Anna Lilly Pavlou
Professionally
Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.
Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Who am I at work?
Growth, creativity, and innovation come from building new perspectives, applying insights across domains, learning from others, and being open to new ideas and ways of thinking.
I don’t fill shoes, I make new paths and stretch trails. I support colleagues, teams, and customers as a confidant, champion, and solver.
Job titles do not define a person’s experience well, as personal interests, immediate company needs, and desire to learn have led to a vast range of tasks, positions, and skill experience beyond simply “5+ years as”. I am driven by my wide industry and domain exposure, and I value the long-term success of a position’s ability to drive value over task fulfillment.
See the sections below for my proficiency areas and examples of my work.
Product Development
Understanding customers is the most important thing a company can do. I am an advocate for the customer to ensure that internal stakeholders don’t lose sight of who and why we do what we do. I am a liaison for the company to ensure that companies are innovative at their strengths, and grow where opportunities are profitable.
I have created product proposals, been involved in the entire New Product Blueprinting process, created product roadmaps, and supported the product development life cycle at every stage.
Using primary and secondary research, a trend of topline growth, but marketshare decline, was identified with our largest customer base. A case was approved to work with supply chain, pricing, and outside sales to better determine our exact product mix by customer machine and facility. Through extensive collaboration, competitive analysis and in partnership with our customers, our team was able to create a tool with the drill-down details the business needed to be effective.
A new product and customer roadmap was initiated for multiple product lines and the four largest customers, making up approximately the top 15% of sales dollars, and 20% of volume. These roadmaps included better alignment on margin growth, product positioning, and customer targeted sales strategies.
I led a strong team of engineering, marketing, business development, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales to launch a product line postured for the right market with the right products and the right support tools.
Product deliverables include an updated product offering, product roadmap, customer and market opportunity identification, internal sales tools and tracking, training documentation and sales team training (virtual and on-site), a website, white paper, catalog, case study, supply chain standard work, rental procedure, on-site demo center, and more.
Phastite for Pipe Website, including tools on the Resources page.
Project Management
I don’t have “Project Manager”, “Scrum Master” or your standard project management job title on my resume. However, running projects and using project management tools is something I’ve done throughout my roles consistently.
While holding other job titles, I’ve led projects spanning one-month long with a project team of myself to 24-months long with a project team of 8 people. All had successful completion or cancellation within the standard budget, scope, and timeline parameters.
Project management (ie herding cats) is something I enjoy, and I pursue it even if it isn’t my job title. I make documentation, follow a schedule, and ensure stakeholders are informed, regardless if the PMO signed off on my project or if I did it on my own.
Staying organized, using standard work, and holding retrospectives help team members, the organization, and improves processes. Who doesn’t love increased efficiency and improved collaboration? What isn’t to love about project management?
I am actively pursuing Scrum Master and Scrum Product Owner training. Staying on top of education, application, and certification are all important in my ability to support successful implementation. I can run projects using Microsoft Project, Atlassian (Jira, Trello), Asana, and other task management software.
I led a small team of marketing, business development, supply chain, and sales to develop a scalable, robust aftermarket sales program for multiple global OEMs’ aftermarket dealer networks. It needed to be standardized, highly customizable, and able to deploy once requested within four weeks (as compared to the typical 6-12 months.)
Product deliverables included create, test, and deploy a standard offering including a discount and pricing structure, marketing materials for dealer promotions, initial product offerings and suggested kits, and targeted training material- both printed and videos.
By using agile methodologies, obtaining regular customer feedback on features, and A/B testing, the team was able to generate quick success and immediate value. Through the team’s hard work, the program launched with a test customer to exceptional success, beating the first 12-month sales expectations by 100%.
Project Management Professional certified from PMI – 2023 thru 2026
Proven project management leadership in practice and principle
Google Project Manage Certificate – 2024
A 6-course training program from Google with a capstone project
The course covers traditional and agile methodologies, documentation, and tracking programs.
Business Development, Program Management, and Marketing
This skill comes up a lot in my work history. When I became a Product Sales Manager, I full-heartedly jumped into digital and physical marketing. Helping people get to the best solutions is always my goal. And while my engineering background allows me to do that literal ways, marketing provides another path to bring customers and manufacturers together to support one another.
That synergy of helping businesses build the right things and helping customers find the right products is a passion I enjoy bringing to internal and external stakeholders in a way that is fun for me, and a win for every party.
Through market gap research, I identified an opportunity to bring an existing technology to a new market channel and exponentially expand sales. I built a strong team of engineering, marketing, business development, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales, and we re-launched the product line postured for the right market with the right products and the right support tools.
New marketing and technical tools include a website, white paper, catalog, case study, supply chain standard work, rental procedure, on-site demo center, and more.
Phastite for Pipe Website, including tools on the Resources page.
By leveraging key external and internal contacts, I found an intense business need for a standardized, highly customizable aftermarket sales program for multiple global OEMs’ aftermarket dealer networks. While working through standard channels to receive funding and project approval, I implemented agile methodologies to work with my contacts to create and test prototype features immediately.
Through this interactive process, the project found quick success and immediate value. With the combined work of marketing, supply chain, and through regular customer feedback, the program launched with a test customer to exceptional success, beating the first 12-month sales expectations by 100%.
Training and Success Enablement
Helping others find their success gives me a personal and professional joy that is unmatched. I have created training, supported technical podcasts, helped with white papers, and been a formal and informal mentor to many people.
Learning does not happen only from degrees and certifications. I use my own path to learning, as well as those like Gholdy Muhammad to build inclusive, responsive, and critical thinking paths to excellence in work and growth.
Through internal learning paths like reading and yoga, and external ones like networking events, degrees, and water-cooler discussions, I work to put value in the intelligence of the mind and person. Our ability to collaborate, communicate, support, train, and share knowledge is what makes us great and what builds each other up.
I was asked as a technical expert, along with two peers, in 2022 to provide practical, hands-on, and safety information on hydraulic leaks. Our team put together the details and spoke on the podcast episode for both those in the hydraulic industry and anyone looking for easy-to-understand information on hydraulic systems.
10 Things Not to Do When Your Hydraulic Fitting Leaks -The OD
Post-2020, to bring training that had always been done in-person to everyone, I re-invisioned that training into four videos totaling 20 minutes. This simplified video set turned a four-hour training into self-paced, bite-sized portions with real-world examples to make the training physically and mentally accessible to all.
As an engineer, I was responsible for designing and implementing hydraulic system solutions. However, that’s only the middle of the support sandwich. Training for design engineers and salespeople ensured that customers could get the right products for new and updated systems. Once a system was in place, regular training of assemblers, quality technicians, manufacturing engineers, and management ensured safe use and continued product success.
As an Application Engineer and Product Sales Manager, I trained an estimated 1,500+ people in-person and virtually on topics ranging from hydraulic safety, system design, software programs, new product introduction, solution selling, and more.
Certifications and Continuous Learning
Lifelong learning is a personal requirement. It may not always translate into certifications or degrees, but sometimes it does.
In addition to the below, I am currently working towards certifications and training in Product Management (through IBM), PowerBI Data Analytics, and Microsoft Fabric.
Master of Business Administration – Started March 2024, anticipating May 2026 graduation
Focus areas in Digital Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Innovation
Project Management Professional certified from PMI – 2023 thru 2026
Proven project management leadership in practice and principle
Six Sigma Green Belt certified – 2017
My Green Belt project reduced labor waste and unnecessary processes for the customer kitting cell in our value-added service center.
Microsoft Certified: Azure AI and Cloud Fundamentals (AI-900 and AZ-900) – 2024
Artificial Intelligence workloads and considerations, principles of machine learning, computer vision workloads, Natural Language Processing (NLP) workloads, and generative AI workloads on Azure
Cloud concepts, Azure architecture, services, management and governance
My Microsoft Learn (below) has my current learning. I don’t pursue certifications in all programs, but I stay up-to-date with their offerings.
I continue my continuous learning on Coursera, LinkedIn, and elsewhere. Some are linked below. Certificate programs completed recently include
- Google Project Management
- Google Digital Marketing and E-Commerce
- Atlassian Agile Project Management Professional
- SAP Technology Consultant Professional