Leah Polaski

Experience

• 

  Renaissance Property Group, LLC

  Aug 2005 - Mar 2015

  - Managed and assisted with affordable housing development activities from inception through stabilization and throughout the compliance period.- Closed six affordable housing developments securing over $74.5 million in capital investment.- Performed asset management functions for 12 affordable housing projects.- Coordinated innovative development finance programs to produce high quality, affordable housing.

  • Vice President

    Feb 2011 - Mar 2015

  • Project Manager

    Aug 2005 - Feb 2011
• 

  CrossFit, LLC

  Jul 2012 - now

  - Lead complex, cross-functional efforts through SDLC phases from ideation to prototyping to testing and launch.- Work with leadership teams and business stakeholders to elicit and validate requirements, understand complexities, and identify risks.- Create and implement detailed project plans, including milestone definition, dependencies, progress tracking, risk identification and mitigation, launch plans and communications.- Oversee the various stages of product development, manage product roadmaps and backlogs, and track on product KPIs.- Collaborate with and coach multiple software development teams, including a transition to agile and Scrum principles; lead Scurm ceremonies.- Perform sprint demos and reviews for senior leadership teams and business stakeholders, ensuring effective communication with cross-functional partners across the company.- Input on tooling decisions, including implementing Jira, Confluence and ClickUp across the enterprise. Show less - Established and implemented a new and scalable program and project management function for the business unit.- Recruited, hired, trained, and developed a team of five program managers and four project managers responsible for 17 educational products (off-line and digital).- Led the team through a major department reorganization, including recruiting and onboarding.- Managed program and project portfolio for the Education business.- Served as the lead project manager in successfully delivering 5 new digital courses.- Established, facilitated and coordinated senior leadership alignment on portfolio definition, initiative evaluation and prioritization.- Oversaw the establishment of program KPIs, ensuring program performance and exceeding program objectives.- Contributed to and influenced business strategy, including organizational structure, tooling decisions, process improvements, and new product development.- Implemented Jira as the program and project management tool for the business unit and trained team members on new ways of working.- Maintained program and product roadmaps.- Partnered closely with Product and Tech teams to intake feature requests, define requirements, write user stories, groom product backlogs and lead agile/scrum ceremonies.- Established and oversaw product support functions, including issue intake, troubleshooting, prioritization and resolution tracking. Show less - Develop and influence business unit strategy to support and grow customer base of 130,000 credentialed trainers.- Establish and manage product roadmaps for seven internal web applications and two iOS applications.- Supervise four program and two project managers delivering on priority projects.- Manage data-driven prioritization and resource decisions for programs and projects supporting department initiatives and growth. - Ensure program and technology scalability to support aggressive growth objectives.- Manage external contractor relationships including budget adherence, resource management and timely delivery.- Develop and implement operational process improvements.- Served as lead project manager for first company D2C product launch. Show less Reported directly to the Directors of Training to define, analyze, execute and deliver on projects and products to support 130,000 credentialed trainers, 1,200 annual live events and 30 online courses across 13 languages.- Created, oversaw and managed all operational processes, policies, procedures, and workflows supporting all CrossFit Training products.- Product managed seven internal web applications and two iOS applications supporting department operations, including defining and evolving product vision, capturing features and requirements, conducting feasibility analyses and project managing implementation and release.- Supervised and project managed four direct reports: software engineer, localization project manager, testing and accreditation manager, and production designer.- Successfully launched four new revenue generating courses/programs from inception through release, including two new online offerings brought to market within three weeks of COVID-19 restrictions.- Spearheaded the transition of department web pages into CrossFit CMS, including CMS component requirement documentation, web content creation, web page design and implementation.- Created and implemented processes to intake and analyze product feedback via Survey Monkey.- Oversaw the transition of customer support from GMail to ZenDesk.- Acted as front line IT support for department employees.- Established department-wide process documentation protocols.- Established and managed an intake, prioritization, and governance framework for software development projects and support requests.- Managed department assets consisting of over 400 internal and external course-related documents, training materials and web content in 13 languages. Show less - Instructed 200 CrossFit Level 1 and Level 2 Certificate Courses, affecting approximately 6,000 future trainers.- Lead instructor and manager of a team of CrossFit trainers conducting the Level 1 or Level 2 Certificate Course.- Provided leadership for the teams in the field; fostered and maintained team environment and cohesion among the staff.- Provided quality assurance by supplying feedback to CrossFit trainers on site or after the course completion and in annual performance evaluations.- Provided recommendations for staff advancement or remediation to directors. Show less - Successfully established, refined and managed CrossFit’s internal localization program.- Grew language support to 12 languages, including creation of new training documents and course materials.- Successfully managed and launched 27 localized projects.- Acted as a liaison between internal cross-functional teams and the localization service provider (LSP).- Performed functional and linguistic localization QA.- Created and maintained style guides and glossaries.- Managed LSP budget, billing, and invoice review.- Oversaw and ensured quality control of a team of over 150 live, on-site translators in over 35 countries. Show less

  • Senior Manager Global Support Operations

    Oct 2023 - now

  • Product Manager

    Mar 2023 - Oct 2023

  • Senior Program Manager, Technology

    Jan 2022 - Mar 2023

  • Program Director, Education

    Mar 2021 - Jan 2022

  • Senior Operations Manager, Education

    Oct 2020 - Mar 2021

  • Operations Manager, Education

    Jun 2017 - Oct 2020

  • Seminar Leader (Flowmaster)

    Jun 2014 - Feb 2019

  • Translation (Localization) Project Manager, Education

    Feb 2015 - Jun 2017

  • Head Trainer - Seminar Staff

    Jul 2012 - Jun 2014