George Nurijanian

My path to PM has been non-linear. I got into it via working with data and analytics, but I was most interested in what to do with those insights.

This has led me to learn and explore UX design and research methods. Working with the General Management and clients at every stage has kept me close to what matters to the business, but I still like spending time on the ground inside features, working with engineers, digging through data and carefully aligning roadmaps.

I’m still learning every day.

---

EXPERIENCE

Online Republic

Product Manager, UX & CRO (June 2018 – April 2020)

💰+3,800 hours of solving problems

💼 agile project management & product management

🍿 large engineering team

Online Republic is an OTA in the APAC region. It runs 3 products: Airport Rentals, Motorhome Republic & Cruise Sale Finder (shut down due to the pandemic).

• Responsible for improving conversion rate through research.
• Establishing better ways to do lean UX research & experimentation and running hundreds of experiments, usability tests and prototype validation sessions.
• Defining the functionality that allowed users to find the right options faster. Refining roadmaps through an experimentation plan.
• Delivery management of key changes to the search discovery & booking flows to reduce friction.
• Working with senior stakeholders on priorities. Reporting into the CTO, CEO, CMO at various stages of the tenure.
• Creating alignment with GM’s of the product by understanding where the market is moving and what changes and experiments need to run to achieve the goals of the org.

I was on a team of 14 engineers, UX designers & QA.

Key achievements:

• Led the redesign of Cruise Sale Finder’s outdated search, product & transactional steps. Users gained clarity around key T&Cs, pricing & availability, deals, ship info & cruise dates itinerary. Identified different usage patterns on mobile and led the restructuring of the advanced discovery feature that was key in driving conversions. Did UX research & product analysis, but also defined the user stories and worked with engineers on how to split them, how to implement the experiment and collect the right data. We ran upwards of 30+ experiments ranging from a few days to a few weeks in length. We were successful at remodelling the homepage to help users complete one of the key jobs they had (find the latest cruise deals). Moving on, we improved long clicks to transaction stages (search to transaction) by as much as 55%, especially on mobile devices that were overtaking in traffic.
• Launched 3D view on Motorhome Republic. The feature allows users to go virtually inside motorhomes. Most first-time users were unable to conceptualise what it would be like inside. Collaborated with account managers on the provisioning of 3D models from suppliers. Drove 10-15% higher conversion for users who came through the paid media channel and were trying out the feature. Most recently, I drove the full redesign of the transactional steps of the flow, to bring in a more streamlined design, reducing clutter and providing guidelines to users on their payment schedule, which gets complicated due to limitations on the supplier API side (and some don’t have an API).
• Tested many concepts with the marketing team on Airport Rentals. Our key goal was to drive down acquisition costs through improving conversion rates, and one of the ways to do that was to drive traffic through other channels, key of which was Email. We learned that we needed to offer more value as features like Price Alerts (smoke test without any real backend built yet) didn’t take off as expected. 
• Owned the gift card functionality experiment roadmap on Cruise Sale Finder. We smoke tested the idea based on the premise that cruise customers often considered a cruise an anniversary treat, but also focusing on the low end cruises that would cost below <$1000. It didn’t take off, but we spent only a few hours on it (didn’t build the whole solution), collected feedback from that smoke test that gave us clarity on how to think about gifting in this context. This added further plans to allow others to gift drinks packages and other perks within a cruise (cheaper, but also more valuable). This was limited by the API connections we had, and the new GM later made a strategic decision to move the site to a different platform that had more flexible and robust API connections. However, COVID-19 thwarted those plans and the whole Cruise Sale Finder product had to be shut down.

DFI

Business Analyst/Data Scientist (March 2017 – May 2018)

💰+2,300 hours of solving problems

💼 client presentations & first RFP process

🍿 working in small teams

• Led the implementation of a recommendation engine on the eCommerce side of the business. The new feature increased average order value by 35% and drove YoY revenue growth ~ 80% in Q1 2018.
• Established a new analytical framework, helping drive down analysis time which was the key driver to improve client retention.
• Presented analytical solutions to stakeholders at Fisher & Paykel for the annual review session. Overseeing the data analysis components of the RFP process.

Ace Rental Cars

Pricing & Revenue Analyst (January 2013 – February 2017)

💰+8,500 hours of solving problems

💼 SQL, data-mining & Tableau skills

🍿 designed and delivered my first front-end product feature

• Increased base product revenue per transaction through the use of analytics, forecasting and automation.
• Reported into the General Manager directly and assisted forecasting and planning, from daily to annual plans.
• Developed data mining models to understand customer profiles, develop new promotional products and increase ancillary revenue by 25% through targeting customers with high propensity to convert.
• Designed an explainer video and a feature that allowed users to log into their booking, significantly reducing wait times at the branches.

---

---