Critical Care Physician, to quickly deploy a site to publish contributions by over 50 doctors at BWH — continuously updating best practices for COVID-19 assessment and critical care treatment. The site saw >10,000 DAU almost immediately, with heavy use by medical professionals globally. It was one of the first broadly available sources of peer-reviewed medical best practices in the world.
ColonText
This OS-agnostic group messaging app - built on Twilio, was heavily used by my friend group! Alas it predated my career shift to PM, and WhatsApp stole its thunder. :)
Accesso
With a Zigbee relay, IFTTT, a SmartThings router, Twilio, and some duct tape, I built an SMS-based key provisioning system to manage access to our home in the Mission, San Francisco.
FireFauna
A 3-day festival in Western Mass every autumnal equinox since 2021, with a focus on music, community, and learning.
Motorized Kid Transporter
For my latest project at A2, I'm working on adding an electric motor to the Veer City Cruiser XL, for the first sidewalk-worthy electric kid transporter of its kind. Ask me for details!
The Hearth
A community space for artistry, performance, and other forms of collectivism at which I volunteer (mostly doing carpentry, plumbing and electrical work)
Writing
Latest posts from James's Observations on Substack.