Giuseppe Piacenza, Senior Product Manager

01

SmartStamp AG

Head of Product · formerly Founding PM

SmartStamp builds digital passports for physical artworks: a fingerprint tied to the physical piece, linked to the full provenance chain. I came in as Founding PM at the seed stage, delivered the full iOS, Android, and web MVP in under six months, then stepped up to Head of Product with direct line management of engineering and UX, reporting to the CEO. It started as my ETH Master's capstone under Prof. Fredrik Hacklin and turned into a funded company.

CHF 1M

Seed funding raised

0→1

Full MVP in under 6 months

10+

Gallery partnerships signed

60+

Customer interviews run personally

Web Platform Case Study

Gallery management, provenance, documents & imports

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iOS & Android App Case Study

Fingerprint scanning, digital passports & transfers

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The Problem

The art market has no reliable way to verify the physical identity of an artwork. Forgery, fractured provenance, and fragmented document workflows cost galleries, collectors, and auctioneers, with no reliable record that survives the next sale.

What I Did

Ran 60+ discovery interviews with collectors, galleries, and appraisers. Built the backlog and GTM from zero. Repositioned from mobile-first to web-first after usage data revealed galleries as the growth driver. Shipped the fingerprint verification system and co-pitched tier-1 auction houses directly.

Outcomes

iOS, Android, and web apps shipped before the six-month mark. Fingerprint registration live. 10+ gallery partnerships signed. Active pilots running with tier-1 Swiss auction houses. Core KPIs defined. PostHog dashboard now used by the full team.

Product Strategy 0→1 Delivery iOS & Android Apps Web App Customer Discovery Engineering Leadership GTM OKRs & KPIs Claude Code Figma Firebase PostHog

02

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, shipped tooling for the commercial team, and pushed global coverage into markets we couldn't win before.

€14.6M

ARR at peak (from €7.5M)

2×

ARR growth over 4 years

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'd actually built. I mapped the coverage gaps, rebuilt pricing to match the expanded footprint, and restructured how we targeted verticals. That cleared the blockers. The line grew to €14.6M ARR, 2× over four years, with an 8-point margin improvement (14% to 22%) from pricing discipline and tighter cost management. At peak it was 56% of the company's total product-line revenue.

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 their actual network direction and got it re-signed: 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 shipped the tooling to scale it

When I took ownership in 2021, the product line had stalled following a leadership transition. I rebuilt from scratch: conducted fresh market research, rewrote pricing and segmentation logic, and shipped an API-based quoting platform and, separately, real-time KPI dashboards. The quoting tool replaced spreadsheets and manual calculations; the dashboards gave leadership a live view of where deals stood. Both tools stuck and the team still uses them.

Pricing & Packaging GTM Strategy P&L Ownership API Platform KPI Dashboards Market Segmentation Account Management Sales Cycle Co-Lead Enterprise B2B SASE / SD-WAN Power BI

03

Huawei Technologies

Technical Project Manager · fmr. Wireless Engineer

Joined Huawei as a Wireless Engineer on the 4G/5G national rollout of Switzerland's second-largest provider. After identifying that two interdependent teams had no visibility into each other's work status, I designed and shipped a tool to sync them, lifting team output by 66%. That got me the Huawei Future Star 2020 award and a promotion to Technical Project Manager, where I ran two teams of 10 engineers through 250+ site deployments across Switzerland.

+66%

Weekly site output increase

250+

4G/5G sites deployed in Switzerland

10

Engineers led across two teams

★

Huawei Future Star 2020 Award

Automation Tool

Built a team sync tool, cut delivery time by 66%, got promoted

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, built a tool that showed both teams each other's live status, and fixed it. Weekly output jumped 66%, delivery sped up, and I got the Huawei Future Star 2020 award and a promotion to Technical Project Manager.

Network Rollout Leadership

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

After the promotion I ran two engineering teams, 10 people total, through the full deployment chain: RF planning, site design, civil coordination, commissioning, delivery. Dozens of sites in parallel, each with hard dependencies on field crews, contractors, and network ops. We delivered 250+ 4G/5G site activations on schedule.

4G / 5G RF Planning Site Design Automation Technical Project Management Cross-Functional Teams Network Deployment Team Leadership (10 engineers)

Award Certificate

2020 Huawei Future Star Certificate of Commendation, Giuseppe Piacenza

04

Education

2023 – 2025

ETH Zurich

Master of Advanced Studies in Management, Technology & Economics

Capstone: SmartStamp AG. Full product delivery under Prof. Fredrik Hacklin, Chair of Entrepreneurship.

Projects +

SmartStamp: Digital Passports for Artworks↓

2017 – 2019

Politecnico di Bari

MSc in Telecommunications Engineering

Graduated with honours. Specialisation in wireless communications and signal processing.

Projects +

Ka-Band Radar Target Characterisation↓
Data Analysis: Twitter, 2016 US Election↓
End-to-End Encryption in Telegram↓

2018 – 2019

INSA

INSA Toulouse

Mobility Semester · MSIoT: Innovative & Secure IoT Systems

Exchange semester, part of my MSc at Politecnico di Bari. Courses in smart devices, embedded security, IoT, and innovation & entrepreneurship.

Projects +