Open to opportunities

James Schuett

@jamesschuett

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Director of Product Management leading enterprise SaaS and AI strategy through outcome-focused product delivery.

Zimbabwe

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What I'm looking for

I’m looking to lead enterprise AI product strategy—building practical operating models, mentoring product teams, and partnering cross-functionally to deliver measurable outcomes with responsible governance.

I’m a product leader with 10+ years defining product strategy across enterprise SaaS, data platforms, and AI-enabled products. I partner with engineering, design, sales, delivery, executive leadership, and enterprise clients to solve complex business problems and deliver strategic product outcomes through outcome-oriented roadmaps and cross-functional leadership.

Most recently, I led company-wide AI strategy, personally prototyping AI workflows and agent capabilities with modern LLM tooling to validate product concepts, reduce technical risk, and accelerate execution. I designed an AI operating model with reusable agent architectures, prompting standards, evaluation workflows, governance patterns, and production deployment practices—then coached PMs and designers through ambiguous customer, organizational, and technical challenges while balancing autonomy with escalation when needed.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

VP of Product & Marketing

Current

Polco, Inc.

Jul 2023 - Present (3 years)

Led company-wide AI strategy and prototyping of AI workflows and agent capabilities to validate product concepts and accelerate execution. Designed and implemented an AI operating model across reusable agents, prompting standards, evaluation workflows, governance patterns, and production deployment practices, while owning product strategy and delivery for 10+ production AI products.

AI Product Strategy AI Workflow Design Agentic AI Multi Agent Systems Reusable Agents Prompt Engineering AI Evaluation AI Governance Product Strategy Enterprise SaaS Workflow Automation Analytics

Director of Product Management

Highlight, Inc.

Dec 2021 - Apr 2023 (1 year 4 months)

Joined as the company’s first product leader to build the initial product management and design organization through recruiting and onboarding. Managed strategy, team development, design direction, and execution while establishing a product operating model and growing engineering delivery to two teams of ~10 engineers each, including introducing a CI/CD operating model.

Product Management Product Team Leadership Product Discovery Continuous Delivery team development CI CD

Senior Product Manager

Act-On Software

May 2021 - Dec 2021 (7 months)

Rehabilitated a failing SMS product line with zero adoption by identifying root-cause product-market fit deficiencies and restructuring roadmap priorities. Coordinated engineering and go-to-market teams to establish an adoption trajectory and revenue viability, transforming a sunk-cost feature into an active revenue-generating product line within months.

Product Market Fit Product Strategy Roadmapping Product Recovery

VP of Product and Design

AVB Marketing, Inc.

Oct 2017 - May 2021 (3 years 7 months)

Scaled a multi-platform SaaS product and design organization from a seven-person design team to leading five directors and 100+ employees across product, engineering, design, IT, and data operations. Owned product strategy and execution across ecommerce, inventory, pricing, data, and digital retail platforms, and led a cross-border technical merger aligning product, engineering, customer service,

Product Strategy SaaS Product Leadership ECommerce Platforms Inventory Pricing Data Operations Organizational Leadership Performance Management Technology M&A Integration Bilingual Content

Art & Web Director

San Francisco Bay Coffee

Mar 2012 - Oct 2017 (5 years 7 months)

Built and led teams across marketing, customer service, ecommerce operations, and logistics for a DTC and B2B coffee brand. Expanded ecommerce revenue and led a viral campaign by creating new customer-service, fulfillment, vendor, and shipping processes capable of processing 20,000 shipments per day.

E Commerce Operations Customer Service Operations Logistics Marketing Process Development

Digital Product Marketing Manager

UserTesting

Apr 2011 - Mar 2012 (11 months)

Built integrated demand generation and growth systems spanning paid media channels, landing page optimization, and lifecycle email campaigns. Partnered with product and design teams to align market positioning, user experience, and new customer onboarding flows, and managed content marketing, training initiatives, and partner programs to improve subscriber engagement and product adoption.