Giuseppe Piacenza, Senior Product Manager in Zürich

SmartStamp AG

Head of Product · formerly Founding PM

SmartStamp is an integrity layer for physical artworks and collectibles, built for the businesses that handle them. Each piece is registered under a microscope that records a fingerprint of its surface, and its provenance and documents are kept with that record. I joined as Founding PM at the pre-seed stage, took the iOS and Android MVP to launch, then became Head of Product, line-managing engineering and UX and reporting to the CEO. Alongside the product work, I prototyped features myself with Claude Code and Figma, so engineering had a working specification to build from.

Web platform case study

Registry, fingerprint verification, provenance and documents

iOS and Android app case study

Verification, artwork records and ownership transfers

The problem

The art and collectibles market has no reliable way to check that a physical object is the one its records describe. Provenance breaks when a work changes owners, and the papers that come with it are often lost in a sale.

What I did

Ran discovery interviews with collectors, galleries and appraisers. Built the backlog and go-to-market plan from zero. Repositioned from mobile-first to web-first after usage data showed that galleries and auction houses, not individual collectors, were driving adoption. Led the delivery of the fingerprint verification system and co-pitched to tier-1 auction houses.

Outcomes

The iOS and Android MVP shipped in under six months, and fingerprint registration went live. Gallery partnerships were signed and pilot talks opened with tier-1 Swiss and global auction houses. I set the North Star and core KPIs, tracked on a PostHog dashboard I built.

How I planned the work

The work ran on a rolling four-month roadmap, with each month as a program increment (PI). The whole team agreed the milestone at PI planning, then worked in weekly sprints (planning, mid-sprint check-in, retro), each ending in a release: dev and TestFlight in weeks 1 and 3, the stores and the web in weeks 2 and 4. A milestone only counted when it met the definition of done, and unfinished work was re-prioritised for a later PI. Whatever the result, the month closed with a product demo and metrics review for the CEO, board and heads of department, which shaped the next roadmap update. In parallel I ran discovery for later PIs, prototyping and validating with customers, while customer feedback from every channel fed each stage.

Rolling roadmap

Month 1In delivery
Month 2Planned
Month 3Planned
Month 4Added as month 1 closes

Each month runs as one PI

Monthly PI

PI planningThe whole team agrees the milestone

Weekly sprint×4

Planning
Check-in
Retro

Weeks 1 and 3: test releaseDev environment and TestFlight

Weeks 2 and 4: store and web releaseStore review Thu, live Fri

Milestone reachedWhen it meets the definition of done

Monthly demoProduct demo and metrics review with the CEO, board and heads of department

Discovery In parallel with delivery, for the next or later PIs

Prototype in Claude Code and Figma
Validate with customers
Spec handed to engineering

Roadmap update

Roadmap updatedRe-planned and rolled forward one month

Specs and effortValidated specs from discovery, estimated by engineering

Unfinished work, if anyRe-prioritised for the next PI or a later one

Demo outcomesDecisions from the monthly demo

Feeds the next roadmap update

Open Systems AG

Connectivity Business Manager

Open Systems sells managed network security to mid-market and enterprise. As Connectivity Business Manager, I had full P&L ownership of the connectivity line: strategy, pricing, partnerships, commercial support and product. I ran the biggest sales cycles, rebuilt the pricing model, launched tooling for the commercial team, and pushed global coverage into markets we couldn't win before.

€14.6M

ARR at peak (from €7.5M)

56%

Share of product-line revenue at peak

180+

Countries in global coverage

22%

Gross margin (from 14%)

Commercial scale

Grew ARR 2× while lifting margins by 8 points

The connectivity line was capped at €7.5M because our global coverage had gaps that enterprise deals couldn't accept and our pricing model didn't fit the network we had built. I mapped the coverage gaps, rebuilt pricing to match the expanded footprint, and restructured how we targeted verticals, which removed both blockers. Over four years the line reached €14.6M ARR, with pricing discipline and tighter cost management behind the margin gain.

Enterprise logos

Renewed a ~€10B flagship customer and signed a ~€4B new logo

Both cycles were too large and too technical for sales to own alone, so I ran them jointly. The first was a flagship renewal. The customer had outgrown the original scope, so I rebuilt the roadmap case around where their network was heading and closed a multi-million-euro renewal with a ~€10B public company. The second was a new logo: I scoped a custom global coverage package from scratch and closed a new contract with a ~€4B public company.

API quoting platform

Revived a near-zero product line, then launched the tooling to scale it

When I took ownership in 2021, the product line had stalled after a leadership change. I restarted it with new market research, new pricing and segmentation logic, and two tools, an API-based quoting platform and real-time KPI dashboards, which I specified and launched. The quoting tool replaced spreadsheets and manual calculations, and the dashboards gave leadership a live view of where deals stood. Both became part of the commercial team's daily work.

Huawei Technologies

Technical Project Manager · formerly Wireless Engineer

I joined Huawei as a Wireless Engineer on the 4G/5G national rollout for Switzerland's second-largest mobile operator. I received the Huawei Future Star 2020 award and was promoted to Technical Project Manager.

Automation tool

Built a team sync tool that lifted weekly output by 66%

Two teams were working in sequence but had no shared view of where things stood: each was blocked waiting on the other without knowing it. I mapped the dependency and built a tool that showed each team the other's live status. Weekly output rose 66%.

Network rollout leadership

Led two teams through 250+ 4G/5G deployments across Switzerland

After the promotion I ran two engineering teams, 10 people in total, through the full deployment chain: RF planning, site design, civil coordination, commissioning and delivery. Dozens of sites ran in parallel, each depending on field crews, contractors and network operations. Every activation landed on schedule.

Education

2023 – 2025 MAS in Management, Technology & Economics, ETH Zurich. Capstone: SmartStamp, under Prof. Fredrik Hacklin, Chair of Entrepreneurship.
2017 – 2019 MSc in Telecommunications Engineering, Politecnico di Bari. Graduated with honours.
2018 – 2019 Exchange semester, Innovative and Secure IoT Systems, INSA Toulouse, as part of the MSc.
2014 – 2017 BSc in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering, Politecnico di Bari.

Certification: Professional Scrum Product Owner I, Scrum.org (opens in a new tab)

Skills

Product management

Product strategy, roadmap, discovery, prioritisation, OKRs and North Star metrics, 0→1 delivery, go-to-market, pricing and packaging, product-led growth, stakeholder management, cross-functional leadership, Agile/Scrum.

Commercial

P&L ownership, budget ownership, margin and cost management, procurement, supplier management, enterprise sales cycles, account management.

AI and data

AI/ML product, LLM and gen AI, experimentation, user research, product analytics, SQL, Power BI.

Prototyping and tools

Claude Code, Figma, GitHub, Firebase, PostHog, Stripe.

Languages

Italian (native), English (C1), Spanish (C1), French (B2), German (B1).