About Chuck
Retailers & consumer brands bring me in when they have a consumer opportunity and an unclear path to its potential. I translate consumer insight into a business requirements, a roadmap, and a shipped product and oversee operationalization.
My background spans retail operations, consumer strategy consulting, and digital product leadership. I have advised Fortune 100 clients on consumer-centric brand and retail strategy. Humana, Kraft, Nintendo, Dell, The Home Depot.
I have built and led enterprise digital programs:
- a self-checkout platform across 1,300+ stores,
- a networked digital-merchandising rollout to 1,600+ locations
- a net-new ecommerce brand built from zero
What makes me different: most folks are either advise or build. I do both. I sit with leadership and diagnose why an experience isn't working, write the product spec, the go-to-market plan, or the operating model that makes it work. I am evidence driven, building frameworks teams rely on.
I hold both ends of the opportunity. I distill complex consumer data into an efficient plan; the way McKinsey's big-box research became five redesigned departments and double-digit sales lift. I own the execution that makes that idea real: the roadmap, the vendor selection, Agile methodology, the rollout and the operating model.
Typical deliverables:
•Consumer segmentation & go-to-market strategy
•Interim leadership of digital product or ecommerce
•Net-new e-commerce builds from discovery through launch
•Diagnostic and turnaround work on underperforming programs
Best fit: A full-arc initiative that needs an experienced owner. Mid-market or PE-backed consumer-facing brands navigating a real moment of change.
I work as an interim executive, fractional advisor, or strategic project lead — whatever the engagement calls for.
B.S., Industrial/Organizational Psychology, The Ohio State University. ReThink Retail "Top Retail Expert."
English
Native or bilingual
Can work on-site
Chicago (up to 50km), Columbus (up to 50km), San Francisco (up to 50km), Seattle (up to 50km)
Experience
- ConsumerX RetailSenior Product Consultant & Retail StrategistRETAIL (LARGE RETAILERS)December 2024 - Today (1 year and 8 months)Chicago, United States• • Advise retailers and brands on bringing consumer-centric digital experiences to life: change management, customer success, AI strategy, and AI product development.• • Build AI-powered consumer persona models for product personalization applications: simulate distinct consumer segments, generate behavioral predictions, author experience requirements, and validate edge cases across persona types.
- 7-Eleven, Inc.Senior Product Manager, Self-CheckoutRETAIL (LARGE RETAILERS)September 2022 - December 2024 (2 years and 3 months)Irving, TX, USA• • Led product lifecycle management for a two-phase, ~$27M self-checkout program; owned the roadmap as aliving, outcome-based plan and shipped instrumented increments.• • Managed pilot and rollout to 1,300+ Speedway (a 7-Eleven division) stores; reduced transaction time from 1:20(assisted) to 0:38 (self-checkout).• • Defined requirements across POS, store operations, loyalty, inventory, merchandising, and tax/revenue; prioritized from fundamental transactions through complex loyalty and multi-tender payment.• • Identified that self-checkout code had been built in an isolated branch outside the core codebase; escalated andmanaged the refactor, compressing a 3-month roadmap delay to one month in real time.• • Led a cross-functional team (research, UX, product, development); used behavioral data and product analytics to improve real-time item discoverability and consumer satisfaction scores; oversaw payment-processor certification of a new unattended POS.
- Cardinal HealthSenior Product Manager, E-CommerceE-COMMERCEMay 2021 - September 2022 (1 year and 4 months)Columbus, OH, USA• • First senior product manager hired to build a net-new B2B "path-to-purchase" ecommerce platform for a $200B pharma distributor in a highly regulated environment.• • Introduced and implemented Agile process and methodology across a 60+ person greenfield build.• • Designed and owned a personalization framework on headless / composable architecture; built multi-role user profiles (pharmacy clerks, specialty pharmacists, procurement leads, CFOs) with distinct product views, terminology, and tailored workflows — from requirements through post-launch validation.• • Owned end-to-end lifecycle including roadmapping; authored business and experience requirements and acceptance criteria; synthesized research and data into prioritized work.
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Education
- Bachelor of Science, Industrial / Organizational PsychologyThe Ohio State UniversityI/O Psych is an applied area of Psychology studying the individual in organizations.
- MPS in Retail Experience DesignColumbus College of Art & Design (CCAD)2022I developed and taught the Masters of Professional Service in Retail Experience Design