After more than two decades in technology and product management, Leo Richardson founded LeoNerd, LLC in 2012. He holds a master degree from Harvard, and has held management positions at Amazon and Countrywide Finance.
Leo’s tech career began in 1997 when he created a windows application that would enhance Internet connectivity. In those days, many ISPs placed a limit on the length of time a computer would retain its connection. This was to keep costs low by booting inactive users. This was a nuisance to users as it would frequently kick them offline if they were reading a long article or needed to step away from their computer.
From his college dorm room, Leo wrote an application that completely solved the issue. He did a trial run with his friends and family, and the results were positive. He then launched the final version of the software for sale through Ebay, and it became the best seller in its category.
In 2000, Leo joined a tech start-up, Aprimo where he was a senior software engineer and a product manager. The company created marketing software for large companies, and Leo designed and coded many of the integration interfaces. Leo also designed the user experience for both the ETL and data exchange tools.
In 2007, Leo joined Amazon as a technical project manager. He was responsible for the pricing engine of WarehouseDeals. This is the Amazon group which sells customer returns. Leo quickly rose through the ranks getting promoted to a software development manager and then business leader for WarehouseDeals within his first year with the company.
In 2008, Leo accepted a position as senior product manager with the Amazon sellers group where he was responsible for the individual seller program. He spoke at conferences on the amazon tools and served as a subject matter expert for parts of the Amazon seller framework.
In 2010, Leo moved to a role in operations where he oversaw a team of 125 full time employees. He was one of the pioneers for the launch of the “Work from Home” program for Amazon’s customer service team. While there, he created a methodology for evaluating employee effectiveness that was also submitted for a patent.
In 2011, Leo left Amazon for an opportunity to become the Vice President and head of technology for SelectBlinds. This gave him the chance to work with a smaller company that was quickly taking over the window covering space. Leo was responsible for 100% of the company’s technical infrastructure including three e-commerce websites.
In 2012, Leo founded LeoNerd, where he could focus 100% of his time building out a product management consulting firm. He has launched several successful brands, published more than 250,000 words of content and his sites more than 100,000 visitors each month.
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