About Me

Hi! I’m a product manager from Berlin, Germany with 9+ years of hands-on experience in digital transformation initiative, innovation and product management.

MY MISSION: To bring together people as highly functional teams in a kind, growth oriented and sustainable way, and enable them to use this collective momentum to create solutions they can be proud of.

An image of Krists in VMware Office in New York City

Key Professionl Skills
Product Management
Agile Product Development
Strategic Design
Co-Creative Design & Innovation Methodologies (Design Thinking, Lean, Sprint, Business Modelling)

Language Skills
Latvian (Native Speaker)
English (C2 / Full Professional Proficiency)
German (C2 / Full Professional Proficiency)
Chinese (HSK3 / Elementary proficiency)
Russian (B1 / Limited working proficiency)

Education
B. Sc. INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
B. Sc. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
PRODUCT LEADER CERTIFICATE
SCRUM MASTER (CSM) & PRODUCT OWNER (CSPO)
MICROMASTERS DIGITAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Work Experience

VMware, Inc.

PRODUCT MANAGER
VMware Tanzu Labs (EMEA)
REMOTE / SEPTEMBER 2022 - JULY 2024

As part of Tanzu Labs team, I developed B2B & B2C software in the fintech and automotive sectors. Together with VMware customer product teams, I enabled teams to benefit from cloud technology and rethink product end-to-end delivery with a focus on speed, quality, and business impact.

    • Reduced time-to-market the first product by 30%, by developing a application portfolio modernisation strategy for a market-leading accounting software suite consisting of 30+ products and a combined annual revenue of 600 million €.

    • Managed an end-to-end software delivery process across multiple product teams with a total of  17 members, while coordinating with stakeholders to deliver valuable software according to the modernisation strategy.

    • Increased the pilot user customer effort score by 15% in 12 weeks by identifying key customer pain-points along the journey and highly focussed cloud software addressing their needs.

    • Achieved 800 thousand € in repeat sales for VMware Tanzu Labs, by demonstrating expertise in product management practices, building relationships with client stakeholders, and delivering value in the form of working software to VMware client’s customers.

Key Clients
DATEV eG
Audi AG

Key Projects:
-

Volkswagen Group Services

SENIOR STRATEGIC DESIGNER & PRODUCT MANAGER
Business Innovation Studio
BERLIN, GERMANY / MAY 2019 - JULY 2022

Volkswagen Group Services is the internal service provider for the Volkswagen Group. The role of the Business Innovation Studio is to provide support as an internal agency to Volkswagen Group companies e.g., Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Volkswagen Financial Services, CARIAD, developing business models, translating them into products and services.

  • I managed the development of Volkswagen Financial Services B2C fintech solutions for online after-sales and leasing contracts leading a team of 9 engineers, designers, and researchers.

    • Successfully launched and supported over 3 years in 7 markets in Europe, Asia & North America by continuously improving development practices to be sustainable and scalable.

    • Demonstrated the business value of customer-centricity by bringing together user research, product metrics, and market research to align the product & company goals with the needs of customers. Achieved market growth target of >3% for online automotive finance product sales.

    • Grew the internal team product team from 5 to 9. Onboarded additional product managers and collaborated with external product development teams to ensure the ability to scale product development capabilities to achieve the company YOY online services growth target.

    • Facilitated leadership sessions with key stakeholders – markets, automotive brands and, heads of product to apply learnings based on product insights, collaborate on defining needed improvements, and ensure stakeholder buy-in.

Viessmann Group (V/CO)

USER RESEARCHER & DESIGN THINKING COACH
Berlin, Germany / April 2019 -May 2019

V/CO is the digital transformation & innovation unit of Viessmann pursuing transformation from a world leader in of heating technology to providing sustainable solutions for the entire living space in the form of digital products and new business models.

  • As part of the transformation & innovation unit of Viessmann, I helped internal teams and partners to align their ways of working with the needs of digital products and sustainable business models.

    •  Managed internal and external resources and support for internal and external projects requiring taking a user-centric approach (preparation, execution, and synthesis).

    • Lead the conception and facilitation of innovation and Design Thinking workshops internally and for such clients as Shell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University.

Key Clients:
Viessmann Group
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shell Deutschland GmbH

Key Projects:
MIT Energy Initiative workshop development and facilitation
Global Persona & User Need research
Product & Venture team User Research & Innovation support
Company wide Design Thinking enabling

diffferent GmbH

EXPERIENCE DESIGN & INNOVATION STRATEGIST
Berlin, Germany / July 2015 – April 2018

diffferent GmbH is a strategy & design consultancy focusing on translating strategy and innovation processes into products, services and experiences for world leading companies from Germany. diffferent GmbH is part of the SYZYGY group at WPP.

    • Consulting international companies (Deutsche Telekom, VW, Audi, Porsche, Deutsche Bahn) on how to rethink their innovation efforts, empower employees to innovate and develop new products.

    • Conception and facilitation Innovation and Design Thinking workshops both in German and English.

    • Development and facilitation of change projects and formats to enable employees and leaders to implement and apply innovation methodologies.

    • Development of customer-centric service concepts using innovation methodologies (Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Lean).

Key Clients:
Volkswagen AG
Audi AG
Porsche AG
Deutsche Telekom AG

Key Projects:
Innovation methodology enablement at Deutsche Telekom
Workshop design & facilitation Porsche Innovation Week
Global automotive UX & Service trend research
Sustainable shared mobility service design
International taxi Service trend research

Educations

B. Sc. Innovation & Entrepreneurship

BUSINESS ACADEMY AARHUS
Aarhus, Denmark / August 2014 – January 2016

Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme is a Cross-disciplinary programme for students who want to learn to develop business ideas and test them in practice.

The program focuses on knowledge and tools that enable to start your own business or to start and run innovative projects and companies. As a part of the programme students must establish and run a company in collaboration with your fellow students. The ideas are developed together with your team or develop further and implemented in a company.

    • Cross-disciplinary program with a focus on skills, knowledge, and tools (User Centricity, Lean, Agile, Business Model Canvas, Design Thinking) that enable to start a business or to start and run innovative projects and companies.

    • Thesis: “Development of innovation team empowerment facilitation process at different GmbH” / Final Grade: A “Excellent”

Achievements
Top in class (Average Grade 12 / A)
Winner “Experts in Teams” Annual Innovation Competition
Runner Up “Open Data Innovation” Aarhus Municipality Innovation Competition

B. Sc. International Economic Affairs

UNIVERSITY OF LATVIA
Riga, Latvia / September 2006 – July 2010

Professional bachelor program focusing on the principles and concepts of economics, project management, accounting, and marketing with an emphasis on international companies and markets.

  • Courses

    • Mathematical Economics & Theoretical Economics

    • Statistics

    • Business English & German

    • History of International Economics & Business

    • Entrepreneurship

    • Globalisation & Processes in Economics

    • Leadership & Management

    • Managerial Psychology

    • Marketing & Public Relations

Additional Education & Courses

IBM Generative AI for Product Managers

IBM & Cousera
Online Course / August 2024 -

A course focussed on applying real-world generative AI uses for text, code, image, audio, and video, identifying AI value proposition e.g. ROI, and planning commercialzation of AI products.

  • Covered topics
    Generative AI: Introduction and Applications
    Generative AI: Prompt Engineering Basics
    Product Management: Building AI-Powered Products
    Generative AI: Supercharge Your Product Management Career

Google Cloud Generative AI Courses

Google Cloud
Online Course / September 2023 – April 2024

A collection of courses and practical exercises focussing on AI principles, prompt design in Vertex AI, vector search and embedding, multimodality, real-world application of large language models, and retrieval augmented generation (RAG).

  • Covered topics
    Inspect Rich Documents with Gemini Multimodality and Multimodal RAG
    Vector Search and Embeddings
    Generative AI Explorer - Vertex AI
    Prompt Design in Vertex AI
    Responsible AI: Applying AI Principles with Google Cloud
    Image Captioning Models
    Transformer Models and BERT Model
    Attention Mechanism
    Encoder-Decoder Architecture
    Introduction to Image Generation
    Generative AI Fundamentals

Product Leader Certificate

PRODUCT SCHOOL
Online Course / July 2021 – September 2021

8-week program for professionals with 3+ years of Product Management experience and strong technical/business backgrounds lead by Google product owner Shilpa Vir on Product management practices at software-based companies.

  • Covered topics
    Product analytics
    Product strategy
    Customer development
    Databases and data visualisation
    Machine learning,
    Software development frameworks
    Product growth and scalability

Micromaster Digital Product Management

Boston University / edX
Online Courses / January 2018 – October 2018

Course focusing on understanding the principles and processes for product development, as well as identifying variations in the PM practices across different organisations and emergent digital markets.

  • Covered Topics
    Product Management with Lean
    Agile and System Design Thinking
    Strategic Social Media Marketing
    Driving Digital Innovation through Experimentation
    Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making

Art & Science of Product Management

STANFORD CONTINUING STUDIES
Online Courses / December 2016

Course designed to help those looking to transition into a product management role, as well as entrepreneurs looking to build great products.

  • Covered Topics
    Product roadmap planning
    Stakeholder management
    Development of a cohesive product vision
    Agile product management
    Product development and engineering estimation.
    Product marketing & release

Certified Scrum Master (CSM) & Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Scrum Alliance
Berlin, Germany / December 2019

Course and certification on approaches for validating product assumptions, learn advanced interactions with customers and users and master advanced Product Backlog management as a certified Scrum product owner.

Course and certification on how to help your Scrum Team perform at their highest level and follow Scrum values, principles, and practices daily as a certified Scrum Master.

Certified SAFe Agilist

SCALED AGILE Inc.
Online Course / April 2021

Course focussed on underlying principles as derived from Lean, systems thinking, Agile development, product development flow, design thinking, Lean Portfolio Management, and DevOps. Enables to support and participate in PI Planning events and to understand the work of one or multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

A SAFe Agilist is able to apply Lean, Agile, and the Product Development Flow principles in a constructive manner, in order to improve productivity, employee satisfaction, time-to-market, and quality.

Chinese Language Courses HSK1 - HSK4

CHINESISCH SPRACHSCHULE MAO
Berlin, Germany / November 2018 -

Chinese language course focussing on introducing all levels of Chinese learners to the Chinese language and preparing them for Chinese language proficiency exam (漢語水平考試).

Certified
Chinese Proficiency Test - HSK2 Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi / 汉语水平考试
Issuing authority: Konfuzius-Institut Berlin