Hello Everyone,
@Francisca_Chiedu @badesemowo, @pahuja, @AlexBlack @Ndubueze_Precious , @alexnk, @Madhuraj_Mishra, @mahdibeee
Greetings! First of all, I would like to thank you all for having such an engaging and helpful forum. It has been one of the most helpful ways to tailor my application.
Background:
- I’m an experienced product manager with over a decade of experience in the e-commerce and fintech industry, I have developed strong expertise in product management, applied machine learning, and payments, delivering impactful and innovative solutions.
- Over the last decade I have worked in Mumbai, San Francisco Bay Area, and most recently in London for almost 1.5 years now.
- It has been a long journey since I came to know about the Global Talent Visa to this post, but I’m glad I’m finally close to putting in this application.
- I started my application process in May, however, I decided to wait for Antler’s Founder’s program decision. So I couldn’t complete my Stage 1 application within 15 days which resulted in a refund of the application fee.
- I just received my acceptance letter for Anter’s September cohort. Yay!
Some of my questions are:
- How does my application look overall? I would appreciate it if you could give me a quick review of what I put together to know if there’s anything I should add, take out, or combine to make my application stronger. I have collated all the documents and questions listed as I summarize my documents;
- Three of my LORs are dated the late May, early June 2024. Can I continue with the same LORs or should I ask them to resend new ones?
- The patents referenced in the application have been in flight for over a year and aren’t available in Google Scholar yet, I have the proof of filing from the company and the reward payments. Is that acceptable?
- The CEO of the startup, had sent me a scanned copy of the LOR 2 on the company letterhead duly attested with the company seal. Can this be considered or do I need to ask them to re-send it and sign via DocuSign?
- I have 3 LORs as per the requirements. However, I’m awaiting one additional 4th LOR which would further support my AI/ML product experience. SInce I’m running short on time, I was wondering if I will have the option to upload supporting documents once I submit the application or is it better to get all the documents submitted at once.
- I have received 2 meritorious academic scholarships from India for my master’s studies abroad, but I couldn’t find the right criteria to mention them and it would be a stretch to include them as OC4. Please let me know if there’s value in mentioning it in the application.
Here is the detailed summary:
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Curriculum Vitae (CV)
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Personal Statement
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Recommendation Letters:
- LOR 1: ex-Head of Global Innovation of a renowned American fintech company where I worked between 2020-2024.
- LOR 2: CEO of the startup that worked previously for 3 years, who is a serial entrepreneur in India with 3 successful bootstrapped companies.
- LOR 3: Executive Director of Master’s Program from one of the top US universities (also listed in UK’s High Potential Individual visa eligible universities list).
- LOR 4: Director / Principal AI researcher of a renowned American fintech company that I worked between 2020-2024 - someone I worked with closely with, but I wasn’t reporting directly to.
- Mandatory Criteria (MC)
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MC 1 (You led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings, lines of code from public repos or similar evidence.): Led an ML-driven payment optimizations team for 4.5 years for one of the largest global fintech companies including filing 2 patent applications)
- Narrative: As a Senior Product Manager for the AI/ ML team at one of the largest fintech companies in the world, I led a team of 15+ ML scientists and engineers to launch several impactful products during the 4+ year tenure. I’m experienced in leading a global cross-function team based in the Bay Area, USA for 3 years and then moved to the UK. The ML products that I developed have added over $ 1 billion in total payment volume for the company over 4 years.
- My work was in the ML platform of a large enterprise company. So none of the products have publications or news articles would have my name. However, I have been recognized as the named inventor of 2 innovations for which we filed patent applications which are in flight and I have the details mentioned in annual performance reviews that I’ll be attaching. I’ll also have a Letter of Recommendation from the Principal AI Researcher (Director-level) of the ML team, with whom I worked closely for 4 years, a well-known AI researcher (industry expert) in payments, fraud, and risk space.
- Evidence Structure:
- CV
- Personal Statement
- Patent Applications & Rewards Letters from the company
- Yearly Performance Reviews with $$ impacts
- Links to newsroom and business resource centre articles quoting ML product releases
- Letter of Recommendation from the Principal AI Researcher.
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MC 2 (Outside of your normal day-to-day job role, you established, led or were a senior contributor to a large technology-led industry initiative): A side-hustle as the Product Marketing Manager with the Innovation Lab of the same fintech company for 2 years:
- Narrative: Highlighting the extensive work done outside the normal day-to-day job role with the Innovation Lab as a Product Marketing Manager from 2020 to 2022. Worked on 3 concept → launch of unique projects fostering innovation within the company -
- Promoting career mobility and accelerated innovation through our new skill exchange platform that allowed employees around the world to contribute to projects outside of their typical work and build new skills. This project scaled to 100+ projects and was eventually taken over by the HR organization.
- Launched Lightning Pitches to pitch ideas with the Innovation Lab - shortlisted pitches, judges, and mentors to help bring these ideas to life.
- Conceptualized a democratized in-house idea management platform, which was eventually integrated into the company’s product development lifecycle.
- I was leading the creative campaigns of the platform that helped 100+ co-workers and projects which eventually take up a new role within the company.
- Evidence Structure:
- The skill exchange project was mentioned in the Global Impact Report of the company in 2021 - which was a major milestone.
- Reference Letter: Letter of recommendation from ex-Head of Innovation of the company.
- Narrative: Highlighting the extensive work done outside the normal day-to-day job role with the Innovation Lab as a Product Marketing Manager from 2020 to 2022. Worked on 3 concept → launch of unique projects fostering innovation within the company -
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MC 3 (You have evidence of speaking at high-profile digital technology sector events, or specialist events for your particular field in the digital technology sector, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings or similar evidence including event size/attendance estimates where possible): I was a panelist & speaker on a couple of product management events. One of the recent ones was the Alignment London perhaps not a very high-profile event but this was a specialist event attended by global product management and localization professionals with 50+ attendees
- Narrative: Panelist for the Alignment London in March 2024 with the theme of “How can enterprise products continue to grow?” where I spoke about 3 ways in which Global B2B companies can continue to innovate and grow. Shared the podium with other high profile speakers and product leaders at Salesforce, JustEat, Expedia etc. The brands attending the event in London included Wise, Deliveroo, TripAdvisor and many more.
- Evidence Structure:
- Link to the pre-event banners and new clippings.
- Link to videos and thank you posts.
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MC 4 (You command a high salary or other remuneration for your services, as evidenced by commercial or employment contracts with salary information including any bonus and equity options and history of earnings): Recently joined one of the highest-valued UK-based fintech scale-up companies as a Product Manager. Explaining how these rewards reflect my impact and potential.
- Narrative: Currently in a role with a high salary, along with my earnings progression throughout my career. My earnings reflect significant growth, recognizing my expertise in the industry, however, I’ve also taken up roles previously that are highly rewarding from a personal aspirations perspective.
- History of earnings over the past 10 years of my career where I have worked in a few early-stage startups as well as large tech companies with a command of high salary, bonus, and equity packages.
- Evidence Structure:
- Offer Letters / Employment Contracts.
- RSU / Stock options received.
- Optional Criteria (OC1): (How do I demonstrate that I have made a significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder, senior executive, board member or employee of a product-led digital technology company?)
- OC 1: Acceptance to Antler UK’s accelerator program (this is also the evidence for requesting a fast-track application process)
- Narrative: Highlighting my significant previous startup work experience in multiple early stage startup and the current work experience at the preIPO scaleup - one of UK’s largest fintech unicorns, acceptance to 2020 Founding CEO cohort run by university alumni community, and how pitching an idea in payments domain using ML has helped me get accepted into Antler UK’s prestigious accelerator program.
- Emphasising the importance of being accepted into emphasizing the benefits for starting fintech company. Mentioning the access to VC ecosystem, chances of securing funding and opportunities to contribute towards UK’s startup ecosystem.
- Evidence Structure:
- Acceptance Letter (Antler UK).
- Participation emails from Future Founder Cohort in 2020 organized by University Alumni
- Current and previous startup offer letters and equity options held.
- Optional Criteria 2 (OC2):
- OC2: .
- Narrative: I have been filmed in product management training materials as a part of the leading PM training course platform, Product Alliance, as an expert instructor. Selected as one of 30 PMs along with other top PMs from Big Tech (Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and more).
- My contributions have been instrumental in shaping the careers of several aspiring product managers, many of whom have gone on to achieve significant milestones in their respective fields.
- Evidence Structure:
- Mentorship Proof: Reviews and messages on LinkedIn from students who found it useful.
- Endorsement Letter: Letter from the founder of Product Alliance who also the author of a well known product management book and CEO of an AI startup.
- OC2: Mentorship within product management communities in the US & UK, University
- Narrative: I have provided mentorship and support to aspiring product professionals with HelpYourPeers in the BayArea in 2020, I am also actively engaged with my almamater to help next batches with mentorship, mock interviews etc
- After moving to the UK, I have been provining mentorship to early stage product managers via Intelligent People in the UK to excel in their product management career… My role involved offering guidance on career development, sharing insights on the product frameworks, and helping mentees navigate challenges in their professional journeys.
- My contributions have been instrumental in shaping the careers of numerous mentees, many of whom have gone on to achieve significant milestones in the US and UK.
- Evidence Structure:
- Mentorship Proof: Links to the HelpYourPeers website, Intelligent People showing my profile as a mentor.
- Emails with University Programs to co-ordinating mentorship sessions and mock interviews.
- Letter of Recommendation from the Executive Director of my Master’s program supporting my candidature.
- Optional Criteria (OC3): (How do I demonstrate that I have made a significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contribution to the field as a founder, senior executive, board member or employee of a product-led digital technology company?)
- OC1: Played a pivotal role at multiple early-stage e-commerce, food-tech, and affiliate marketing startups in India, that were scaled into 3 new countries in less than 3 years:
- Narrative: I started as a Growth Marketing Manager for an early-stage food tech startup and moved into Product Management leading the product development of X and Y companies, I was responsible for overseeing the the end-to-end product.
- I built a suite of B2B products for company X and launched an end-to-end digital gift card marketplace for company Y.
- Expanded the business into US and UK regions with 50,000+ Publishers, and 10,000+ daily orders which was a 10x growth in 3 years.
- Evidence Structure:
- Description of Product (screenshots, app store links, release emails, and user metrics). Highlighting the product’s uniqueness and its impact on the market.
- Reference Letter: Letter from the CEO attesting to my work and confirming the impact I created in 3 years between 2016 to 2018.
Would love to hear your thoughts, on how to best structure my application. Any advice would be helpful!