Resume of Mike Chowla

A product leader who combines a data driven approach with a remarkable ability to ‘connect the dots’ between market needs and underlying technologies to create products that deliver exceptional customer value. Demonstrated track record of envisioning, building and launching new innovative products. Reputation for successfully leveraging outstanding quantitative and competitive analysis skills to find opportunities to build product market share. 13 years experience building and managing internet software at companies ranging in size from startup to Fortune 100.

Formulated social media strategy – Developed concept to integrate social media into AOL Mail to enhance user experience by providing social context deeply integrated with the communication experience. Represented AOL Mail in company-wide API access deal negotiations with Facebook and LinkedIn.
Created partner program – Set up developer program that brought in compelling new experiences from both established firms and leading edge startups, driving engagement of existing email product to a category leading 284 minutes per month
New Product Launch - Launched mobile phone data synchronization product that supports thousands of different devices

2004-2010

AOL (AMERICA ONLINE), Mountain View, CA
Principal Product Manager, AOL Mail

Led product effort which created a new platform for integrations to AOL Mail, an email service with 30M monthly unique visitors and $100M in annual revenue

Keywords: Mobile, Plug-ins, APIs, email, social media, iPhone, Facebook integration, cross-functional teams, SaaS

Created AOL Webmail’s Plug-in Program. Developed roadmap, authored product requirements and recruited launch partners. Formulated platform launch strategy. Evaluated financial attractiveness of partner relationships. Directed development of in-house plug-ins by local and offshore teams. Over 3 million plug-ins installed to date.
Launched completely revamped AOL Sync product supporting 1200 mobile devices including iPhone and Blackberry. Created and executed roadmap for product. Worked closely with engineering, user experience, operations and customer support teams to ensure a successful product launch.
Conducted comprehensive analysis of customer lifetime value by client type (web, mobile, open access). Determined users of certain clients had up to 33% value higher across the AOL network. Used findings to influence senior management to maintain open access and thus retain high value users.
Conceptualized social media integrations for AOL Mail with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Created wireframes and product requirements. Worked with engineering team to establish feasibility of requirements.
Instituted API program with Mail, Address Book and Calendar APIs. Managed partner relationships with partners ranging from start-ups to large mobile carriers.
Performed competitive analysis for both AOL Webmail and AOL Sync. Defined data collection metrics and analyzed usage data to generate insights for new business opportunities.

System Architect (2004-2008)

Keywords: Java, C++, email, HTTP, IMAP, SMTP, scalability, data compression, data mining

Manage all technical aspects of TopSpeed, AOL's web acceleration system. The system is deployed to 20 million customers worldwide, and processes in excess of 15 billion transactions per day.
Led a team of engineers integrating the large storage service in AOL Web Mail. Designed and implemented integration between AOL Mail and AOL’s storage platform XDrive that enabled users to seamlessly send email attachments up to 2GB in size.
Developed strategy for integration of European email systems with AOL's email front-end in collaboration with three European partners. Negotiated with international partners to iron out final technical requirements. System successfully deployed to 700,000 customers.

2002-2004

VERITY, Sunnyvale, CA
Software Architect

Spearheaded integration of acquired technology into Verity’s industry leading enterprise search platform

Keywords: Search, classification, machine learning, data store, Java, new product development

Developed concept and successful business case for building next-generation document classification management system, generating one million dollars in orders on the day it was released.
Integrated document classification technology (acquired from Inktomi) into Verity's industry-leading intellectual capital management platform, transforming previous single-user system into a far more competitive, powerful, and flexible multi-user system that commanded premium licensing fees from large corporate customers.

1997-2002

INKTOMI, Foster City, CA
Senior Staff Engineer (2001-2002)
Technical Team Leader (1999-2000)
Software Engineer (1997-1998)

Chief architect for Inktomi Traffic Server

Keywords: HTTP, C++, Linux, multi-threaded, asynchronous, massively scalable, high-performance

As a founding member of the Traffic Server product engineering team (which grew to 35 members) led design and implementation of Inktomi's flagship product, a high-performance internet server.
Chairman and founding member of division-wide architecture review committee, which reviewed and evaluated all new product feature proposals. As chairman, had signing authority for all new product feature approvals.
Granted Patent # 7,228,317 for "Method and Apparatus for Accelerating and Improving Access to Network Files" and Patent # 7,243,136 for "Approach for Managing and Providing Content to Users."
Successfully managed rescue of troubled streaming media product, preventing $40 million liability. Quickly bridged gap between two separate corporate cultures to effectively utilize relevant expertise from recently acquired company. Received the Top Performing Employee of the Quarter award for the effort.