Open To Work
Michelle Zell
Product Manager
Chicago,USA
Summary
Results-driven product manager and product owner with a strong history of delivering impactful projects that enhance client experiences and drive business growth. Achievements include generating over $30 million in business value within one month and leading enterprise-level project deliveries. Developed a prioritization model that significantly improved operational efficiency and stakeholder alignment on strategic initiatives.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
Work History
Sr. Manager (Level 59)
Charles Schwab Corporation
Chicago, USA
06.2023 - Current
- Advocated for internal and external operations stakeholders, ensuring solutions enhanced end-user experiences without compromise.
- Acted as an operations stakeholder to bridge gaps and prioritize value for the firm by collaborating with cross-functional business stakeholders to identify and curate top initiatives for development.
- Enabled cross-platform prioritization and implementation strategies by identifying and communicating potential risks to impacted teams and senior leadership.
- Owned operations prioritization and value roadmap for cross-functional stakeholders, translating process needs into delivery-ready plans and risk mitigation strategies for improved client and associate outcomes translating to over $7MM in cost avoidance and automation optimization for paper and digital client & rep facing processes across Account Open and Account Maintenance.
- Built and refined a data-driven prioritization model (value, risk, effort, dependencies) to focus Account Open/Account Maintenance delivery on highest-impact work.
- Aligned leadership on value hypotheses, delivery timelines, and cost assumptions—enabling clearer investment decisions and tighter governance.
- Owned a strategic transformation backlog and improved intake-to-delivery readiness by standardizing problem statements, outcomes, sizing assumptions, and dependency mapping.
- Developed deep working partnerships with platform and technology teams to translate operational pain points into scalable solutions across the Account Open/Account Maintenance ecosystem.
Sr. Manager (Level 58)
Charles Schwab Corporation
Chicago, USA
03.2020 - 06.2023
- Directed two Core Platform teams (1 offshore and 1 onshore) simultaneously as the Lead Product Owner for Core Platform building out the infrastructure for Schwab Investing Themes, a trading platform offering thematic trading capabilities which allows clients to manage their investment journey based on personal interests which tracks and presents their individual progress throughout the product lifecycle.
- Oversee planning, multi-team (internal and external) dependency mapping, cross-functional communications and reporting, technical requirements writing, and strategic planning for another highly visible Schwab retail product extended to over 8MM Schwab Retail and Advised Clients.
- Owned product strategy, roadmap, and quarterly planning for Investing Themes’ core platform—one of Schwab’s largest retail trading builds—aligning priorities across business, engineering, and partner teams.
- Established cross-functional communication and reporting cadences among business, operations, engineering, and external partners, enhancing decision velocity and aligning leadership on scope, risks, and release readiness.
- Developed clear epics and acceptance criteria for 2 scrum teams, enabling 26 developers to sustain 150+ story points per 2-week sprint.
- Led production and non-production incident triage and release risk management, improving MTTR from and reducing Sev1/Sev2 incidents by 75% over 2.5 years.
- Managed cross-team dependencies, removing blockers to protect build timelines and preventing missed milestones and launch delays.
- Supported launch readiness and post-launch stabilization, achieving 98% on-time delivery across 4 releases and reducing post-release defects/escalations by 90%
- Enabled Investing Themes adoption at Schwab scale, contributing to significant theme portfolios created, trades, and AUM within timeframe post-launch.
- Prepared both scrum teams for quarterly planning by publishing dependency-ready plans (capacity, sequencing, risks), enabling downstream teams to plan with confidence and reducing unplanned work/spillover by 82%.
- Built and led delivery execution for Investing Themes core platform across 2 scrum teams (1 onshore, 1 offshore) supporting 8MM+ eligible clients.
- Increased leadership alignment and reduced delivery friction by implementing integrated cross-functional communications and reporting (business, operations, engineering, external partners) throughout the development lifecycle.
Manager (Level 56)
Charles Schwab Corporation
Chicago, USA
10.2019 - 03.2020
- Drove go-to-market execution (pricing strategy, marketing alignment, executive communications) and helped achieve $30MM+ in product sales within the first month of production.
- Owned go-to-market execution and delivery readiness across pricing, marketing alignment, requirements, and executive/stakeholder communications.
- Delivered Schwab Retail’s first concurrent cross-channel launch across Schwab.com and the Mobile App, coordinating multiple technical teams and dependencies under tight timelines.
- Lead Product Owner for Schwab Stock Slices MVP and Day 2, partnering with Web and Mobile teams to deliver a high-visibility trading capability to 8MM+ Schwab Retail and Alliance clients.
- Delivered a high-visibility trading capability to 8MM+ Schwab Retail and Alliance clients by coordinating roadmap execution across Web and Mobile teams.
- Converted client feedback and analytics into Day 2 optimization, defining and tracking key business initiatives (KBIs) to prioritize measurable product improvements and strengthen messaging.
- Accelerated Day 2 value by converting client feedback and analytics into prioritized improvements and tracked KBIs, strengthening adoption and product messaging post-launch.
- Identified scalable product enhancements and best practices, advising leadership on prioritization and sequencing for MVP and post-launch improvements.
- Established integrated internal/external communication plan and stakeholder cadence across delivery lifecycle, enhancing alignment, decision speed, and launch readiness.
- Produced delivery-ready requirements and wireframes to accelerate grooming and reduce rework; ensured production/non-production issues were triaged, communicated, and resolved quickly.
- Served as Stock Slices SME and led multiple initiatives in parallel across a broader mobile feature portfolio, aligning Product Managers and Scrum leads through delivery risks and team constraints.
- Delivered Schwab Retail’s first concurrent cross-channel launch across Schwab.com and the Mobile App, enabling consistent client experience on day one.
Manager (Level 54)
Charles Schwab Corporation (Modis)
Chicago, USA
01.2018 - 10.2019
- Digital Product Owner for a Schwab Mobile App feature portfolio, serving as product manager and communications lead across business and technology partners.
- Owned roadmap planning, requirements, pricing and marketing alignment, and executive stakeholder communications for highly visible mobile experiences used by 2MM+ Schwab Retail Mobile clients.
- Delivered a highly visible client-facing mobile feature within the first 6 months, ramping quickly on Schwab domains and establishing strong cross-functional partnerships to accelerate delivery.
- Leveraged mobile analytics and client behavior insights to define, communicate, and execute feature KBIs, prioritizing data-driven improvements and strengthening supporting marketing/communication campaigns.
- Drove scalable process improvements and shared best practices/tools across teams, enhancing delivery consistency and stakeholder experience.
- Developed integrated communication plan for internal and external stakeholders, enhancing clarity and alignment throughout customer experience lifecycle.
- Created delivery-ready requirements and wireframes, accelerating grooming process while ensuring timely triage, communication, and resolution of client-facing defects.
- Led multiple initiatives in parallel while serving as SME for the mobile feature portfolio, keeping Product and Scrum leads aligned through scope, risks, and team constraints.
- Partnered with UX/UI as a key decision-maker from discovery through release, ensuring usability, consistency, and clear client messaging across mobile experiences.
- Delivered a high-visibility mobile feature within the first 6 months, accelerating time-to-value through rapid ramp-up and strong partner alignment.
- Owned roadmap delivery and executive-ready communications for mobile experiences used by 2MM+ Schwab Retail Mobile clients.
- Made prioritization measurable by defining and tracking feature KBIs using mobile analytics and client-behavior insights.
- Scaled delivery consistency by driving repeatable processes and sharing tools/best practices across teams and leaders.
Manager
Discover Financial Services
Riverwoods, USA
01.2016 - 01.2018
- Served as Communications and Special Projects liaison to President of Discover Network, enhancing support for 1K+ internal employees.
- Managed department budget of $2MM, advancing sensitive budget management resulting in increase of monetary award amount by 50% for top 2.5% of employees.
- Boosted employee engagement of volunteer activities by over 10% acting as liaison and relationship manager on behalf of the President of Discover Network and all external charitable sponsorships.
- Increased employee volunteer and networking event engagement over 22%. Worked cross-functionally, facilitating department-wide event planning, managing the logistics of headquarter activities such as town hall meetings and networking events.
- Increased employee volunteer and networking event engagement by 22%+ through cross-functional event planning and logistics for headquarters town halls and networking events.
- Presented strategic ideas and updates to senior leadership, facilitating discussions on employee rewards, recognition communications, policy compliance, intern training, and volunteer opportunities.
- Coordinated communications and special projects for the President of Discover Network, improving information flow to more than 1,000 internal employees.
- Leveraged strong relationship-building skills across all business areas to enhance collaboration and support initiatives.
- Developed and headed the first department-wide SharePoint intranet site, including relevant news articles, company-wide articles, leadership blogs, and employee recognition. Generated a single convenient location for employees to find business related pertinent information.
- Managed a $2MM department budget and enabled a 50% increase in monetary award amounts for the top 2.5% of employees through disciplined budget stewardship.
- Boosted volunteer participation by 10%+ by serving as relationship manager for external charitable sponsorships on behalf of the President of Discover Network.
- Developed and launched the department’s first SharePoint intranet site, centralizing news, leadership blogs, and recognition into one destination for employees.
Project Manager
Discover Financial Services
Riverwoods, USA
05.2014 - 01.2016
- Directed online card fraud mitigation digital product suite as project manager and communications liaison for internal and external clientele and executive leadership.
- Oversaw planning, technical requirements writing, pricing strategy, and marketing communications for diverse clientele, ensuring alignment with project goals.
- 37%+ fraud savings delivered by building KPI reporting and using analytics to drive product improvements.
- Generated an overall product fraud savings of more than 37%, developing analytical product key performance indicators (KPI) reporting.
- Secured executive sponsorship by delivering concise product insights, leading to expansion of core fraud product suite and enhanced external sales marketing presence.
- Expanded product growth by 45% through strengthening existing client relationships and developing new partnerships.
- 45% product growth by expanding adoption of the fraud mitigation suite through new and existing client relationships.
- Created first product suite responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) to assign specific product management roles to cross-functional business partners. Actions increased product management efficiency by over 30%.
- 30%+ increase in product management efficiency by creating the first product-suite RACI and clarifying cross-functional ownership.
- Established integrated cohesive internal and external communications plan throughout the customer experience lifecycle, increasing product relevance cross-functionally and effectively increasing product credibility.
- Leveraged analytics, justifying data-driven product improvements and strengthening marketing and communication campaigns.
- Offered product insights and communications to leadership. Strengthening product awareness at the executive leadership level resulting in expansion of core fraud product suite and increased presence in external sales marketing.
- Built integrated internal/external communications across the customer lifecycle to strengthen product credibility and cross-functional alignment.
Senior Associate II
Discover Financial Services
Riverwoods, USA
01.2012 - 05.2014
- Led Agile Training for marketing department for over 300 internal employees, producing successful transition from Waterfall project management environment to Agile practices.
- Accelerated project lifecycle and prioritized digital projects to ensure alignment with overarching leadership goals.
- Implemented a new project lifecycle procedure that drove a 50% increase in project completion within the first 12 months.
- New project lifecycle procedure resulted in a 50% increase of project completion within first 12 months.
- Acted as planning strategist and liaison between internal business technology and marketing teams to align project goals.
- Collaborated with business partners to translate technical requirements into relevant insights for both technical and marketing teams.
- Educated marketing business partners on project management lifecycle and clarified technical team roles and responsibilities.
- Strengthened execution across business and technology by translating highly technical requirements into clear, relevant language for marketing partners.
Education
Bachelor of Arts (BA) - Marketing Communications
01-2015
GPA: 3.9/4.0
Associate Degree (AA) - Business Administration
01-2012
GPA: 4.0/4.0
Skills
- Product strategy
- Project management
- Agile methodology
- Operations management
- Data analysis
- Risk management
- Data decision-making
- Data analytics
- Executive reporting
- Business performance management
- Operations optimization
- Operations planning
- Stakeholder engagement
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Cross-functional team coordination
- Communication skills
- Influencing and negotiating
- Partnership development
- Digital design tools
- Reporting management
- Jira
- Rally
- Clarity
- Sharepoint
- Microsoft Office Suite
- MS office
- Documentation and reporting
- Reporting management
- Documentation management
- Organizational improvement
- Process optimization
- Operational efficiency
- Performance reviewing
- Continuous improvement
- Proactive problem solving
- Complex problem solving
- Task management
- Time management
- Team leadership
- Collaborative teamwork
- Teamwork
- Interpersonal skills
- Organizational skills
- Adaptability and flexibility
- Negotiation skills
- Communication skills
- MS office
- Collaborative teamwork
- Complex problem solving
- Documentation management
- Teamwork
- Continuous improvement
- Performance reviewing
- Negotiation skills
Certification
Certified Scrum Master for Agile Project Lifecycle, 01/2014
Professional Development
- Crucial Conversations
- Strength Finders
- Agile Practitioner
Work Preference
Job Search Status
Open to workWork Type
Full TimeLocation Preference
RemoteSalary Range
$190000/yr - $200000/yrTimeline
Sr. Manager (Level 59) - Charles Schwab Corporation
06.2023 - Current
Sr. Manager (Level 58) - Charles Schwab Corporation
03.2020 - 06.2023
Manager (Level 56) - Charles Schwab Corporation
10.2019 - 03.2020
Manager (Level 54) - Charles Schwab Corporation (Modis)
01.2018 - 10.2019
Manager - Discover Financial Services
01.2016 - 01.2018
Project Manager - Discover Financial Services
05.2014 - 01.2016
Senior Associate II - Discover Financial Services
01.2012 - 05.2014
De Paul University - Bachelor of Arts (BA), Marketing Communications
Harper College - Associate Degree (AA), Business Administration