PRODUCT & PROGRAM MANAGER | PRODUCT OWNER, SCRUM MASTER & PMP-CERTIFIED
Professional team leader with over 15+ years of hands-on experience leading successful teams and digital initiatives. Thaisa has experience leading project sprints, ensuring high-quality delivery, and exercising collaborative team and stakeholder management. Additionally, she is able to wear many hats, including coding, research and design. Thaisa’s focus is on finding the right questions to ask and assembling the right team to achieve success.
Certifications
CO-AUTHOR | “product management as you have never seen before” book
“Gestão de Produtos como você nunca viu” is the first book about Product Management written entirely by women and published in Brazil. This book serves as a manifesto for representation in the product management field, written collaboratively by over 30 women with a shared goal of sharing their knowledge and experiences to help others build successful products.
Creator, Podcast Host & Producer | LATINX IN POWER PODCAST
Discover the world of tech like never before with Latinx in Power! A podcast that aims to demystify tech through featuring interviews with successful Latin American and Caribbean leaders.
products i’ve worked with
Expanding Twitter's Advertising Ecosystem: The Twitter Marketing Partners Program
Twitter's Ads API provides developers access to Twitter's advertising platform, allowing them to build innovative solutions for marketers. The Twitter Marketing Partners (TMP) program is an ecosystem of specialized partners that caters to the needs of diverse advertisers. This program is designed to expand the number of valuable partners on the TMP ecosystem and drive revenue for Twitter by addressing advertiser needs and enhancing product offerings. Under Thaisa’s leadership, the TMP program saw a 140% growth in 2 years, outpacing previous 5-year growth by 61%.
Accelerating Project Delivery with Agile: The SoFi Experience with Kanban and Scrum
At SoFi, an online personal finance company, Thaisa effectively led a team of over 30 individuals, including designers, copywriters, product marketing managers, and sales teams, to deliver 94 projects in just one month. The projects included both digital materials such as banners and out-of-office materials such as billboards. Thaisa's implementation of Lean-Agile methodologies, such as Kanban and Scrum, resulted in a significant increase in production pace by 620%. Her ability to coordinate and manage such a large and diverse team was key in achieving these impressive results.
Launching the Visa ID Intelligence: An Ecosystem of Authentication Solutions with Effective Fraud Prevention
Launched the Visa ID Intelligence product, an ecosystem of Authentication Solutions that delivers user experiences with effective fraud prevention. Thaisa created project plans, feature release planning, and owned delivery from milestones to the final product. She worked collaboratively with the creative and strategy teams and launched the Visa ID Authentication Ecosystem, which includes landing pages, marketing campaigns, videos, and events.
Revolutionizing Women's Health: lean Startup Development of the Lunna App
Lunna is an app that provides assistance for women's health. The app utilizes machine learning to learn about user choices, preferences, and symptoms, allowing users to improve their quality of life. Thaisa developed both an MVP (minimum viable product) and a ready-to-scale version of the app using React Native and Elixir. Thaisa ran more than 2 workshops during both the design and development phases to ensure the success of the product.
Streamlining Campaign Delivery for Hewlett-Packard Brazil: An Experience in Process Optimization
Thaisa worked with Hewlett-Packard on digital campaigns in Brazil, where she was responsible for their e-commerce, engagement programs, B2C and B2B campaigns. Thaisa led a team of over 20 people including designers, developers, planners, account managers, and media teams. Thaisa and the team delivered engagement programs including eCRM, landing pages, SEM, online advertising, quality assurance, and also managed their e-commerce, special projects, and engagement with small and SMBs.
compilation of FEATURED WORK
2024
Participated during Techqueria Summit in a Decoding the PM Puzzle conversation
Shared insights during the monthly Women in Tech Caribbean Community sync
Spoke during the PayTech Women Latino Inclusion Group meetup about language evolution towards equality
Highlighted as an inspiring product manager portfolio by Career Foundry
Conducted interviews with individuals of all Latin America and Caribbean countries including 🇦🇷 Argentina, 🇧🇿 Belize, 🇧🇴 Bolivia, 🇧🇷 Brazil, 🇨🇱 Chile, 🇨🇴 Colombia, 🇨🇷 Costa Rica, 🇨🇺 Cuba, 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic, 🇪🇨 Ecuador, 🇸🇻 El Salvador, 🇬🇹 Guatemala, 🇭🇹 Haiti, 🇭🇳 Honduras, 🇲🇽 Mexico, 🇳🇮 Nicaragua, 🇵🇦 Panama, 🇵🇾 Paraguay, 🇵🇪 Peru, 🇺🇾 Uruguay, 🇻🇪 Venezuela, 🇬🇾 Guyana, 🇸🇷 Suriname, 🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda, 🇧🇸 Bahamas, 🇧🇧 Barbados, 🇩🇲 Dominica, 🇬🇩 Grenada, 🇯🇲 Jamaica, 🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis, 🇱🇨 Saint Lucia, 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago, 🇬🇫 French Guiana, 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico, 🇸🇽 Sint Maarten, 🇦🇼 Aruba, 🇻🇮 United States Virgin Islands, (+ 5 bonuses: 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇲🇿 Mozambique, 🇯🇵 Japan, 🇨🇳 China, 🇺🇸 United States) for the Latinx in Power podcast
2023
Latinx in Power is now part of the HubSpot Podcast Network
Collaborative article with Forbes 🇲🇽 highlighting the ongoing struggle for diversity in Silicon Valley during the tech revolution
Collaborated with Microsoft as a strategic partner during the Microsoft Build event, where Thaisa conducted engaging live podcast sessions featuring Latin American Microsoft executives.
Participated in the Behind the Mic podcast episode
Joined the OhHello community in a podcast episode
Wrote 100 technical articles about Product & Program Management for the PM101 blog
Latinx in Power podcast is listed 10 Best Women in Tech Podcasts by Hosting Advice
Latinx in Power podcast was listed top 10 of the 100 Best Latino Podcasts to follow
Participated in the Ikigai Curious podcast episode
2022
Co-author of the book “Gestão de Produto como você nunca viu”, the first of its kind, written entirely by women, and published in Brazil
Faculty Lecturer at Harbour Space, teaching the course “Design for Business”
Talk about Program Management at the MAPIS event
Talk about Exploring the International Market at the Women in Product event
2021
Talk about Changing Careers to Tech at the Mozambique Digital Conference
Talk about Program Management at the Campus Party Digital Edition
Published the Crescendo article for the Latinx Heritage Month campaign
Talk about Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging with the Edward Jones teams
Talk on International Career in Tech with She's Tech
Hosted the #IAmRemarkable workshop for the Latinx community
Portfolio featured on Product Manager HQ
You Belong in Tech Twitter campaign for Latinas in Tech
Podcast guest with Clever Hybrids, Balance is a Cadence You Can Commit To
Decolonizing Design from a Latinx and African Perspective event by Convey UX
Interview My Life in Books for Paper Travel
Published the Frameworks to Keep in Mind article for Tech PM Lessons
2020
Launched the Latinx in Power podcast
Panel with “Todos Pincluidos” Group at Pinterest
Meetup with IxDA Belo Horizonte in Brazil
Participated in the She’s Tech Conference in Brazil
Podcast guest with IxDA Belo Horizonte in Brazil
Podcast guest with Thanks for Applying in Brazil
Podcast guest with Product Backstage in Brazil
2019
Talked about The Road to Project Management at Electronic Arts
Participated during a Project Management Career Night at UC Berkeley
Developed a Career Skills workshop in San Francisco
Developed a Design Spring workshop in Denver
2018
Participated during the She’s Tech Meetup in Brazil
Developed a Kanban workshop in Brazil
Talk about Productivity versus multitasking in Brazil
Published the How to Answer Popular PM Interview Questions article with Crush the PM Exam
Blog Posts
Essential product management principles through influential books: Marty Cagan's customer-centric approach, the Lean Product Playbook for Lean Startup methods, "Cracking the PM Interview" for interview insights, Steven Haines' comprehensive guide, and Nir Eyal's "Hooked" on habit-forming products.
Product APIs can be instrumental in achieving business success. It is crucial to prioritize planning and development based on revenue targets and user adoption metrics, have a product strategy in place, and consider how having an API can enable professional services revenue.
The Forbes article highlights Silicon Valley's diversity issue, especially for Latinx talent. Challenges include widening gaps, and a lack of diversity initiatives, contributing to a talent drain. The article calls for a mindset shift, emphasizing diversity as crucial for tech companies' success.
Clarifying the differences between Product Management, Program Management, and Project Management, emphasizing their unique roles. The distinctions include the strategic focus of Product Managers, long-term objectives for Program Managers, and execution-oriented roles for Project Managers.
Spotify, a fully Agile company, initially adopted Scrum but made roles optional for flexibility. Emphasizing autonomy, small cross-functional Squads handle end-to-end tasks. The release process centers on small, frequent releases, with hidden features to identify integration issues early.
#1 blog sharing Program Management content. PM101 is an independent blog about program and product management receiving 1,000,000+ visitors per year since 2016.
“I believe that leadership is more than just delegating tasks. A true leader should also create a collaborative work environment where everyone can thrive.”
Thaisa Fernandes
