Senior Product Manager

👋 Hi, I’m Rui Vas (he/him)
🗣️ I speak Portuguese, English, Spanish and a bit of French
👀 I’m interested in Systems - AI, Robotics, Biology and Psychology
🌱 I’m currently learning how to use multi-agent AI systems - autogen, langchain, crewai
🚀 I’m looking to work on large-scale applications of AI with positive impact
🫀 I stay in good health by practicing meditation, QiGong, Kung Fu, swimming, dancing and spending time in nature

Experience

7. AI/ML Product Manager @ AI.PT - Lisbon, PT - 2023

Joined ai.pt for the vision of building an AI-centric venture studio in Lisbon
Developed process to produce audiobooks with TTS from a book, passing the "humanity" test, and publishing a full AI-Gen audiobook on Audible
Automated personalised GPT-based email outreach, generating 92% open rates

6. Founder @ RadioBooks, Lisbon, PT, 2021-23

Radiobooks helped authors and publishers convert books into audiobooks 10x faster and cheaper with the latest AI.
Started the company, built a team of 6, and launched 2 products (B2C & B2B), failed to find P-M fit.
Partnered with Nvidia and Microsoft

5. AI/ML Product Manager @ Canonical/Ubuntu, London, UK, 2020-21

Canonical publishes Ubuntu, the most used Linux OS in the world, with partners like Google, AWS, MSFT, DELL, Nvidia and customers like Netflix, Tesla, Uber & Spotify.
Lead product and GTM strategy for Kubeflow and MLOps, reporting to the CEO.
From 0 to $4M NRR.

Documentation Lead @ Kubeflow / Google Vertex AI
- I represented Canonical at the Kubeflow opensource community.
- Became the #1 contributor outside of Google to documentation.
- Lead a docs restructure + release of versions v1.2, v1.3

4. Head of Growth @ Leadzai, Lisbon, Portugal, 2019

Leadzai raised 7M€+ to help small businesses tap into online ads without risk.
I mapped acquisition funnels, interviewed customers, proposed a product re-design to the CEO and board, and lead the effort.

3. Program Manager @ Founder Institute, Lisbon, Portugal, 2018-21

after going through the program in Silicon Valley, was invited to co-lead the Lisbon cohort
co-led sessions across several cohorts of entrepreneurs
shared frameworks on product, go-to-market, P-M fit, branding, team, and all things entrepreneurship
invited experienced mentors and led pitch sessions

2. co-Founder @ TechOS, Palo Alto, California, 2018

TechOS is a centralized marketplace for dev freelancers, with standardized price and quality.
Created sales pipeline - USA, UK, Switzerland -$100k+ in the first year.
Validated market hypothesis by interviewing 200+ prospects, devs and CXOs.

1. Robotics Engineer @ Andrew Alliance, Geneva, Switzerland, 2017

AA's robots make low throughput lab experiments reproducible and fast for customers like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, P&G, GSK, Roche.
Algorithmically optimized dimensions, designed, prototyped and tested new robot's components.
Identified critical design issue one month into the job, developing adopted solution.

I'm a lifelong learner, follow my curiosity and run lots of experiments in an ongoing basis.

3. Silicon Valley Accelerator, Founder Institute, Palo Alto, USA, 2018

2. Research Internship in BioRobotics @ EPFL, Switzerland, 2016-17

Graded 6 out of 6
Validated a control theory hypothesis by building a quadruped robot in simulation and hardware, two types of controllers (C++) and 7-dim data visualization tool (Matlab).
Work published on world's top robotics conference (IROS 2017 Vancouver).

1. BSc. + MSc. Systems Engineering, IST, Lisbon, 2011-16

#1 out of 165 GPA
Awarded "Best Portuguese MSc. Thesis in Robotics 2016" by PRS.
Elected Delegate for ~1500 MSc. and BSc. students.
Elected student board member of IST's Pedagogic Council.
Led team of 16 to organize career week - 20+ companies, ~1k attendees, 10k€ profit.

3. Udacity

2. Coursera

1. Udemy

2. Innovation Mentor @ ETIC - 2019-23

Mentoring students under the project ETIC IDEA
The students I mentored won 2 awards for projects developed for FNAC and Fundação Gil

1. Boy Scouts, 2003-2013