Hello, I am
Brad Martin
Director of Product Management at Senstar
“your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” – Bill Gates
My Skills
What I do
I possess a strong track record of effectively leading high-performing teams. My leadership approach is rooted in setting positive examples and cultivating environments conducive to open communication and encouragement. Within Product Management, professionals possess the ability to sway stakeholders and garner support for their product vision. The role also involves guiding strategic product development and seamlessly communicating this vision across the organization—a crucial component for excelling in this field.
Crafting product strategies is a fundamental aspect of my passion for product management. I thoroughly enjoy immersing myself in market research, competitive analysis and utilizing these insights along with our core competencies to construct a well-rounded strategic approach that ensures customer satisfaction and bolsters profitability. It's crucial to highlight that the effectiveness of any strategy is intricately tied to the precision and implementation of action plans, each tailored meticulously to accomplish our overarching strategic goals.
I consider competitive analysis a foundational element in molding your product strategy and market stance. Exploring diverse avenues unveils insights into your competitors' value propositions, product strengths and weaknesses, and pricing tactics.
Crafting battle cards serves as an effective tool, equipping your sales team to excel in deals by spotlighting your product's strengths and advantages. This practice enhances readiness and aids in clinching deals successfully.
Using Data is part of my day-to-day, it helps support the product vision, guides any necessary course corrections, and gives all stakeholders the impact and visibility the products have on the overall business. Product KPIs offer a holistic performance view, while specific metrics enable swift responses to market shifts.
It's important to share the product vision with all members of the organization. In my experience sharing this vision with everyone allows them to the opportunity to equally benefit from understanding how the product strategy will be executed and the plan for the product to succeed in the market. Sharing the product vision gives the team a better understanding of how their part will play into the product.
I'm very goal oriented – it doesn’t matter if it’s a team meeting or a product kick-off, it’s important to discuss the desired outcome and set clear targets so everyone can work together to achieve successful results. It's good to have short-term and long-term goals and a defined strategy with a detailed action plan that allows you to work toward achieving your desired objectives.
This is the heartbeat of product management. Understand your customers, build personas, take every chance you get to talk to your direct customers, competitors’ customers, and potentials customers to better understand their needs and bring this data back to the development teams.
If being a product manager has taught me anything it's that strong communication is the key to success. Communication is vital when speaking to customers, articulating the user story back to development and giving frequent product updates to stakeholders. Being the conduit to share information (good or bad) is an integral role of the Product Team.
It's important to understand how your products (SKU's) are performing in the market. Using data to monitor a products success in conjunction with a BCG matrix helps to bucket your products and visually see how they are following the product lifecycle curve. Maintaining a streamlined product portfolio ensures the business can run efficiently.
Having a strong background in both Software and Hardware design - I can appreciate all methodologies for product development. As a product leader, the agile process gives the ability to see a demo of the product feature with in a 2–3-week sprint. This is a great process to ensure the requirements were understood and make sure the product functionality meets the customers expectations.
Product management is all about prioritization and adjusting to the competing pressures that alter the course of a project daily. It's important to be comfortable with balancing the product requests with the timelines and resources that are available within the organization. Sometimes this means you must be comfortable with saying "no" and offering alternative timeline.
I have had the absolute pleasure of working with/managing many talented UX Designers. I enjoy being involved in A/B Testing and User Interviews to better understand how our customers relate to the product we are making. My view is UX, and Product go hand in hand to help make the best user experience for the product being produced.
Product Portfolio
- Mobile Applications
- Software Products
- Digital Projectors
Christie Virtual Remote
The Christie® Virtual Remote Mobile Application offers a projector control alternative to the standard IR remote control. Customers can seamlessly connect to the projector using their mobile device. Available on Android & iOS
Christie Virtual Remote 1DLP
The Christie® Virtual Remote 1DLP Mobile Application offers a projector control alternative to the standard IR remote control. Customers can seamlessly connect to the projector using their mobile device. Available on Android & iOS
Christie TAP
The Christie® TAP Mobile Application allows customers to utilize NFC technology to view critical information from a Boxer projector or lamp. This solution allows the customer to obtain vital information without powering on the unit.
Christie QuickConnect
The Christie® QuickConnect Mobile Application enables end users and installers to project photos, documents and websites to a compatible Christie projector over Wi-Fi®. It also allows users to control their projector via iPad & iPhone.
Senstar Symphony Mobile
Connect to Senstar Symphony video management software (VMS) from anywhere in the world. Users can view and play back video, control pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras, manage I/O devices, receive alarm push notifications and much more.
Christie Conductor
Christie® Conductor is our advanced monitoring and control software solution exclusively for Christie 3DLP® projectors1. With Conductor, you can monitor and control up to 256 projectors on the same network from your laptop.
APS Series
3LCD Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Low cost solution targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education.
DS Series
3LCD Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Low cost solution targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship.
DS Series
3LCD Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Low cost solution targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship.
Captiva DWU500S
1DLP Technology, WUXGA resolution, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Low cost solution targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums.
GS Series
1DLP Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Featuring BoldColor Technology for the best color reproduction. Targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship
Inspire Series
1DLP Technology, WUXGA resolution, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Low cost solution targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums.
HS Series
1DLP Technology, 4K, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Featuring BoldColor Technology for the best color reproduction. Targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship, rental staging
GS Series
1DLP Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Featuring BoldColor Technology for the best color reproduction. Targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship, rental staging
GS Series
1DLP Technology, WUXGA & HD resolutions, Laser Phosphor illumination source. Featuring BoldColor Technology for the best color reproduction. Targeted vertical markets – boardrooms, hotels, education, museums, houses of worship, rental staging
Work Experience
Director, Product Management
Present
SENSTAR | Waterloo, Ontario | 2021 – Present
Reporting to the CTO and a member of the company’s leadership team – I lead a team of product managers/UX designers to deliver customer centric product solutions. Driving the strategic vision, growth, and evolution of our software products (SaaS).
- Established data-driven business processes that have helped to better understand/shape our pricing structure and increased our software sales by 12% in six months also eliminating 20% of unnecessary SKU’s.
- Implemented department KPI’s to focus on direct customer feedback; outcome is incorporated into our designs
- Accountable for department P&L with budget > $1M.
- Conduct market research and use the data to help drive product strategy and innovation
- Accountable for innovation initiatives, customer personas, portfolio management, roadmaps, backlog prioritization in Agile environments and implementation of adequate products.
Senior Product Manager
Christie Digital | Kitchener, Ontario | 2020 – 2021
Accountable for the strategic vision, growth, and product ownership for all projection products in the Enterprise division. Launched more than 100 Products/Accessories into the global market, including projectors, software (Web/Mobile Apps)
- Spearhead the development of several new global market leading products, increasing the portfolio’s revenue in excess of $150M.
- Establish department KPI’s to streamline product lifecycles which resulted in reducing costs by $3M / year.
- Manage & justify product pricing ensuring appropriate gross margins are preserved & pricing structure is in place.
- Gather analysis of product specifications and enhancements, customer empathy, and market testing for the development of next generation product.
- Perform due diligence of new technology and licensing opportunities for pipeline development.
Product Manager
Christie Digital | Kitchener, Ontario | 2016 – 2020
Led strategic vision, growth, and evolution of the 1DLP/3LCD product lines. Interfaced between product development and the market problems that need to be solved.
- Generated $8M in new annual revenue by introducing a new lower-end product line targeting untapped markets.
- Managed the launch of several new software applications to support new and existing products.
- Added several market-leading products to the current portfolio based on market research and customer feedback. Increased portfolios revenue by more than $24M in the first year.
Program Manager
Christie Digital | Kitchener, Ontario | 2015 – 2016
Manage Project Managers/Coordinators locally & internationally (Kitchener and Shenzhen, China). Executed key decisions on portfolio in excess of $8.5M-plus annual program costs.
- Collaborate with Product Management and our strategic international business partners to communication the detailed product specifications and develop project schedules.
- Established and led program business rhythms to monitor program technical and financial status, includes internal customer and senior business unit reviews.
- Make key decisions on resource allocation and budgetary constraints.
- Ownership of project schedules, key milestones, and constant communication to stakeholders when delays or roadblocks surfaced.
Team Lead, Software Quality Assurance
Christie Digital | Kitchener, Ontario | 2010 – 2015
- Established processes, automation testing and KPI’s which directly improved the defect closure rate and improved overall testing efficiency by 75 percent.
- Built the entire Engineering QA group through hiring locally and internationally.
- Led and managed two teams with up to 15 direct reports.
- Implemented all the processes (software test tools) and established presence within the organization.
- Improved software and product quality by advocating for defects to be fixed.
- Employed technical knowledge to relate and communicate well with developers. Fully comfortable in an Agile development environment.
Design Validation Specialist
Christie Digital | Kitchener, Ontario | 2008 – 2010
- Developed and executed design validation/verification test plans.
- Conducted technical training to FAE’s on current Christie products and solutions.
- Reported technical design and quality issues to stakeholders.
Design Specialist
DALSA Corporation | Waterloo, Ontario | 2005 – 2008
- Electrical hardware designer, schematic to PCB layout, circuit analysis and simulation.
- Completed Root Cause Analysis on DOA units; generate detailed Failure Analysis Reports.
- Conducted detailed HALT (highly accelerated life testing) analysis on multiple designs.
Education
Master of Business Admin. (MBA)
Lazaridis School of Business & Economics, Waterloo
Graduated with distinction and Specializations in Strategy, Business Analytics & International Business
Recipient of the BMO Financial Group International Student Study Tour Scholarship
Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (B.Eng)
Lakehead University, Thunder Bay
Graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering with a focus on control systems and robotics.
Certifications
Professional Engineer (P.Eng)
Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO)
Issued March 2009 – No Expiration Date
Credential ID: 100118461
Pragmatic Institue
Issued January 2016 – No Expiration Date
Pragmatic Marketing provides a framework for Product Managers to follow in order to successfully develop and launch products into the market.
Coursera – Online
There are 8 courses in this Professional Certificate which teach current methods for analyzing and presenting data to help make data-driven decisions.
Publications
asmag.com (2022)
asmag.com (2021)
AVNetwork (2021)
AV Technology - Technology Manager's Guide to Projectors and Screens (2020)
Display Daily (2018)
AVI LatinoAmerica (2018)
AV Technology (2018)
Product Awards
SIA New Products Solutions Award (2022)
Sensor Fusion won for best Intrusion Detection and Prevention Solution.
blooloop Innovation Awards (2021)
M4K25-RGB won third place for the blooloop Innovation Awards.