SAM GAIUS
Dublin,OH
Summary
Senior Product Owner with over a decade in technology, driving product ownership for digital products and modernization initiatives. Expert in translating user needs into scalable solutions through effective backlog prioritization and stakeholder management, ensuring alignment across teams for successful product launches.
Overview
1
1
Certification
13
13
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
Express Retail | Enterprise Platform Modernization & Distribution Transformation
06.2025 - Current
- Lead product ownership for modernization of the Phoenix Retail Management System (RMS) and integration with the Neovia Warehouse Management System (WMS) supporting a large-scale distribution center transformation.
- Translate strategic goals, operational pain points, and user needs into product capabilities, epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria, and sequenced releases across purchasing, receiving, inventory, distribution, carton, and Foreign Trade Zone workflows.
- Refined product backlog; prioritized work by business value, operational risk, technical dependency, readiness, and delivery capacity while ensuring alignment between business stakeholders and engineering teams.
- Lead discovery and refinement with users, architects, engineering, QA, security, operations, and vendors to define future-state workflows, interface behavior, exception paths, data rules, and non-functional requirements before development.
- Drove roadmap and release sequencing across inbound and outbound integrations; surfaced cross-team dependencies, assessed trade-offs, and coordinated data mappings, transformation rules, validation, reconciliation, processing cadence, and operational readiness.
- Defined and monitored delivery signals including interface readiness, transaction completeness, defect trends, data quality, operational validation, unresolved dependencies, and release readiness to support evidence-based prioritization.
- Lead UAT, defect prioritization, product demos, business validation, release-readiness and go/no-go discussions; communicate product status, trade-offs, risks, dependencies, and decisions to program and executive leadership.
Senior Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
Boston Children's Health | Digital Healthcare Products, Application Modernization & Automation
02.2023 - 06.2025
- Led product ownership and discovery for healthcare application modernization and workflow-improvement initiatives serving clinical, operational, compliance, and administrative stakeholders.
- Converted user pain points and desired outcomes into roadmap items, epics, features, and implementation-ready stories; prioritized work across user value, privacy/compliance requirements, risk, technical dependencies, and delivery capacity.
- Facilitated discovery workshops, backlog refinement, acceptance criteria definition, solution walkthroughs, and prioritization with cross-functional teams, ensuring alignment on project goals and stakeholder needs.
- Defined product and non-functional expectations for security, privacy, availability, scalability, performance, usability, and reporting; created KPI/reporting specifications and validated with SQL, enhancing product reliability.
- Supported UiPath automation initiatives by assessing process pain points and automation opportunities, documenting current/future-state workflows, defining automation requirements, business rules, exception scenarios, and measurable acceptance criteria.
- Complemented Product Owner/BA responsibilities with hands-on UiPath work, including building or modifying small-scale workflows, troubleshooting automation behavior, testing bot outcomes, and partnering with automation developers on more complex solutions.
- Coordinated UAT, automation validation, stakeholder sign-off, release readiness, and issue triage; mentored junior analysts and standardized discovery and backlog practices, improving team efficiency.
Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
BJ's Wholesale Club | Enterprise Digital Products & Intelligent Automation
04.2021 - 02.2023
- Owned and refined product work across retail, e-commerce, supply-chain, and operational capabilities; translated business objectives into prioritized features, user stories, acceptance criteria, integrations, workflow changes, and reporting outcomes.
- Partnered with business, product, engineering, operations, data, and QA teams to identify user and operational pain points, evaluate solution options, sequence enhancements, manage dependencies, and validate delivered outcomes.
- Evaluated automation opportunities based on business impact, process stability, operational risk, implementation effort, and expected value, ensuring strategic decision-making over standard automation solutions.
- Supported UiPath/RPA initiatives from discovery through implementation by identifying automation candidates, documenting process steps and decision rules, defining exception handling and acceptance criteria, and translating operational workflows into automation-ready requirements.
- Executed small-scale UiPath development and workflow modifications alongside core Product Owner/BA responsibilities, facilitating rapid prototyping, troubleshooting, and effective collaboration with automation developers.
- Coordinated UAT, bot/workflow validation, defect triage, release readiness, stakeholder demos, adoption support, and post-release review, leveraging operational and transaction data to prioritize enhancements and backlog.
Senior Business Analyst / Product Analyst
Merck & Co. | Digital Products, Data & Automation
10.2018 - 04.2021
- Led business and product analysis for the Julia customer-service chatbot, blockchain Track & Trace, RPA, and third-party integration initiatives across pharmaceutical business functions.
- Facilitated stakeholder and user discovery to define business objectives, user needs, workflows, product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, and solution options, ensuring alignment with strategic goals.
- Facilitated stakeholder and user discovery to define business objectives, user needs, current/future-state workflows, product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, exception scenarios, and solution options.
- Documented process logic, control points, exception paths, validation criteria, and adoption needs for RPA and automation delivery, balancing regulated controls with user experience and implementation risk to support seamless integration.
- Coordinated UAT, issue triage, fix validation, change readiness, end-user training, and adoption support, providing executive status reporting and establishing a strong product-analysis foundation for future Product Owner roles.
Business Analyst
RWJBarnabas Health | Healthcare Applications & Digital Workflows
01.2017 - 10.2018
- Documented requirements, process flows, acceptance criteria, integration/reporting needs, and future-state workflows; supported data validation, UAT, issue triage, production readiness, and training in a regulated healthcare environment to enhance user adoption.
- Facilitated stakeholder workshops, translating clinical and business needs into clear solution expectations, which strengthened the discovery and requirements foundation for progression into Product Owner roles.
- Analyzed healthcare data to identify workflow inefficiencies and improvement opportunities.
- Collaborated with stakeholders to gather requirements for digital health applications.
- Created process maps to visualize current workflows and recommend enhancements.
IT Systems & Data Support Analyst
Fairfax University of America (formerly VIU)
01.2016 - 12.2016
- Managed applications, databases, user access, security controls, and infrastructure operations to ensure optimal functionality and secure access.
- Collaborated with IT team to implement new support tools and systems.
- Provided technical support for faculty and students using university systems.
- Resolved software and hardware issues across campus locations.
Analyst - Geo Content Operations
Google / Serco
03.2014 - 06.2015
- Validated geo-content and business data at scale; collaborated with business and technical teams to define data requirements, manage exceptions, ensure quality controls, troubleshoot SQL issues, document processes, and train new hires.
- Analyzed data trends to support strategic decision-making processes.
- Developed reports to communicate insights and recommendations effectively.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to enhance project outcomes.
Education
Master of Science - Management Information Systems
Fairfax University of America
Fairfax, VA04-2017
Skills
- User story writing
- Agile methodology
- Backlog prioritization
- Release planning
- Product roadmapping
- Roadmap development
- Discovery facilitation
- Acceptance testing
- Criteria definition
- Product analytics
- Data-driven decisions
- User story writing
- Scrum framework
- Workflow optimization
- Business analysis
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Stakeholder management
- Stakeholder communication
- Risk management
- Deadline management
- Lifecycle management
- User behavior analysis
- Google analytics
Personal Information
Title: SENIOR PRODUCT OWNER | PRODUCT MANAGER | DIGITAL & ENTERPRISE PRODUCTS
Certification
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSP0) | Certified Scrum Master (CSM) | UiPath Certified Business Analysis | UiPath Certified Process Mining
Accomplishments
30%+ operational efficiency improvement through automation/workflow redesign | 25% reduction in data discrepancies through stronger validation controls | 40% improvement in reporting accuracy through data-integrity resolution
PRODUCT LEADERSHIP & TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
- Product Strategy & Ownership: Product discovery; product vision; roadmap development; outcome definition; MVP definition; feature prioritization; backlog ownership; quarterly and release planning; trade-off decisions
- Customer & Stakeholder Discovery: User and stakeholder interviews; pain-point analysis; journey/process mapping; problem definition; executive communication; cross-functional alignment
- Agile Product Delivery: Epics, features, and stories; acceptance criteria; backlog refinement; sprint planning; demos/reviews; dependency and risk management; UAT; release readiness; go-live support
- Product Analytics & Data: KPIs; adoption and operational metrics; transaction monitoring; reporting; data quality; SQL-based validation and reconciliation; Power BI; Tableau; Qlik
- Technical Product Fluency: REST APIs; enterprise integrations; SQL Server; T-SQL; PL/SQL; data mapping; cloud and microservices concepts; Azure DevOps; JIRA; DevOps delivery
- Intelligent Automation & RPA: UiPath; RPA opportunity assessment; process discovery; automation requirements; workflow design; business rules and exception handling; bot/workflow validation; Process Mining; small-scale UiPath development
Timeline
Senior Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
Express Retail | Enterprise Platform Modernization & Distribution Transformation
06.2025 - Current
Senior Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
Boston Children's Health | Digital Healthcare Products, Application Modernization & Automation
02.2023 - 06.2025
Product Owner / Senior Business Analyst
BJ's Wholesale Club | Enterprise Digital Products & Intelligent Automation
04.2021 - 02.2023
Senior Business Analyst / Product Analyst
Merck & Co. | Digital Products, Data & Automation
10.2018 - 04.2021
Business Analyst
RWJBarnabas Health | Healthcare Applications & Digital Workflows
01.2017 - 10.2018
IT Systems & Data Support Analyst
Fairfax University of America (formerly VIU)
01.2016 - 12.2016
Analyst - Geo Content Operations
Google / Serco
03.2014 - 06.2015
Master of Science - Management Information Systems
Fairfax University of America