Nic Marks

Nic is a product leader & strategist with 12+ years experience crafting and building products.

 
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“[Nic] frequently impressed me with his ability to lead through influence rather than authority, always presenting an evidence-based case for product strategy… I always felt well-informed about customer and user problems... His exemplary relationship management ensured that our team aligned with company goals and... stakeholder expectations.”
— — Rich Taylor, Product Manager at Black Swan Data
 

About Nic

From Physical Product Designer to Product Manager, I’ve always been passionate about making things people love. As the son of an engineer and an artist, I’ve been able to balance the logical and the creative, and have a deep practice in translating across those two mindsets.

 

Helping you tilt the balance

  • Formulate essential, actionable product strategy, saving months/years of development time, expressed from board level updates to engineering tickets.

  • Create fair development roadmaps that take into account uncertainty, track progress

  • Launch new product & hone MVP propositions

  • Hone and optimise existing products

  • Design, user test, prototype new business propositions or mentor others to do so.

  • Have fun doing so!

Experience

I’ve enjoyed accumulating experience creating, launching and iterating products to success.

 

Lead Product Manager, Rotate
Feb 2022 - Today

Product Contractor, Class35
March 2021 - Feb 2022

Product Contractor, Class35
Sep 2019 - Jan 2020

Freelance Product Manager & Strategist, Various
Aug-Dec 2018

Retail Crew Director & Product Guild Leader, Metail
2016-2018

Senior Mobile Product Manager, Metail
2015-2016

Product & UX Manager, Metail
2013-2015

UI, UX & Industrial Designer, Freelance
2010-2013

UI, UX & Industrial Designer, Aircraft Medical
2009-2010

For a high level overview of my responsibilities, education, awards in each role, see my linkedin profile

For hiring managers, a detailed CV outlining responsibilities and impacts in each role is available in PDF form by request >>

 
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Testimonials

Nic brings a... thorough and structured approach to product strategy and delivery... considerable product management experience in tech start ups and the decisions and tradeoffs needed to secure traction and product market fit... [He is] passionate and driven, and a great guy to work with.
— Mark Hodgson, Chief Business Officer at Cervest
As the designated leader [Nic] delivered the most succinct, clear pitch I think I have ever heard, won the [hackathon] prize and duly impressed everyone in that room.

Nic is quality.
— Sarah Walter, CCO Metail
A focused and attentive leader. His background in design, knowledge of product development and empathy for everyone in the team meant all were progressing towards a common goal. I couldn’t recommend Nic enough.
— Anton Wade - Designer & Co-founder at MakeDo.design
...A dedicated, hard working and passionate product leader who brought enthusiasm and creative thinking to the company.

Nic was... a focal point for team development... including creating product management training sessions to upskill the wider team.

I give Nic my full recommendation
— Robert Boland, Strategy, Product, Data at Metail
[A] detail-oriented, strategic product thinker, and a great team leader.

...He was able to effectively plan, motivate and direct a group of senior leaders from different part of the business from... finance, design, to commercial.

I don’t hesitate in recommending him to any company looking for a great product leader.
— YJ Chen, Founder at Hyper Reality
Always hungry to learn and improve, Nic brought helpful structure to our product management. Within this structure the problem solving was always collaborative - he encouraged and acknowledged contributions from different backgrounds and seniority in the team, and was able to direct these efforts both at blue sky, wild ideas, and at incremental improvements, as appropriate to the context. He’s particularly strong at getting early feedback and building on it, using paper prototyping, user surveys with mockups and prototypes, as well as confirming hypotheses with analytics in production.
— Jim Downing, CTO at Metail
Nic’s best skill... is his continued hunger to learn more about Product Management and then share this new knowledge with colleagues in engaging ways. It is the reason why Nic’s ‘Product Management’ sharing lunches were always full and why everyone at Metail understands the difference between the problem space versus solution space.
— Vikesh Shah, Commercial Director at Metail
Nic is one of the most effective Product Owners I’ve worked with.

He gained the trust and respect of the team through diligence, honesty and grace. Without him we’d have been adrift in a sea of uncertainty and the project would surely have floundered.

He’s tenacious over detail but still makes room for expert opinion even in the trickiest of negotiations. He’s courteous and perceptive and understands servant-leadership.

I’d jump at the chance to work with him again. If you get the opportunity, you should too.
— Rupert Redington, CTO at Lola Tech

Contact

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I am a human too. Like you.

What makes me weird?

  • I used to ride a unicycle, but could only turn left.

  • My family used to holiday in Colombia in the 80s.

  • My specialist subject might be… time travel films.

 

[A] detail-oriented, strategic product thinker, and a great team leader... He was able to effectively plan, motivate and direct a group of senior leaders from different part of the business from... finance, design to commercial. I don’t hesitate in recommending him to any company looking for a great product leader.
— YJ Chen, Founder at Hyper Reality
 
An out of the box thinker, always creative, enthusiastic and innovative in his approaches, it has been a pleasure to work with and learn from Nic... Constantly looking at ways in which he can develop himself... Nic is a big value-add to any team.
— — Kate Rodger, Account Director at Metail