Hi, I'm Sean Crickenberger.
I'm passionate about leadership and ready for the next chapter. If my story aligns with yours, I'd love to chat and explore the possibilities together.
Career objective
Living a life of project, product, and people management has left me with a wildly diverse skill set: I’m a coach, a mentor, a sponsor, a writer, a tester, a comedian, a researcher, a manager, a cheerleader, a protector, a listener, a builder, a planner. Above all, I’m a doer who leads by example, driven by exceptional empathy. A uniquely talented communicator with a passion for problem solving, I love helping people, teams, and businesses reach their potential.
Work experience
Director of Operations, Make&Model Inc.
- Managed a small team of product designers and contract developers on a wide range of concurrent digital design projects, overseeing timelines, delivery, and client communications.
- Defined and centralized project processes, including standardized project hubs, task and timeline tracking, and data and asset organization & storage, adding structure to a previously amorphous project environment.
- Created comprehensive internal Employee Handbook including code of conduct, holiday and PTO schedule and guidelines, project how-to’s, company onboarding instructions, and more, to provide a one-stop-shop of critical information for all employees.
- Implemented and managed regularly recurring company touchpoints, including weekly management & business development check-ins, company standup & related practices therein, and bi-weekly 1:1s to ensure accountability and appropriate rigor.
- Created standardized MSA, SOW, and project proposal templates, transforming an inefficient and ad hoc time suck into a repeatable, well oiled machine.
- Owned invoicing and reconciliation responsibilities, ensuring timely payment, clean books, and removing an unnecessary burden from the design team.
Example Make&Model projects
Sr. Project Manager, Dockyard Inc.
- Hired as company’s 2nd Project Manager, I rapidly grew the organization’s project team capabilities by directly scaling up the team, suggesting and implementing process efficiencies, and enabling increased talent acquisition across the company.
- Simultaneously served as Interim Director of Design for a quarter, managing a full team of Designers and participating in all senior leadership discussions.
- Owned project and product management on five large, wide-ranging applications for Netflix, including overhauling three apps used daily in the production process, creating two new green-field applications that will help streamline pre-production massively, and helping to evolve a design system that spanned the entire ecosystem.
- Actively participated in the company’s Mentor/Mentee program, serving as Mentor to two folks from different areas of the org, as well as Mentee for leadership skills, and HTML/CSS (which used to be totally foreign to me).
- Regularly contributed to the evolution and purposeful maturity of the Project and Product discipline at the company, through professional writing, adding to and achieving yearly team objectives, and proactively suggesting, implementing, and sharing process improvements across the company.
Product Manager, Mariana Tek
- Shaped, grew, and managed the processes that helped transform an idea into a suite of live, marketable products spanning from client to customer facing, and mobile app to web app.
- Guided the creation and management of both strategic and tactical priorities, using both sophisticated tools and software, as well as simple documentation and plain old communication.
- Oversaw the ongoing improvement and support of the company’s core products, as well as the planning and implementation of new client deliverables.
- Managed, tracked, and reported on our internal metrics for success, including the refinement of and education on key performance indicators.
- Owned the entire product lifecycle for the evolution of the iOS application.
- Helped drive the continual growth of both team and company culture, pushing for what was best for the strategic health and expansion of the company.
- Transformed a talented but disjointed group of people into a unified, organized team that regularly exceeded expectations, felt true ownership over their work, and helped shape the company and culture.
Product Owner, National Geographic Society
- Collaborated with a huge number of disparate stakeholders across the Society to effectively manage a complex, multi-channeled backlog, distilling common platform requirements wherever possible.
- Managed multiple 10-12 person teams - with resources spread around the globe - to ensure quality delivery of organization-wide features, and superlative cross-site and cross-platform support.
- Owned the creation and ongoing management of strategic product roadmaps and corresponding backlogs.
- Oversaw the creation and integration of common services and features to significantly reduce site-specific development costs/timelines, and vastly improve workflows and user experience for internal clients.
- Led custom implementation of AEM (Adobe’s CMS), prioritizing as needed to support parallel development of AEM-dependent sites across the Society.
- Enabled and supported the successful launch of six new AEM-dependent sites in less than two years, while simultaneously managing the ongoing development of the AEM platform itself.
Project Manager, National Geographic Society
- Successfully led the creation and launch of new, custom-built CMS, which helped centralize content, streamline development, and save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, all while offering improved workflows, flexibility, user experience, and available feature sets.
- Managed simultaneous redesign and migration of National Geographic Channel’s website, moving it from an outdated and complex web of interdependent legacy systems, into an evolving and highly automated system.
- Righted a troubled project that was more than 200% over budget and 2 years late, and got it out the door in 9 months.
- Helped to define then launch a customizable, reusable, and scalable platform enabling the Society to crank out feature-rich contests and UGC campaigns on a whim, saving $80,000 a pop.
- Proposed, justified, and implemented first truly agile workflow processes utilized by the digital media team, drastically streamlining all facets of the project management lifecycle.
- Managed timely, under-budget launch of two UGC-fueled ad sales campaigns, netting over $200k in revenue.
Project Manager, Intersections Inc.
- Proactively conducted a comprehensive review of the company's customer-facing website, and compiled a clear, detailed list of recommended improvements to design, form, and functionality.
- Cataloged and personally managed over 700 work orders to successful completion.
- Created a trackable and efficient process for submitting and monitoring work orders, then trained entire cross-functional teams on the improved processes, adapting them as necessary to adjacent departments.
- Managed IT on-boarding of brand new, company-wide email marketing platform.
Senior Analyst, SNL Financial
- One of two analysts selected to directly engage in the high-priority testing, development, and improvement of major, upcoming, client-facing products.
- Conceptualized various automated functionalities and other improvements which increased efficiency and reduced the potential for human error.
- Worked in a fast-paced, deadline-driven group to facilitate successful and timely departmental product launches.
- Took on additional responsibilities such as interviewing, training, and mentoring new employees.
What I'm looking for
I’m excited about people, process, and product. My ideal role would involve leading and fostering a team, optimizing and organizing internal processes at a company level, and participating in strategic product and/or company roadmap ideation and planning.
Responsibilities I'm excited about:
- Team and personnel management
- Operations and process development
- Delivery pipeline optimization
- Strategic visioning and roadmap oversight
- Communications management
Education
B.A., Economics, University of Virginia (2005)
Personal
Compassionate father, devoted husband, caretaker of two adorable dogs, fantastic chef, voracious reader, and lover of film. I’m a loyal and dependable friend, often the glue that keeps friend groups together. I love the outdoors, music of all kinds, and practice both mental and physical fitness daily. If I’m not growing, I’m shrinking, and my goal is to flourish in whatever I set my mind to.
Thanks for reading!
Sean