Barry Dacus
Product Management
Santa Maria,CA
Summary
Senior leader with 20+ years building customer-facing organizations from the ground up, starting on the phones in customer support, advancing into operations leadership running a call center, and maturing into product and platform leadership across B2B and B2B2C SaaS. Trusted operator who turns executive vision into coordinated cross-functional execution, designs operating cadences that scale, and writes for senior audiences with clarity and discretion. Track record of customer-centered outcomes from $100M+ ARR enterprise suites at Citrix to AI-powered platforms serving 6M+ users at Paylocity.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
8
8
Certification
Work History
Independent Product Consultant
Daci Technologies
Santa Maria, CA
11.2025 - Current
- Provide product strategy guidance to an early-stage SaaS startup, partnering with founders to translate vision into prioritized roadmap and execution plans across engineering, design, and go-to-market.
- Independently building AI-native mobile app concepts using Cursor, React Native, and the Claude Code API; operating as a Product Builder bridging strategy and hands-on development with applied focus on agentic AI integration, 0-to-1 execution, and mobile-first architecture.
Senior Group Product Manager / Principal Product Manager
Paylocity
04.2022 - 11.2025
- Served as a strategic partner to senior leadership, translating executive vision into a unified roadmap and operating cadence across product, engineering, design, and business units serving 4M+ users on a B2B2C platform spanning enterprise HR buyers and 6M+ employees.
- Drove cross-functional initiatives end to end, including a complete native app rebuild and a shared API services framework covering authentication, scheduling, notifications, and AI, reducing duplicate engineering efforts by 25%.
- Implemented generative AI Assist to deliver predictive insights and personalized recommendations, reducing HR inquiry volume and enhancing customer engagement.
- Achieved 34% DAU and 39% MAU growth through A/B testing, hypothesis-driven experimentation, and analytics-driven optimization using Pendo. Elevated app store ratings from iOS 4.2 to 4.8 and Android 3.8 to 4.7.
- Established operating rhythms for leadership reviews, planning cycles, and reporting to senior stakeholders, surfacing risks and proposed solutions early.
Director of Product and Support
Land Gorilla
06.2020 - 01.2022
- Led a cross-functional team spanning product and customer support, building the connective tissue between B2B customers (lending institutions and construction contractors) and product development to ensure data-informed roadmap alignment with field-validated pain points.
- Built and launched a 0-to-1 field operations platform connecting contractors, inspectors, and lenders, conducting on-site customer discovery to identify workflow pain points.
- Reduced loan disbursement cycle time by 50% through mobile-first workflow automation translated from field observations into product strategy.
- Partnered closely with sales and account management to synthesize customer feedback, accelerating issue resolution by 40% and informing data-driven prioritization.
Senior Product Manager
Mindbody
San Luis Obispo, CA
02.2015 - 04.2020
- Owned patient-facing and consumer mobile products for a B2B2C platform serving health and wellness practitioners and their patients in Fitness and Complementary Integrative Healthcare.
- Increased cart conversion rates by 300% through hypothesis-driven experimentation and checkout flow optimization, removing consumer friction points.
- Ensured HIPAA compliance and PII data protection across all consumer touchpoints while implementing analytics-driven growth programs and experimentation frameworks.
- Established partnerships with Apple App Store and Google Play teams to optimize ASO and consumer acquisition performance through iterative testing and refinement.
Product Line Director (promoted from Senior Product Line Manager)
Citrix
Santa Barbara, CA
05.2002 - 12.2014
- Joined Expertcity pre-acquisition and scaled remote support platform to $100M+ ARR with full P&L and budget responsibility as part of an enterprise IT Service Management suite serving Fortune 500 clients.
- Owned commercial strategy including pricing, licensing, and revenue targets across a multi-product B2B SaaS portfolio.
- Built and led a team of 5 through servant leadership and structured coaching, with 3 team members promoted to senior roles.
- Integrated post-acquisition products for network monitoring and service desk functionality, increasing platform stickiness and ITSM suite coverage.
- Delivered cohesive cross-platform experiences achieving six consecutive years of market leadership position per Gartner and Forrester reports.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) - Business Management
Marriott School of Management
Bachelor of Arts - Interdisciplinary Studies (Psychology, Mathematics, Sociology)
University of California
Skills
- Executive Communication & Storytelling
- Strategic Operations & Program Management
- Customer Experience & Success Operations
- Cross-Functional Coordination & Influence w/o Authority
- Operating Cadence Design
- Stakeholder Management & Executive Partnership
- P&L Ownership & B2B SaaS Commercial Strategy
- Team Building, Coaching & Talent Development
- Data-Driven Decision Making & Synthesis
- 0-to-1 Strategic Initiatives
- Customer-Informed Strategy
- Discretion & Sound Judgment
Websites
Certification
- PSPO I
- PSM I
- SAFe POPM
- Pragmatic PMC II
- Generative AI for Product Management
- AI for Product Owners
- UCD Master
- SQL for Data Science
Selected Accomplishments
- Started career in customer support, advanced to technical support manager, then to Director of Operations running the call center at TechServ Systems, Inc. Built the operating instincts (staffing, escalations, quality, and daily cadence) that have anchored every leadership role since.
- Unified fragmented mobile ecosystem at Paylocity into a cohesive cross-platform architecture serving 6M+ users, coordinating across product, engineering, design, and HR business units. Elevated app store ratings from 3.7/4.2 to 4.8 on both platforms.
- Scaled B2B enterprise product suite to $100M+ ARR with full P&L responsibility at Citrix, managing budgets, pricing and licensing strategy, and revenue targets while integrating acquisitions for Fortune 500 clients.
- Designed and launched AI-powered engagement platform with smart notifications, personalized insights, and native onboarding, driving double-digit increases in user acquisition and engagement.
- Built and led teams across Paylocity, Land Gorilla, and Citrix, developing structured coaching frameworks and review cadences. At Citrix, 3 team members were promoted to senior roles as a direct result of deliberate mentoring investment.
- Managed customer support organizations at Land Gorilla and early career, leveraging deep customer pain point understanding to deliver a 0-to-1 solution that reduced construction loan draw times by 50%.
Timeline
Independent Product Consultant
Daci Technologies
11.2025 - Current
Senior Group Product Manager / Principal Product Manager
Paylocity
04.2022 - 11.2025
Director of Product and Support
Land Gorilla
06.2020 - 01.2022
Senior Product Manager
Mindbody
02.2015 - 04.2020
Product Line Director (promoted from Senior Product Line Manager)
Citrix
05.2002 - 12.2014
Master of Business Administration (MBA) - Business Management
Marriott School of Management
Bachelor of Arts - Interdisciplinary Studies (Psychology, Mathematics, Sociology)
University of California