serious about innovation. serious about product.
Alex brings 15+ years of product experience to the table. He has worked in all possible roles from product manager, team lead, head of product, director, and founder.
Alex has a solid background from founding and selling his own company, working at start-ups, SMEs, and large enterprises.
Based in Hamburg - just one video call away.
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Product Director @ Engel&Völkers
Alex has been responsible for the complete b2b product management organisation at Engel&Völkers, the market leading real estate broker in Germany - active world wide. His team of product managers and product designers worked at replacing the legacy tools by innovative products, including the crm system for agents worldwide. Step by step the old solutions were discontinued to focus everyone on the new, enabling products that were launched in markets all over Europe.
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Head of Product @ Deposit Solutions
Being the first product person at Deposit Solutions, Alex built and grew the product organisation from scratch. During his time, the start-up grew from 20 to 350 people and reached a 1 billion US$ valuation. Launching not only the b2b platform and expanding to Switzerland, but spreading all across Europe. In his position, he was responsible for working with partners like Deutsche Bank, Check24 and Fidelity using Deposit Solutions’ b2b platform.
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Product Manager @ ZEAL
Early in his career as a product manager, Alex had the opportunity to learn directly from Marty Cagan - on site. He was asked to start off the growth part of the lottery business, which he pursued by exceeding the ambitious objectives. Being part of a true product team, including a product designer and empowered engineers. In his role as group product manager, he learned what it takes to successfully lead a team through a phase of organisational transformation.
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Founder @ Verkostet
Alex founded Verkostet, a social shopping community for wine lovers. German-speaking wine lovers could discuss, share and find the best wines they have ever tasted. Sold to a wine merchant.
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Alexander Schardt has a degree as Diplom-Kaufmann in Economics from Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and an Executive Diploma in Technology Entrepreneurship from University of St.Gallen. His first job was E-Commerce Manager at Otto Group.
What others say.
“Working with Alex at Deposit Solutions during a period of complex business and product transformation was really exciting. It is a tribute to his professionalism that Alex can work through the conflicts in priorities from various stakeholders and still deliver a coherent product strategy.”
– Kelvin Craig, Co-Founder @ rubarb
“I really enjoyed his exceptionally clear communication style, his profound knowledge of methodologies and frameworks and his understanding of product leadership. Combined with his sense of humor it really made me enjoy the journey we made together.”
– Dominik Plettner, Product Manager @ Engel&Völkers
“Together, the product ZinsMarkt was launched and became a lighthouse in Deutsche Bank's efforts to become more digital. Two years later, Deutsche Bank became a shareholder in Deposit Solutions. A decision made after successful product growth, in which Alex' product strategy and team was instrumental.”
– Udo Floeer, Payment Strategy @ Deutsche Bank
“Alex' extensive product experience guided Deposit Solutions to define the product organization at the time. Alex has always been very determined on how to build a product vision and mission. I was always personally impressed with the way Alex used to handle complex problems.”
– Meysam Sarabadani, Program Manager @ Google
Speaking at the World Usability Day 2021 (german)
The goal of the World Usability Initiative (WUI) is to connect the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and the User Experience (UX) community and everyone who believes that great design is inclusive and usable by all. Taking place every year worldwide.
Speaking at World Product Day 2021
World Product Day is organised by the people behind Mind the Product, the largest product event in the world. I was talking about true product teams in the Hamburg section this year.
Speaking at the Working Products Conference 2020
Working Products is a yearly product conference in Hamburg. Organised by eparo, the conference is focused on sharing the latest know-how on product management, user research and software development. You can read my article behind my talk on transforming towards product.
Let’s identify where you - as a leader - need help to enable your product teams to innovate. I am based in Hamburg - just one video call away.