In Chicago, city workers are busy installing holiday decorations. The City’s Christmas tree, a 45-foot Colorado Blue Spruce, is going up in Millenium Park and before we know it, our feeds will be filled with end-of-year reflections and New Year’s resolutions. Ready or not, 2023 is drawing itself to a close.
Inside Chicago tech companies, year-end means more than giant decorations and holiday parties. Product teams are planning and plotting their 2024 projects, laying out exciting goals and looking ahead to engaging challenges.
Built In Chicago sat down with five product managers to hear what their teams are envisioning for the new year. They shared previews of a big year for product teams, plans to implement challenging new projects, nurture collaborative partnerships, leverage AI capabilities and drive clients’ revenue.
At Discover Financial Services, product teams are looking forward to focusing on nurturing new partnerships and enhancing security. “The projects we have planned for 2024 present unique and exciting opportunities for product professionals,” said Vice President Katharine Hebenstreit.
Product teams at Basis are working to create the most widely adopted advertising and media management platform. “We continue to focus and invest heavily in our software for programmatic ad-buying, media workflow automation and reporting and analytics,” said General Manager Matt Sauls.
These product teams are celebrating the end of the year with more than holiday decorations. They’re diving into the new year with energy and excitement; and they’re all hiring, now.
Basis is an advertising solution unifying programmatic buying, workflow automation and business intelligence.
What projects does your product team have lined up for 2024, and how do they fit into your company's strategic goals for the year?
Our mission to create the most widely adopted advertising and media management platform is a constant. We continue to focus and invest heavily in our software for programmatic ad-buying, media workflow automation and reporting and analytics.
For 2024, our teams are focused on projects to support these areas. For ad-buying, we are continuing to expand our Connected TV offering and developing new capabilities for buying broadcast/linear TV ads. We will continue improving machine learning capabilities, as well as other algorithmic and AI-driven automation and optimization tools.
We have more initiatives around measurement and attribution, workflow automation features and international currency buying options. Our media automation developments will bring efficiency and cost savings to agencies. We’ll put effort into paid search and paid social media automation, financial processing and reconciliation, in-app messaging and communications and features that save our customers time and money.
Finally, we’re continuing major endeavors around data and reporting, including a migration to a new big data solution that will drastically increase our analytics capabilities.
What makes these projects particularly interesting, challenging or exciting for product professionals to work on?
Simple problems in digital advertising have already been solved. There are hundreds of point solutions for media research, ad targeting, measurement analytics, billing and finance and more. Ad agencies cobble together these disparate tools to run ad campaigns — and run their businesses. The result is chaotic.
Ad professionals spend a lot of time jumping between tools, trying to compile data from dozens of sources, while struggling to build a complete picture of client campaign performance and their own business performance. The Basis product team is ready to solve the hard problems in this ecosystem.
Our platform integrates over 100 other advertising platforms and there is no aspect of the ecosystem that we don’t touch. Experts at Basis cover every sub-category of ad tech. We are at the forefront of developing innovative solutions for the industry.
The problems we solve are sophisticated enough that we get to use many of the newest technologies and they are large enough that our product and engineering teams need to think BIG when it comes to solutioning. We’re not a point solution; we are building an operating system for the digital media industry.
The problems we solve are sophisticated enough that we get to use many of the newest technologies and they are large enough that our product and engineering teams need to think BIG when it comes to solutioning.”
How is your team growing to help meet those goals?
Basis has product and engineering teams across North and South America. We fully support remote work, but we also have major tech centers in Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco and Buenos Aires. There are nearly 1000 people at Basis. Our technology organization is at 233 employees and growing, and we’re constantly hiring new talent onto our teams.
Much of our hiring strategy is based around domain-specific experience and expertise. As we grow, we continue to organize into increasingly domain specific teams. We are always looking for bright and talented people who have product and technical experience in these fields: programmatic advertising, publisher ad optimization, ad serving, dynamic creative, paid search media, paid social media, retail media, audience data management, reporting and analytics, agency workflow and billing, media research and intelligence, machine learning and optimization.
Founded in 2021, Avaneer Health is a member-based network that provides customers the answers they need to initiate and optimize care for people across their lifetimes. Built on secure technology, Avaneer Health creates greater transparency and security to ease navigation through healthcare decisions and eliminate the administrative burdens resulting from regulation, privacy protection, and competitive dynamics.
What projects does your product team have lined up for 2024, and how do they fit into your company's strategic goals for the year?
Avaneer Health addresses some of the top concerns in healthcare. Our 2024 strategic goals are focused on growing our digital marketplace in three key ways. First, we plan to expand the Avaneer Network by bringing more participants into our network through the revolutionary administrative solutions built on our platform.
Next, we’ll be empowering solution developers, enticing developers to diversify our ecosystem by offering their solutions to our Network participants. This includes enhancing our collaboration services and creating an environment conducive to building distributed applications. This fosters innovation and strengthens our position as a hub for cutting-edge healthcare solutions.
And, finally, we’re enhancing our security posture; maintaining a robust security posture is non-negotiable. We're investing in technologies and protocols to fortify our platform, ensuring that every interaction within the Avaneer Network adheres to the highest standards.
We are committed to being the catalyst for changing the business of healthcare by creating a network that reduces overhead and cost for establishing connectivity to data exchange partners, all while providing a secure, modern platform that encourages data sovereignty.
What makes these projects particularly interesting, challenging or exciting for product professionals to work on?
Avaneer Health's 2024 projects present an exciting challenge for product professionals. As someone who has navigated the complexities of healthcare IT and consumer data privacy, I find the prospect of shaping the industry's future both invigorating and challenging.
For product professionals, the challenge lies in designing a platform that enables application developers to deliver creative and innovative solutions leveraging distributed data without compromising security and privacy. It's a unique blend of technical prowess and strategic thinking that sets these projects apart.
For product professionals, the challenge lies in designing a platform that enables application developers to deliver creative and innovative solutions leveraging distributed data without compromising security and privacy.”
What is truly invigorating is the opportunity for Avaneer Health to be a powerful GenAI enablement platform. I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the Avaneer team over the next year to contribute to an exciting time in the technology space.
How is your team growing to help meet those goals?
The nature of Avaneer Health’s product stack demands a team that understands the intricacies of healthcare and embraces the challenges of building and maintaining a secure technical infrastructure. Growth in a few of Avaneer’s core values will enable us to meet those goals.
One of our core values is “Empowered to Act.” Our teams are very cross-functional to foster collaboration and speed to a solution. This provides team members with exposure to different facets of the business and it is essential for successful initiatives and overall team growth.
Another value is “Transparency & Accountable Together.” We are working to ensure that our strategy, policies and technology paradigms are well known throughout the organization so that each person is empowered to find a solution. I’ve worked to break down silos and I know many of my team members have as well. This, in tandem with the above value, is paramount to our ability to react quickly to the dynamic healthcare landscape.
And, a final goal where we’re growing is being “Client-obsessed.” The product team will be continuing to dive deeper into the problems of our customers. Our team is filled with individuals that have a diverse, multidisciplinary background, which allows us to understand and empathize with even our most complex customers.
Discover Financial Services is a direct banking and payment services company. It operates through its subsidiaries, Discover Bank and Discover Home Loans, Inc.
What projects does your product team have lined up for 2024, and how do they fit into your company's strategic goals for the year?
At Discover, our Cardmembers are at the center of all we do. As VP of Strategic Partnerships and eCommerce Products, my team works to ensure Cardmembers can use their Discover cards where and when they want. The team builds products with merchants and digital wallets to strengthen digital payments experiences.
In 2024, our prioritized projects will help unlock new partnerships, expand channels and enhance security through emerging technologies. We continually assess new partnership opportunities in places where Cardmembers spend every day. Collaborating with like-minded companies enables us to foster innovation.
In 2024, our prioritized projects will help unlock new partnerships, expand channels and enhance security through emerging technologies.”
We will also look for new channel expansions for existing partner experiences. Open banking has emerged as a transformative force in the financial industry, enabling customers to take control of their financial data. Our team will continue to explore opportunities to give cardmembers greater control over their data to make informed financial decisions.
Ensuring security of payment credentials is paramount. We will continue to focus on card-on-file tokenization, a cutting-edge technology that replaces sensitive card information with unique tokens to reduce risk.
By staying at the forefront of industry trends and benefiting from our partners’ expertise, we are confident the work our team does in 2024 will position us to provide unparalleled value to Cardmembers and partners alike.
What makes these projects particularly interesting, challenging or exciting for product professionals to work on?
The projects we have planned for 2024 present unique and exciting opportunities for product professionals. These projects involve keeping pace with the greatest innovation in our industry.
Collaborating with big tech companies known for their innovative and fasted-paced cultures offers opportunities for great growth and learning for product professionals as they will have exposure to cross-pollination of ideas, knowledge sharing and access to cutting-edge technologies.
The collaborative nature of these partnerships fosters an environment where creativity thrives, pushing product professionals to think outside the box and deliver groundbreaking solutions for our Cardmembers.
Our prioritized projects will also allow product owners to gain better knowledge and expertise of the systems and processes utilized by the company and industry. Projects will require close collaboration with technical teams and our internal partners including finance, law, compliance, and analytics, among others. Collaborating with both external and internal partners will push product owners to expand their skill sets and embrace an end-to-end, customer centric approach.
The fast-paced nature of these partnerships keeps product professionals on their toes, constantly adapting to new technologies, and embracing change. The experiences can be a catalyst for personal and professional growth.
How is your team growing to help meet those goals?
To meet our goals for 2024, we need to ensure that we have the right talent, resources and strategies in place to drive successful collaboration. We continue to invest in new talent and develop existing talent to help ensure that we have capacity to deliver best in class experiences to our Cardmembers and support our partnerships.
We recognize the importance of hiring individuals with diverse skill sets, industry experience and a passion for both innovation and customer experience. Our recruitment efforts focus on attracting professionals who possess a deep understanding of the financial services industry as well as those who bring fresh perspectives from big tech and e-commerce.
In addition to talent acquisition, we prioritize the development of our existing team members.
We prioritize continuous learning and upskilling initiatives to ensure that our product owners stay at the forefront of industry trends and possess the necessary skills to navigate an evolving payment landscape.
We provide training programs, workshops and mentorship opportunities to product owners to enhance their experience and ensure they are well positioned for future career development.
Lessen is revolutionizing the multi-site property management market using the SMS proprietary technology platform.
What projects does your product team have lined up for 2024, and how do they fit into your company's strategic goals for the year?
Going into 2024, we are looking to develop and diversify our offerings, including new technology products. We are also looking at simplifying the user’s experience while interacting with our products through machine learning.
Our goal is always to deliver best-in-class mobile and web products for customers and vendors that are based on human-centered design principles. That’s why we are focused on using data analytics and AI to predict the best outcomes or future pain points for our customers and partners. We believe this will continue to differentiate Lessen from our competitors.
What makes these projects particularly interesting, challenging or exciting for product professionals to work on?
Our product team members have complete ownership over the lifecycle of the products they work on. We encourage our team members to take up one of the company’s problems and the ambiguity that often initially accompanies it, and determine how to build a holistic solution that solves that problem while meeting the company’s strategic objectives.
Our product team members have complete ownership over the lifecycle of the products they work on.”
They have the autonomy to research, ideate, develop and execute product launches while collaborating closely with other teams to solve these problems. This entrepreneurial approach allows them to take a product from 0 to 100 while having access to and collaborating closely with senior and executive leaders across the organization. We consistently challenge our team to build solutions for the future market instead of today’s.
How is your team growing to help meet those goals?
We’re continually investing in our team at Lessen, so they can meet the challenges of the job at hand. We believe strongly in firsthand research, and we will often fly team members to shadow our users to learn how they do their jobs and use our products.
We also provide tools and resources to help our team members grow professionally and personally, including training and learning opportunities to help them develop their skills. Finally, we continue to hire and grow the team based on the business needs.
BenchPrep offers a learner success platform to improve engagement and outcomes for learners.
What projects does your product team have lined up for 2024, and how do they fit into your company's strategic goals for the year?
Our product strategy for 2024 is laser-focused on key transformative projects, all aligned with our mission: enabling our customers, which are professional associations, credentialing bodies, and associated training companies, to generate revenue while delivering a positive and lasting impact on learners.
The first focus project is a unified lifelong learning journey. Our flagship theme encompassing several initiatives for the year aims to continue bringing the lifelong learner journey under one roof, from pre-assessment learning and skills training to certifications and micro-credentials as well as continuing education. This theme will help our customers maximize the lifetime value of each learner.
Another product focus for 2024 is AI-enhanced content management. Building on what we did this year, we plan to infuse more advanced AI into our proprietary Content Management System. This will empower our clients to generate more relevant and engaging content quickly, thus optimizing the content creation and delivery process.
Finally, we’ll focus on AI-driven learner experience. As a natural extension of our AI capabilities, we intend to offer a personalized learning experience and recommendations to improve engagement and overall learning outcomes.
What makes these projects particularly interesting, challenging or exciting for product professionals to work on?
The projects lined up for 2024 present an exciting blend of challenges and opportunities for our product team.
For our unified lifelong learning journey, we're integrating multiple facets of the education journey into a single, seamless experience, from initial learning to assessments through ongoing education. This requires an intricate interplay of technology, UX design, and pedagogical principles, promising an engaging challenge for anyone who thrives on complex problem-solving.
The focus on AI-enhanced content management will involve integrating Artificial Intelligence into a CMS. This offers the chance to delve deep into a real-world application of AI that will have immediate, tangible benefits for our clients, adding a sense of urgency and impact to our work.
Our work on AI-driven learner experience is urgent. With the growing importance of credentials and specialized skills in today's workforce, generating relevant, personalized learning pathways is more crucial than ever. However, this is also complex, requiring an intricate understanding of both the educational content and the learner's unique needs and behavior as well as showing ROI to learners, which is as technically demanding as it is impactful.
How is your team growing to help meet those goals?
Our approach to the coming year's projects focuses on fostering an environment for expanding skills and expertise. The initiatives and challenges in the previous questions represent business objectives and unique opportunities for personal and professional development.
By taking on transformative projects that drive revenue for our customers and positive outcomes for learners, we're emphasizing the value and impact each team member can contribute.”
By taking on transformative projects that drive revenue for our customers and positive outcomes for learners, we're emphasizing the value and impact each team member can contribute. This strategic alignment offers a compelling narrative for why our work matters, providing rich ground for anyone passionate about making a meaningful impact in the learning and assessment industry.
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