Every month, we’ll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month, get to know Mark Allen our Vice President of Product
1. What is your role with LERETA? I’m involved across many different workstreams across the company, ranging from data analysis to strategic roadmaps but mostly the work I do falls into one of the following categories:
- The organization & distillation of future product backlog at the Epic>Feature level to drive metrics, reporting and roadmaps to be used at the EC level.
- Assisting the product owners on more immediate intra-sprint or upcoming sprint issues and driving them to resolution.
- Spearheading various initiatives such as a recent business functionality acceptance program which focused on partnering with our operations leadership on the recording of testing observations, and the subsequent prioritization of this work.
- Partnering with key leaders to remove obstacles and drive delivery.
I also speak “SQL” and assist in the authoring of technical work when needed.
2. How long have you worked with LERETA? Nearly 2 and a half years
3. What is your favorite thing about working at LERETA? Teamwork! As a product team, we meet daily to discuss current issues and solve problems and each and every one of us contributes to the solving of problems whether it be an unsure requirement or a data condition that we need to ideate on, but we succeed as a team, and only as a team. During these daily touchpoints, we’ll often come up with action items and somehow I manage to get my own comprehensive list most days, but that’s how we win – by us all shouldering the workload and working together.
4. Tell us about your family. I have been married for 19 years and have 2 boys; 15 & 13. We are currently in a season of “evening chaos” and I often feel like my wife and I should put an ‘Uber’ sticker on our cars as we spend most evenings ferrying our kids around to their various soccer practices and games. When not at a soccer field I’m at Scouts, which I’ve now been involved in for the past 9 years with my youngest working on his Star Scout requirements which is just two ranks below Eagle. My wife loves kids and works at an elementary school as a health aide. I have a younger brother who lives in the UK and he and his wife have a couple of kids almost the same age as ours, so it’s nice when we get together on Facetime.
5. What do you like to do in your free time? One word – Disneyland. *Mic Drop*
6. Where did you grow up? I grew up in the city of Sheffield, UK. I am often asked what was the impetus to leave the UK and come to the US and this is my answer. I didn’t want to become a statistic. Many people are born in one place, go to school in that same place, work in that place and live out the rest of their lives in that same place. So, get out there people and see the world!!
Check out last month’s Employee Spotlight here >>
