Niko Vijay

I lead a multi-functional product organisation across four core groups—Developer Platform, Partnerships, Merchandising & Marketing, and Supply—fostering innovation and collaboration.

I was contracted at the Financial Times in August 2017 to lead product management at FT Core following the Financial Times incubating Authored - A startup I founded and subsequently closed. FT Core is the department responsible for the platforms that support FT.com and the distribution of the Financial Times print products. I eventually went permanent and achieved notable outcomes including:

Successfully set up a new product organisation in Sofia, Bulgaria for the FT as part of a build, operate and transform (BOT) strategy.

Hired, managed, and grew a team of Product Managers from the ground up and helped them to reach their potential.

Established a new vision and strategy for FT Core to help increase B2B sales revenues, better leverage existing assets and make the FT more adaptable to change in the future.

Incorporated Authored in 2016 to create a SaaS Platform aimed at brands and publishers to help them better create, curate, distribute and monetise their content. Since incorporation, Authored worked with the Financial Times on a Google funded ‘Digital News Initiative’ and self funded an MVP of our platform without taking outside investment.

Contracted by the CTO at News UK to develop new vision and strategy for the future of The Times editorial tools, along with costings and estimates to deliver the first set of critical milestones.

Contracted by CTO at Acuris to review the existing product portfolio and define new product definitions and key metrics for each.

Worked to develop a vision and strategy for the technology division at Dow Jones and the WSJ. Constructed business cases and capex funding requests to fund the implementation of the strategy and then worked to manage a high level portfolio view of the development across the department.

Product managed the successful development and delivery of the new BBC News responsive website a year ahead of schedule which launched in February 2015. Prior to this, Product Managed the BBC News connected TV application.

From 2010 and through 2012, worked on a number of products that formed the BBC's online proposition for covering the London 2012 Olympic Games, the most notable of which being the Interactive Video player (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ sport/0/olympics/18090539) which contributed heavily to the BBC Sport site achieving over 8.2 million daily UK unique users on the 3rd August 2012, 23% of which was driven from the IVP. The BBC’s Digital Olympics subsequently won ‘Media Product of the Year’ (See: http://britishmediaawards.com/2013- winners.html)

Oversaw the rollout of a new codebase for BBC News on connected devices which is now available on a range of devices from Smart TVs (e.g. Sony, LG, Samsung, Panasonic etc.), Blu-rays, streaming boxes (e.g. the Sky NOW TV Box) and games consoles (e.g. Sony PS4).

Lead the development of a new editorial workflow to improve the publishing speed and quality of BBC News AV clips online.

Discipline lead for Business Analysis within News & Knowledge - responsible for contributing to the development of the BA discipline within N&K.

Elicited, deciphered, analysed, and communicated requirements, and helped devise effective solutions that were in line with the strategic aims of the department and the wider BBC.

Interpreted consumer and audience research data, conducted market and competitor analysis, performed product analysis and definition, and other tasks contributing to the definition and implementation of products within the department.

Collaborated with cross-functional teams to deliver digital products.

Lead BA on the Digital 2012 Programme.

Specified and delivered the Interactive Video Player which contributed heavily to the BBC Sport site achieving over 8.2 million daily UK unique users on the 3rd August, 23% of which was driven from the IVP.

Enterprise Model Manager for BBC Future Media & Technology - to develop and maintain a model of the BBC's people, processes and technology.

Gained the TOGAF® 9 Certification.

Corus Entertainment, one of Canada's most successful integrated media and entertainment companies, selected Siemens IT Solutions and Services to be its technology partner in making the transition into its new Corus Quay headquarters in Toronto. I worked on the project, helping to integrate various scheduling and media playout systems.

Contributed to pitch presentations and client workshops.