Product
Greener Android, iOS, and Web
Services
Product Vision, Product Strategy, User Research, UX Design, AI Integration, Stakeholder Collaboration, Sustainability Consulting, Metrics and Impact Analysis, Growth Strategy, Market Expansion, Customer Success, Training and Advocacy, Team Leadership, Partnership Development.
Responsibility
Head of Product
As the Founder and Head of Product at Greener, I’ve led the creation of an AI-powered kitchen assistant that empowers households to manage food more efficiently, reduce waste, and make sustainable choices. My expertise spans end-to-end product development, cross-functional team leadership, and data-driven decision-making, making me well-aligned with roles focused on product growth, strategic partnerships, and user-centric innovation. In developing Greener, I defined a clear product roadmap that balanced user needs, scalability, and business objectives. This roadmap guided the successful implementation of AI-driven meal planning, smart inventory tracking, shopping list integrations, and personalized waste analytics. By leveraging data insights, I identified and prioritized features that drove a 20% early adoption rate and achieved 25% engagement growth through API integrations with grocery platforms and recipe publishers. I collaborated with diverse stakeholders, including food publishers, bloggers, and platforms like BBC Good Food, to expand Greener’s ecosystem. These partnerships enabled users to seamlessly discover recipes, automate grocery shopping, and adopt sustainable practices. Campaigns like Veganuary further amplified our mission, encouraging users to integrate plant-based meals into their lives and reduce their environmental footprint. My experience in product management includes setting KPIs, analyzing user data to refine features, and ensuring that every iteration aligns with user feedback and business goals. I worked closely with engineering, design, and growth marketing teams to deliver a product that users love, achieving a 30% reduction in food waste for early adopters.
Challenge
At Greener, the team was structured into Web, Mobile Experience, and Growth, and I led these cross-functional teams to build a scalable and user-centric platform. Our focus was on delivering AI-driven meal planning, seamless grocery shopping integrations, and features designed to drive engagement. One of the biggest challenges was curating a comprehensive and dynamic recipe database that catered to diverse dietary needs while being adaptable to user preferences. We also faced hurdles in achieving early adoption and maintaining 25% engagement growth, which we addressed through personalized user experiences and data-driven insights. Additionally, integrating real-time grocery APIs and ensuring scalability across different regions required close collaboration with partners and innovative technical solutions.
Process
Team Leadership and Agile Collaboration: As the Head of Product at Greener, I led a cross-functional team divided into Web, Mobile Experience, and Growth. My role involved not only defining the product vision and roadmap but also managing and mentoring team members to ensure alignment and collaboration across divisions. We operated under an agile framework, with daily stand-ups, bi-weekly sprint reviews, and planning sessions that encouraged cross-team visibility and collaboration. I facilitated JIRA task management, ensuring tasks were clearly defined, prioritized, and tracked to completion. Regular retrospectives provided an opportunity to refine workflows and maintain team cohesion.
User Research and Persona Development: We began with an 8-week research phase, during which I organized user interviews, surveys, and observation sessions with diverse households to understand their cooking behaviors, pain points, and expectations. These insights informed the creation of detailed user personas, helping the team stay aligned with user needs throughout development. A key focus was identifying how users approached meal planning, managed leftovers, and interacted with online recipes and grocery lists.
Feature Prioritisation and Backlog Management: Using the data collected, I translated user insights into epic-level user stories and prioritized them within the agile backlog. For example, one high-priority feature was enabling users to generate personalized shopping lists based on recipes and pantry inventories. Each user story was broken down into smaller tasks for design, development, and testing, ensuring iterative progress.
Recipe Database and Data Structuring: To address the challenge of creating a robust recipe database, I led efforts to partner with food publishers, bloggers, and platforms like BBC Good Food, securing high-quality content. Recipes were tagged with metadata such as cuisine type, dietary restrictions, preparation time, and compatible ingredients, while integrating semantic search capabilities and nutrition datasets from resources like USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts. I collaborated closely with the engineering team to organise the database for efficient search, filtering, and scalability, ensuring a strong foundation for future growth.
Wireframing, Prototyping, and Usability Testing: I developed wireframes and interactive prototypes to visualise features like recipe recommendations, grocery list generation, and recipe nutrition dashboards. These prototypes were tested with a small group of users to gather feedback early in the design process. Regular usability testing sessions were conducted to validate functionality, uncover pain points, and refine the user experience.
API Integration and Scalability: Integrating real-time grocery APIs was a complex but critical component. I collaborated with engineers and external partners to ensure smooth integration, focusing on compatibility, response time, and scalability. To manage regional variations, we designed a modular system that could adapt to different market requirements while maintaining a consistent user experience.
Collaborative Design Workshops: To foster collaboration and align cross-functional efforts, I facilitated regular workshops involving all team members. These sessions were essential for brainstorming innovative solutions, resolving roadblocks, and ensuring that design and technical requirements were fully aligned.
Iterative Development and Continuous Testing: Following agile principles, we continuously iterated on features based on feedback from usability testing and data analytics. Each sprint delivered incremental improvements, such as enhanced personalization for recipe recommendations or faster grocery list generation.
Documentation and Training Materials: To support smooth onboarding, I developed detailed training guides and help documentation for both internal teams and end users. These materials provided clarity on how to maximize the platform’s features, encouraging higher engagement and retention.
Solution
After defining and prioritizing tasks in JIRA, such as challenges with the recipe database, grocery API integrations, and engagement-driving features, I led the Web, Mobile Experience, and Growth teams through an agile process to ensure iterative development and refinement. Once tasks were completed, I collaborated with cross-functional teams during daily stand-ups and sprint reviews to validate the end-to-end functionality, particularly for complex features like parametric grocery search, semantic recipe search, and scalable API integrations.
To address the challenges with the recipe database, we implemented a semantic search engine powered by AI. This enabled users to search for recipes in natural language, such as "quick vegan dinner with lentils," and receive highly relevant results. By combining metadata tagging and contextual AI, we significantly improved the accuracy and user satisfaction of recipe searches. For grocery lists, we introduced parametric search filters that allowed users to specify measurement units, ingredient substitutions, and preferences, such as "buy organic milk in 1-liter cartons." These features were critical in enhancing user convenience and creating a personalised experience.
I mapped out detailed user journeys, highlighting critical touchpoints like recipe discovery, shopping list creation, and pantry tracking. These journeys were used to identify pain points and opportunities to simplify workflows, such as enabling users to add recipes directly to their shopping lists with one click. These insights informed design iterations and optimized the flow between recipe discovery and grocery planning.
To validate these improvements, I implemented A/B testing for the new semantic search functionality, comparing keyword-based search results to semantic search results. The results showed a 20% increase in successful recipe discoveries and a 15% reduction in search time, confirming the effectiveness of the feature. Similarly, parametric search testing revealed a 30% higher accuracy in grocery list generation, as users were able to better customise their preferences.
I conducted usability testing with early adopters, leveraging tools to capture session recordings, heatmaps, and feedback. Testing revealed that users highly valued filtering by dietary preferences and preparation time, leading us to expand recipe metadata and improve search granularity. To ensure scalability, I facilitated collaborative workshops with engineers, designers, and product managers to develop modular, reusable API components. These APIs supported real-time grocery integrations and could easily adapt to regional requirements and new partnerships with grocery providers and recipe platforms.
As the team lead, I also mentored new team members, guiding them on agile workflows, the intricacies of semantic and parametric search implementations, and A/B testing strategies. This collaborative and supportive environment ensured a unified focus on delivering user-centered solutions. The final product incorporated a robust recipe database, semantic search for natural language queries, and parametric search for grocery customization, creating a seamless user experience. These innovations contributed to a 20% early adoption rate, a 25% increase in user engagement, and significantly enhanced scalability, positioning Greener as a cutting-edge platform in sustainable kitchen solutions.
