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Open to VP / Head of Product roles · 2026

PRODUCT LEADERSHIP THAT DRIVES GROWTH AND TRANSFORMS BUSINESSES

Building products.
Driving growth.
Delivering impact.

|VP / Head of Product— Growth, Monetization, Experimentation & AI

I lead product organizations that turn growth, monetization, experimentation, and AI into measurable business outcomes. Over 16+ years at Fareportal / CheapOair, I helped scale a digital travel platform from $300M to $5B in annual revenue while leading an 85-person global organization across product, design, and engineering.

linkedin.com/in/itsmurat
New York, NY·No sponsorship required·Open to hybrid / remote leadership roles
$5B
Platform Led
$24M+
Revenue Impact
85+
Team Led
200+
Tests / Year
Murat Yilmaz — VP / Head of Product
About

Revenue-focused product leader
who operates at scale

“I lead product organizations that turn growth, monetization, experimentation, and AI into measurable business outcomes — not just roadmaps.”
$5B
Platform Led
85+
Team Managed
200+
A/B Tests/Year
$24M+
Revenue Impact

Over 16+ years at Fareportal / CheapOair / OneTravel, I helped scale a digital travel platform from $300M to $5B in annual revenue while leading product, design, growth, experimentation, and customer experience across web, mobile, iOS, and Android.

My strongest work sits at the intersection of product strategy, monetization, experimentation, UX, and AI-enabled systems. I've built and managed an 85+ person global organization, created proprietary experimentation infrastructure supporting 200+ tests per year, implemented ML-powered pricing, and improved NPS from 55 to 61 using generative AI-powered customer insight analysis.

Most recently, I've been applying AI, product marketing, and growth systems to startups and scale-ups — helping teams improve positioning, customer engagement, and product execution. Outside work: film photography, specialty coffee roasting, acoustic guitar, and NurQuran.org — a multilingual education platform I founded.

Let's talk about what I can bring to your team →

Expertise

What I bring to the table

Core
Product Strategy & Execution
Product VisionRoadmappingOKRsP&L OwnershipOrg BuildingStakeholder Alignment
Revenue
Growth & Monetization
Checkout OptimizationPricing StrategyUpsell/Cross-sellConversion RatePayment SystemsPLG
Systems
Experimentation at Scale
A/B TestingExperimentation PlatformsStatistical RigorHypothesis DesignEvidence-Based Decisions
Modern
AI-Enabled Transformation
ML PricingPropensity ModelsGenAI/NLPAI Product StrategyLLM IntegrationAI Insight Systems
Experience

A career built on measurable outcomes

2024 – Present
Propensely / Select Startup Advisory
Product & Growth Leader — AI, SaaS & Marketplace Systems
Building and advising on AI-enabled product, growth, and GTM systems for startups and scale-ups
  • Built repeatable acquisition and lifecycle systems across SEO/AIO, webinar-led GTM, CRM, newsletter, and automation workflows
  • Supported GTM, content, and AI positioning for a hospitality SaaS platform; helped launch webinar and newsletter programs; contributed to first-page positions for 46+ keywords
  • Designed lifecycle growth infrastructure activating a 20K-subscriber CRM base via Pipedrive, SendGrid, and n8n automation
  • Secured ecosystem support through NVIDIA Inception and Microsoft for Startups for an AI/ML personalization venture
  • Created repeatable case-study and messaging frameworks to strengthen product-led growth and sales enablement
AI/MLGTM SystemsGrowthFounderSEO/AIO
2018 – 2024
Fareportal · CheapOair · OneTravel
VP of Product & Design
Led product and design across a $5B platform · 85-person global org · 4 countries
  • Led product and design across a platform that scaled from $300M to $5B in annual revenue
  • Delivered $24M+ incremental annual revenue through checkout, payment, and funnel optimization
  • Built proprietary experimentation platform enabling 200+ A/B tests per year and faster product decisions
  • Implemented ML-powered pricing and propensity models — +10% revenue per ticket
  • Reduced booking failure rate from 20% to under 5%, recovering $7M+ profit
  • Grew mobile contribution from 35% to 57% of business across app and mobile web
  • Improved NPS from 55 to 61 using generative AI-powered customer feedback analysis
  • Helped protect revenue and customer trust during an 80% COVID demand drop by launching 4 flexible booking products within 60 days
P&L OwnershipML PricingExperimentationMobile GrowthAI/NLP
2015 – 2018
Fareportal
AVP Product Design & Engineering
  • Modernized platform from .NET MVC to React: +40% performance, −50% dev cycle time
  • Launched company's first PWA: 22% higher conversion vs. traditional mobile web
  • Scaled front-end engineering team from 0 to 12 members
ReactPWAFront-End Engineering
2011 – 2015
Fareportal
Creative Director / Product Lead
  • Grew mobile revenue from 0% to 25% of total company revenue
  • Launched award-winning apps — Webby Honoree, featured in Wired
  • Established company's first UX research and A/B testing program (30% experiment win rate)
MobileWebby AwardUX ResearchA/B Testing
Selected Work

Case studies & projects

NURQURAN.ORG
NurQuran.org
NurQuran — Quran Learning PWA

Founder project: local-first AI tutor (Gemma 4, WebGPU), semantic search across 6,236 ayahs, SRS engine, 25 languages. Designed, built, and shipped solo in loving memory of my late father.

100+ Reciters · 25 Languages
FAREPORTAL — EXPERIMENTATION
Fareportal — Experimentation
Launchpad: Experimentation at Scale

Built proprietary A/B testing platform enabling 200+ tests/year. Evidence-based product culture, faster decisions, $24M+ incremental revenue.

$24M+ incremental revenue
FAREPORTAL — CHECKOUT
Fareportal — Checkout
Checkout & Payment Monetization

Optimized checkout funnel and added 10+ payment methods. Reduced booking failure from 20% → <5%, recovering $7M+ profit.

Booking failure 20% → <5%
FAREPORTAL — ML & AI
Fareportal — ML & AI
ML Pricing & Customer Intelligence

Implemented propensity-based pricing and generative AI feedback analysis. +10% revenue per ticket. NPS 55 → 61.

+10% revenue per ticket
LinkedIn Recommendations

What colleagues say

1 / 8
“

What sets Murat apart is his complete lack of ego. His North Star was always the best overall business outcome, regardless of whose idea it was. He actively pushed us to explore the boundaries of what was possible with AI/ML. He doesn't just build great products — he builds great product people.

EA
Eric Adlard
Senior PM · Pricing & ML
Murat was senior to Eric
“

I witnessed Murat single-handedly transform the product design mindset of a major online travel agency through his visionary leadership. He is a master at team building — possessing the rare ability to turn a high-level vision into a scalable, user-centric reality.

AP
Aditya Pathak
Senior PM · Google
Reported to Murat directly · 5 years
“

Some people are smart. Some people are great operators. Some people are strong leaders. It's rare to find someone who excels at all three. Murat does. He combines intelligence, sound judgment, and natural leadership in a way that inspires confidence and elevates everyone around him.

ML
Mike Loveridge
Conversion Optimization Leader
Reported to Murat directly
Beyond Work

The full picture

01
📷
Film Photography

Shooting medium format film. There's a deliberateness to film that changes how you see. Every frame costs something — which makes you think harder before you shoot.

02
☕
Coffee Roasting

Running "Coffee Numbers" — a personal project obsessing over roast curves, Maillard reactions, and single-origin sourcing. Currently dialing in an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe natural process.

03
🎸
Acoustic Guitar

Playing acoustic guitar to decompress and stay creative. Music and product design share the same DNA: constraints, iteration, and that feeling when everything finally clicks.

Let's discuss
product leadership

Exploring VP / Head of Product roles focused on growth, monetization, experimentation, and AI-enabled transformation. Let's talk.

linkedin.com/in/itsmurat
New York, NY
Open to hybrid / remote
No sponsorship required
Available now

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Looking forward to connecting. Please include a brief agenda or topic for our meeting so we can jump right in.

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What I'm looking for

The right role at the right company matters more than title. Here's what excites me:

Head of Product / CPOFull-time

A company doing meaningful work with AI, SaaS, or consumer platforms at scale — where product thinking drives the roadmap.

VP Product & DesignFull-time

Organizations that believe design and product are inseparable. I have run both and the compounding effect is real.

Fractional CPO / AdvisorMonthly retainer

Startups and growth-stage companies that need senior product leadership without a full-time commitment.

AI Team Training & WorkshopsProject-based

I help product, design, and engineering teams get AI-ready — improving delivery speed and output quality at the age of AI.