Elena Hagege

Responding to incoming network-powered demand to assist early-stage startups in their AI-related Product work.

• + Product ops. Draft a large volume of tickets, clean Jira, reorganize specifications for the Dev and QA team in an exceptionally short time frame.
  • Mission: Rapidly restructure Jira backlog and product specs to unblock a development team stalled by documentation debt.
  • Actions: Wrote 40+ tickets from scratch; reorganized programs, epics and user stories; standardized spec format compatible with AI coding tools; updated and cleaned jira tickets, cleaned outdated backlog; set up QA checklist templates, wireframes checklist template, and PRD ticket framework.
  • Impact: Dev team unblocked. What was in the founder's mind is now written, no more bottle neck on them. Edge scenarios and missing requirements have been spotted and addressed before the dev team needed the information.
  • Tools: ChatGPT for simple rephrase, and to challenge the completion of the first template-tickets. Once the first core tickets done, I "discussed" the desired features with Claude Code, which scaled the process and produced the tickets. I verified them with Claude code, Claude, Chat GPT and manually.
  • Note: at the time of this mission, I did not trust AI enought to no verify all the tickets manually. The mission was executed faster with AI then if I had to do it all manually, but end-to-end the time difference was not huge. However, the process in place enables the company to scale easily, in an effective way, with little Product resources (probably one senior PM only).
  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION
  • MSIE Connect legacy Portfolio
• + Product Audit. Assess the logic and solidity of a company's product process, remove blockers, and prepare the team to introduce AI.
  • Mission: Diagnose and rebuild a startup's product process ahead of an AI transformation initiative.
  • Actions: Interviewed PMs and engineering leads; mapped the release pipeline; identified [N] critical blockers; delivered written audit with prioritized action plan in 2 weeks.
  • Impact: Release cycle shortened by [N]%; team ready to onboard AI coding tools within the following sprint.
  • Tools: Miro, Notion, Claude
  • Note: Process audits for small teams (5–25 people) require a balance between rigour and pragmatism — the goal is to unlock momentum, not create bureaucracy.
  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION
• + Transition to AI. Rationalize team structure, test and choose AI tools for the entire org, and unify the AI process across all PMs.
  • Mission: Unify the AI toolchain and process across a product organization fragmented by individual tool choices.
  • Actions: Benchmarked [N]+ AI tools across PM workflows; ran 2-week pilots with each team; wrote the company's first AI Product Playbook.
  • Impact: Reduced tool fragmentation from [N] stacks to 2 unified tools; onboarding time for new PMs cut by [N]%.
  • Tools: Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Linear
  • Note: The biggest barrier to AI adoption is not tool capability — it's agreeing on a shared process. This is a change management challenge as much as a technical one.
  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION
  • find a project
• + Assist Founders — vibe coding. Development of a startup using only Claude Code. Often no CTO in the team. My main activity.
  • Mission: Enable non-technical founders to ship working products without a CTO or dev team, using Claude Code as the sole development tool.
  • Actions: Defined MVP scope; structured Claude Code prompts; iterated through build-measure-learn cycles; managed technical debt and architecture decisions alongside each founder.
  • Impact: [N] startups shipped functional MVPs in [N]–[N] weeks; one raised a pre-seed round on the basis of the working prototype.
  • Tools: Claude Code, Claude Design, Vercel, Supabase
  • Note: Vibe coding requires strong product judgment (tight scope), technical intuition (catch AI errors), and founder coaching (manage expectations).
  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION
  • My Health Journal App, Detailed CV, Israel History, Dan the Hazan, Saint Michel Valetta
• + Assist Founders — AI tools. Design and development of AI tools tailored to each startup's specific operational or product problems.
  • Mission: Design and build custom AI tools solving specific problems for early-stage startups.
  • Actions: Defined use case and success criteria; selected models and architecture; supervised the build; validated outputs against real business data.
  • Impact: [N] custom AI tools delivered in production; one replaced a manual process consuming [N] hours/week of senior team time.
  • Tools: Claude API, Claude Code, OpenAI API, Supabase
  • Note: The key challenge is scoping. Most founders overestimate what an AI tool needs to do on day one.
  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION
  • News parser, My Health Journal
• + Deliver AI-generated content, prompt engineering. Pro bono, family and friends.
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  • ELENA TO COMPLETE THIS MISSION

Large American corporation, market leader. Reported to Product Director.

• + Head of Product, CMS. Drove roadmap and execution. In charge of communication with US stakeholders.
  • Mission: Own the CMS product roadmap for Shutterfly's core e-commerce platform — a system critical to publishing thousands of seasonal products across all print categories.
  • Actions: Defined and drove the 3-year CMS roadmap; led cross-functional squad ([N] engineers, [N] designers, [N] analyst); aligned quarterly delivery with US Director of Product; managed migration from legacy to headless CMS; coordinated releases across [N] business units.
  • Impact: CMS migration delivered on time and on budget; content publishing speed improved by [N]%; marketing team became self-service, reducing product dependency for content updates.
  • Tools: Jira, Confluence, Mixpanel, Adobe Analytics, Figma
  • Note: Running a team from Israel in a large US corporation required exceptional stakeholder communication and the ability to navigate matrix organization dynamics.
• + Product Specialist, E-commerce Retention. (6 months)
  • Mission: Understand and improve repeat purchase rate across Shutterfly's core e-commerce funnel.
  • Actions: Analyzed post-purchase journeys via Adobe Analytics; partnered with CRM and marketing on loyalty touchpoints; ran A/B tests on re-engagement flows; identified [N] key friction points.
  • Impact: Contributed to [N]% improvement in repeat purchase rate over [N] quarters.
  • Tools: Adobe Analytics, Optimizely, Braze, Jira
  • Note: 6-month deep dive that built expertise in retention mechanics at scale — the foundation for all subsequent e-commerce product work.

New startup. Reported to CEO.

• + Head of Product, First PM. Built the product department: organization, processes and roadmap.
  • Mission: Build the product function from zero at a new SAAS startup — no processes, no culture, no PM team.
  • Actions: Hired and onboarded [N] PMs; designed all agile rituals; created the first product roadmap aligned to investor milestones; built the engineering/business bridge; defined product vision with CEO.
  • Impact: Product organization operational in 3 months; company raised next funding round with product roadmap at the center of the narrative.
  • Tools: Jira, Notion, Mixpanel
  • Note: Being the first PM is simultaneously IC, manager, and culture-setter. You build the vocabulary and the standards everything else is built on.

Fast growing, 350-person startup. Reported to CEO.

• + Head of Product, Consumer Platforms. Lead 5 squads, developed 5 BtoC SAAS products (incl. kiosk). Delivered the roadmap.
  • Mission: Lead all consumer-facing products for Wynd, an omnichannel SAAS solution serving major French retailers.
  • Actions: Managed [N] squads ([N]+ people); owned roadmap for [N] BtoC products (mobile, web, kiosk, loyalty, staff app); aligned with CEO; coordinated cross-product dependencies.
  • Impact: All [N] products delivered on the committed roadmap. Kiosk launched in [N]+ retail locations. Team scaled from [N] to [N] people in 6 months.
  • Tools: Jira, Confluence, Mixpanel, Figma
  • Note: Managing [N] concurrent product lines is a forcing function for systems thinking — you build the right team and the right process, or nothing ships.

6-year-old founded startup. Reported to CEO.

• + Senior Product Manager.
  • Mission: Drive user-facing feature development for a BtoC personal cloud product competing in a market disrupted by Dropbox and Google Drive.
  • Actions: Owned mobile and web roadmap; ran user research; prioritized based on Mixpanel retention data; collaborated closely with CEO and CTO.
  • Impact: Shipped [N] major features in 12 months; improved MAU retention by [N]%; contributed to the product pivot that extended the company's runway.
  • Tools: Jira, Mixpanel, Google Analytics, UserTesting
  • Note: Working in a mature startup competing against tech giants sharpens instinct for differentiation — you must win on experience when you cannot win on reach.
• + Program Management. First and only PMO. Implemented a data-driven delivery approach.
  • Mission: Introduce predictability and data-driven decision-making as Lima's first and only PMO.
  • Actions: Implemented OKR framework; built delivery dashboards for the CEO; mapped cross-team dependencies; introduced sprint velocity tracking; designed quarterly roadmap review process.
  • Impact: Planning surprises reduced by [N]%; CEO gained real-time visibility into product health; process adopted as standard across all teams.
  • Tools: Jira, Google Sheets, Mixpanel
  • Note: Being the only PMO at a startup means building the system, running it, and selling it to people who think process is overhead.

Startup launched by a market-leader media corporation. Reported to CPO.

• + Head of Catalog and Merchandising.
  • Mission: Build the product catalog from scratch for a BtoC pharmacy marketplace — the core asset enabling the business model.
  • Actions: Defined catalog taxonomy and data model; led catalog ops team; set data quality standards; built merchandising rules; grew catalog from 0 to [N],000+ SKUs in 18 months; negotiated data feeds with pharmacy chains.
  • Impact: Catalog became the company's primary competitive differentiator; category coverage enabled expansion to [N]+ pharmacy partners.
  • Tools: Internal PIM, Google Analytics, Excel, Jira
  • Note: In a marketplace, the catalog IS the product — its quality directly determines conversion, trust, and growth.
• + Product Manager. Search, cross-sell, funnel, e-commerce features. (6 months)
  • Mission: Improve e-commerce KPIs (search, conversion, cross-sell) for a marketplace with a complex catalog.
  • Actions: Led discovery for search and recommendation features; A/B tested funnel steps; worked with data team on cross-sell algorithms; defined UX improvements for category and product pages.
  • Impact: +[N]% search conversion; increased average basket size; reduced cart drop-off.
  • Tools: Google Analytics, Optimizely, Jira, SQL
  • Note: 6 months of focused e-commerce product work — the fastest way to develop intuition for conversion optimization.

20-person company, market leader. Reported to CEO.

• + Product 1 — B2B E-commerce. Selling a service: professional human translation.
  • Mission: Improve the B2B e-commerce platform selling professional human translation services to business clients.
  • Actions: Designed wireframes and mockups; wrote the product requirements; managed the relationship with an external web agency (vendor) building the platform; coordinated delivery, reviews and QA throughout.
  • Impact: Delivered an improved online platform; smoother ordering and quoting experience for business clients. [N]% improvement in [conversion / order completion].
  • Tools: Wireframing tools, Google Analytics, Jira
  • Note: Working through an external agency sharpened my ability to specify clearly, manage a vendor, and hold quality standards without a hands-on internal team.
• + Product 2 — B2C SAAS. Online platform for document and website translation.
  • Mission: Own the product for a B2C SAAS platform translating documents and full websites.
  • Actions: Defined the roadmap and specifications; managed the single dedicated in-house developer; prioritized features; ran weekly product reviews with the CEO.
  • Impact: Shipped [N] features over the period; improved the translation workflow and user experience. [N]% growth in [usage / subscriptions].
  • Tools: Jira, Google Analytics
  • Note: Driving a product with a single developer demands ruthless prioritization — every sprint had to count.

• + CEO & founder. Created a physical innovative product. International distribution in five countries. Backed by seed VC fund KIMA VENTURES.
  • Mission: Create a physical consumer product from concept to market and build an international distribution network.
  • Actions: Designed product and manufacturing process; built e-commerce + retail distribution in [N] countries; raised seed from KIMA VENTURES; managed all functions; hired and led a team of [N].
  • Impact: Launched in [N] countries within 2 years. Attracted backing from one of France's most prestigious seed VC funds. Built brand recognition in the lifestyle accessories market.
  • Tools: Shopify, Google Analytics, Excel, Mailchimp
  • Note: This founding experience is the bedrock of every product decision since — I understand the full cycle from idea to customer at first hand.

• + Junior Consultant. Deep market analysis, business strategy, and internal information and knowledge management.
  • Mission: Provide strategic insights to clients through market analysis and competitive intelligence. Reported to CEO. Also acted as program manager for a pool of 65 freelance consultants, deployed on projects based on client and project requirements.
  • Actions: Conducted deep market research and competitive benchmarks; developed business strategy recommendations; structured and maintained internal information and knowledge bases.
  • Signature skill: Data visualization.
  • Impact: Delivered competitive intelligence reports used in senior management strategic decisions.
  • Tools: Excel, PowerPoint, market research databases, press and archive databases, datamining tools
  • Note: First professional experience — developed core analytical, strategic and synthesis skills in a demanding consulting environment.