Steve Zitkovich

ITD is a SaaS provider to telecoms companies for managing projects, assets and logistics. Company has customers in Europe, Africa, Middle East and SE Asia. Startup environment. I am a one-person marketing team, managing all marketing activities. Emphasis is on product marketing, generating leads and supporting sales.

Nubart is a startup with innovative technology for delivering museum audio guides. Worked with the two founders on all aspects of product/company strategy, sales, marketing and business development. Wrote business plans submitted to the EU for funding, earning certificates of excellence. I love the product and founders, but couldn’t pay my bills from it so had to look for steady income.

Managed localization services account at global Silicon Valley internet company. Sales + P&L responsibility. Gained insight to the vendor side of localization and translation services, but at heart I am a product and marketing person focused on the customer and this role was too far removed from end-users.

1. Wrote business plan for an innovative e-commerce mobile app that delivers digital content by independent artists (especially music, books, video). 2. Moved back to Europe on my own, i.e. not re-located by an employer. Moving one’s life abroad is a lot like doing a startup: requires flexibility, agility and decisions based on opportunities or challenges.

* Holland America Line * Tango Card * Sogeti USA * Earth Class Mail & Swiss Post Box * Private Entrepreneur Between contracts I work on entrepreneurial/business ideas in the Seattle startup community.

* Increased speed + quality of promotions and content translations across 4 languages and worldwide markets to establish simultaneous release (simship) delivery. -- My efficiency led other marketing departments to ask me to manage their translations; resulted in greater consistency across company and reduced costs. * Delivered international part of numerous online projects; international never a delay. -- Including $500k translation/localization project to budget and on-time delivery.

* Business development in identifying and setting up partnerships globally, including Amazon and iTunes e-gift cards procurement across Europe and Asia. * Supported sales teams on calls and proposals; international capabilities were a differentiator in landing a number of large key customers. * Advised Tango Card technical team on internationalization and localization.

Sogeti (a subsidiary of Capgemini) is a leading provider of professional technology services with staff and operations in 15 countries worldwide. Consulted to Starbucks on localization strategy and best-practices in creating an internationalized platform which will host websites in multiple markets and multiple languages. Immersed myself in Agile methodologies to assess technical teams processes in two groups at Charles Schwab. Our Agile-related recommendations were accepted and implemented.

Swiss Post licensed Earth Class Mail’s software to launch the Swiss Post Box service in 5 countries across Europe. Worked in both the US and Switzerland, serving as contact between ECM and Swiss Post for all issues around implementation of the Swiss Post Box e-commerce service. * Successfully managed project to a very tight 3-month implementation deadline to launch. * Led knowledge transfer of ECM processes to Swiss Post Box including technical implementation, marketing and overall business rules.

Took business concept and defined an online/web service (including functional requirements and wireframes) to develop a beta version to attract further investment.

Worked in the Central Marketing Group whose web pages get over ½ billion visits per year. In 2007 my team managed localization of 350+ projects, more than 3 million words and a budgetary spend of nearly $6 million. * Managed localization budget to within 5% of target on a quarterly basis. * Led globalization and localization strategy, planning and requirements for Microsoft customer campaigns websites. * Authored best-practices documents (“Localization Framework”) for reference across Microsoft.

* Defined prioritized, customer-focused feature roadmaps for the European sites and services. * Drove on-time and on-spec implementation of the roadmap by writing marketing requirements and working with the US-based marketing and technical teams. * Wrote specifications for co-branded EU web sites and integrated services with partners (ex. Adobe). * Managed day-to-day planning, production and implementation of localized marketing content – text and graphical – on the two services, for seven languages.

Zefa was the third largest stock image agency in the world. It was completely international in scope, with its online e-commerce and marketing in six languages. (Zefa has since been acquired by Corbis.) * When the CTO suddenly left the company I stepped up to lead the technology team of 12 people and ensured confidence in the IT department company-wide. Despite considerable hurdles, IT operations continued seamlessly. * Responsible for strategy and roadmap of multilingual e-commerce web sites and services.

Wrote business plan and functional requirements for a European-based e-commerce portal selling B2B stock-photography. With my partners presented business plan to investors, however the Internet bubble burst and investment dried up before this project could get funded.

* Managed transition of new e-commerce web site from development group into the daily functioning of the business, leading exponential growth of site and related corporate initiatives, taking sales from $0 to more than $2 million per month, adding 5 languages to the site and new functionality. * Defined requirements, functional specifications, and project schedule for new website features. * Point person for international issues in web development for e-commerce site.