Aline Winters

Supervise team of seven taxonomy analysts in French and British markets, spearheading projects across multiple international markets, and managing complex multilingual taxonomies. Execute quarterly performance evaluations to promote career development. Engage with cross-functional teams including data science, engineering, and UX research to determine effective implementation and management of taxonomy strategies. Leverage stakeholder input to guide decision-making processes to maintain expectations and set priorities. Collaborate with the legal team to ensure compliance with international regulations to ensure regulatory alignment across markets.

• Created guidelines and tasks for taxonomy analysts, leading to 25% increase in search relevancy and improved user experience in 10+ markets on Indeed.
• Successfully promoted two direct reports through dedicated career coaching and development.
• Managed critical analysis project and facilitated transition to a machine learning-powered taxonomy system.
• Recruited and onboarded three new team members, improving team capabilities and diversity.
• Conducted performance reviews, career coaching, compensation planning, and one-on-one coaching for six direct reports, contributing to professional growth and satisfaction.

Created comprehensive controlled vocabularies, standards, and diverse taxonomies for multiple markets, incorporating cultural nuances and serving as a domain expert for the Dutch market. Managed ambiguous and vague requests adeptly by asking pertinent follow-up questions to confirm external teams received all essential information. Proposed workflow simplifications and advocated for improvements to deliver valuable insights to management and cross-functional teams beyond taxonomy domain. Assessed advanced AI taxonomy tools and provided critical suggestions to influence development trajectory of tools. Engaged with governance team to establish a robust governance framework tailored to international market needs to confirm compliance and operational efficiency. Prepared training materials for onboarding new team members to ensure smooth and efficient integration process.

• Conducted extensive user interface studies, making data-driven recommendations to enhance information organization and improve accessibility by establishing robust taxonomies for Dutch and English-speaking markets.
• Increased searchability and user experience through strategic enhancements to existing taxonomies, faceted navigation systems, and hierarchical structures.
• Developed and maintained 21+ domain taxonomies for the Dutch market, improving data categorization and retrieval. Hierarchical structures were used as the basis for multiple additional languages and markets.
• Consulted and mentored teams in 10+ other markets on development of 80+ hierarchical structures and implemented and documented best practices around taxonomies and thesauri.
• Deployed ticketing system to manage taxonomy requests from outside teams, streamlining workflow.
• Formulated SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) frameworks in Dutch and English, improving semantic web capabilities and interoperability.

• Led procurement operations from initiation to payment, streamlining processes and reducing turnaround times by 10%
• Took charge of $6-8 million annual budget, preserving compliance with financial guidelines and optimizing budget allocation for global event marketing requisitions
• Monitored Marketing Development Fund (MDF) requisitions daily, preventing payment delays and ensuring financial integrity
• Coordinated escalated purchase orders or invoices, investigating and resolving issues swiftly and maintaining positive stakeholder relationships
• Played a key role in overhauling MDF internal portal's user interface, improving user experience and operational efficiency by 12%

Fostered professional relationships with vendors, acted as focal point of contact for projects, and delivered comprehensive training, support, and guidance. Assessed vendor data, crafted insightful reports, and uncovered key trends and patterns essential for strategic decision-making by internal teams. Oversaw daily operations for vendors and product team, addressing urgent issues, resolving technical problems, and optimizing workflows to enhance efficiency and productivity. Identified workflow inefficiencies and implemented strategic tools to streamline operations, improve productivity, and coordinate development of foundational taxonomies for asset management and content data roadmaps. Interacted with stakeholders, partners, and co-workers to navigate ambiguous requirements to determine clarity and alignment with taxonomy-related processes and governance policies.

• Spearheaded product pilots and ad-hoc projects, conducting user interface studies to inform taxonomy development and metadata application.
• Addressed and resolved linguistic issues in search queries to improve search accuracy and user satisfaction, and categorized and clarified ambiguous search queries, ensuring linguistic correctness and relevance to user needs.
• Devised processes for outside vendors to minimize questions and reduce mistakes, increasing overall workflow efficiency.
• Managed two external vendor companies, orchestrating weekly meetings with vendor management and addressing questions and concerns.
• Analyzed and established new workflows, optimizing processes to improve operational efficiency and project outcomes.

• Coordinated end-to-end localization processes and data analysis for Google’s voice recognition products, optimizing operations across 25 locales and languages
• Worked with both internal and external language specialist teams to align processes and standardize methodologies
• Leveraged robust understanding of linguistic challenges and cultural nuances to enhance voice search quality for the Dutch market, resulting in successful rollout of Google Home in the Netherlands
• Provided valuable data-driven insights for strategic decision-making and mitigated bugs related to speech recognition, grammar, and device functions
• Maximized natural language coverage by curating text and voice query sets and configuring grammar rules, contributing to 67% increase in search accuracy
• Enacted new initiatives to augment team quality and growth, including mentoring 15 new hires and refining onboarding materials