Ari Akerstein

Ari is a passionate Product Leader focused on working with amazing people to build things that make a dent. Currently, he’s Product Lead of Buyer Experience at Tophatter, combining the engagement of a game with the economics of a marketplace, Tophatter is redefining eCommerce. Prior to his current role, Ari dedicated 4 years as a Principal Product Manager at Walmart eCommerce, where he was Product Owner for a portfolio of products (inc. bundles, care plans, ADA/Accessibility, sub-map pricing, tooling/bundle setup, Collections) driving ~10% of the site's eCommerce revenue (or $0.5b), built and shipped products to simplify product discovery, solution sell, and enabled customers to realize savings. He also owned and defined the product roadmap, the vision and product strategy for bundles and socialized with business, stakeholders, engineering, and executives, defined working model with user experience research/UX, business, stakeholders to balance business considerations with the voice of the customer to deliver the best experiences, and owned and delivered new tooling for bundle setup, cutting merchant setup time by half. Ari’s educational background includes a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Boston University and a Master’s in Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University. He’s exhibited excellent product vision in driving for a powerful customer experience that integrated well into existing products with seamless transitions at all touchpoints, and successful in engaging, motivating and challenging data scientists.