Brian Cruz
Resume
Portrait of Brian Cruz
👋

I'm Brian — a Technical Product Manager who's spent 8 years turning ambiguous, messy problems into shipped product. Lately, I've been leaning into building the AI that gets me there faster.

8+ years owning end-to-end product lifecycle across The Walt Disney Company, MLB organizations, and Fortune 100 environments.

PMP·CSM·CSPOCertified
Read My Story → Get In Touch
30th → Top 15
Angels org ranking, in under 2 years
40 / 8
People led, across countries
39 → 100+
Robots delivered at Disney, by 2027
350 → 10K+
PLM users, reaching 10K+ via 6 downstream systems
My Experience
The Walt Disney Company→Project Manager, Business Integration (Product Lead)2025 — PRESENT
Los Angeles Angels→Sr. Product Manager, International Operations2021 — 2024
San Diego Padres→Product Manager2018 — 2021
Boston Red Sox→Project Lead2016 — 2018
Toronto Blue Jays→Project Coordinator2015 — 2016
About Me

I didn't plan on a career in product. I fell into it through professional baseball — six years across the Toronto Blue Jays, Boston Red Sox, and San Diego Padres, building systems like BEEST, Beacon, and Basetek before I had "Product Manager" on a business card.

At the Los Angeles Angels, things scaled up fast. I led a staff of 40 across eight countries, built Diablo to replace the legacy Halo platform, and helped drive one of the biggest turnarounds in the organization's recent history — while also building training materials to help players from Latin America adjust to life in the U.S.

Now I'm at The Walt Disney Company, leading product for a PLM SaaS modernization and a robotics program that's scaling fast across sites worldwide. I lean hard on Claude and Copilot for the grunt work — SQL cleanup, PRDs, risk logs, process maps — because I'd rather spend my time in meetings with the people building and using what I ship. AI handles the documentation. I handle the relationships.

Highlights
CHAPTER 05
The Walt Disney Company
Product-leading a PLM SaaS modernization and a global Robotics Productization program.
  • Owned full product lifecycle for a PLM SaaS transformation — vision, roadmap, success metrics — replacing a legacy platform with a scalable cloud solution serving 350 licensed users, reaching 10,000+ users through 6 connected downstream systems.
  • Increased delivery throughput by 12% by restructuring Agile ceremonies, backlog prioritization, and release coordination across internal and vendor teams.
  • Built and deployed custom AI agents to automate onboarding and training workflows, reducing new-hire ramp time.
  • Use Claude and Copilot for SQL data cleaning, process maps, PRDs, risk logs, backlog tracking, and sprint forecasting — freeing up time for the stakeholder meetings and relationships that actually move a product forward.
  • Own the delivery of 39 robots to sites to date — an ongoing rollout tracking toward 100+ deployed across all sites by the end of 2027 — with a 100% internal approval rate and 70+ Cast Members trained on operational standards.
  • Designed go-to-market plans across Technology, Operations, and Training for phased rollout with minimal disruption.
  • Increased operational efficiency by 21% through scalable global deployment planning across vendor partners.
  • Own capital budget and expense forecasting for the Robotics CP&D program, translating variances into executive-ready financial narratives.
CHAPTER 04
Los Angeles Angels
Led a 40-person international team, built Diablo to replace Halo, and helped drive a talent turnaround.
  • Led a staff of 40 employees across 8 countries, traveling regularly to sites to drive operational efficiency and results while keeping stakeholder relationships at the forefront.
  • Drove acquisition of talent that helped move the organization from a league-worst ranking (30th) to a top-15 ranking in under two years.
  • Built training materials to help players transitioning from Latin America adapt to life and operations in the U.S.
  • Designed and built Diablo, a new internal platform, to replace Halo, the legacy system it succeeded, as the anchor of a six-platform product suite.
  • Owned full budget and roadmap for six concurrent internal platforms, defining MVP scope by working backwards from end-user operational needs.
  • Drove adoption to approximately 80% of target users within six months via incremental MVP releases and structured feedback testing.
  • Reduced manual reporting time by 35–45% by applying AI tools to SQL-based data cleaning and analysis.
  • Partnered with engineers to scope cross-system API integrations across SAP, Rapsodo, TrackMan, and EBIS — data contracts, payloads, error handling.
CHAPTER 03
San Diego Padres
Led development of Basetek, a regional reporting platform, and drove process optimization.
  • Led development of Basetek, a regional reporting platform built to replace fragmented manual processes.
  • Reduced operating expenses by 31% through process optimization and regional reporting transformation.
  • Translated stakeholder needs into technical product specifications and roadmap priorities.
  • Directed cross-functional execution across regional teams, delivering multi-phased internal reporting products.
CHAPTER 02
Boston Red Sox
Led the transition off a legacy system onto Beacon, a new reporting platform.
  • Led the transition from a legacy reporting system to Beacon, a new platform built for executive and cross-functional reporting.
  • Coordinated executive reporting and large-scale initiative execution across engineering, analytics, and operations.
  • Bridged business and technical stakeholders through structured requirements gathering.
CHAPTER 01
Toronto Blue Jays
Where the story started — built and managed BEEST, an internal reporting system.
  • Helped build and manage BEEST, an internal reporting system supporting cross-departmental baseball operations analysis.
  • Managed reporting workflows and operational data pipelines feeding the system.
Sample Work

What the work actually looks like.

Titles and bullet points only go so far. These are representative samples of how I write a program brief, a PRD, a data contract, and an RFP — reconstructed where needed for confidentiality, but true to how I actually work. (Independent client project write-ups will join this list as those wrap up.)

PROGRAM
BRIEF
PLM Platform Replacement
The Walt Disney Company — in flight now, replacing a legacy platform at enterprise scale.
Scope

Sunsetting a legacy PLM platform and onboarding a modern SaaS replacement — a full lifecycle-management system for tracking assets through design, development, and production.

Scale

350 licensed users on the core platform, connected via API to 6 downstream systems that extend its reach to 10,000+ users across the organization.

Technical Complexity

A legacy-to-cloud data migration running alongside live API rebuilds for every downstream system — sequenced so no connected team loses access mid-cutover.

Approach

Two-phase rollout — domestic first, international second — rather than a single global cutover, to validate adoption and de-risk the migration before scaling to a second user base. Domestic is live now.

What's Next

The post-go-live roadmap is still being groomed with stakeholders, with funding secured through 2028 to keep enhancing the platform after the international rollout lands.

PRD
Diablo Platform Consolidation
Los Angeles Angels — how I scoped the platform that replaced Halo.
Problem

International Operations ran six disconnected systems — SAP, Rapsodo, TrackMan, EBIS, and two legacy tools. Coaches and scouts were manually reconciling data across platforms before every decision, and nobody trusted any single number.

Goal

Consolidate ingestion and reporting into one platform (Diablo) that replaces Halo and gives coaching staff a single source of truth.

Success Metrics

80% adoption within 6 months. 35–45% reduction in manual reporting time. Zero data loss during migration off Halo.

Key User Stories

As a player development coach, I want one dashboard for biomechanics and performance data instead of cross-referencing four tools.
As an international scout, I want mobile access to prospect data so I can evaluate players while traveling, not just at a desk.

Out of Scope

Real-time video integration — flagged for a later phase once core data consolidation was adopted.

Open Questions

Data retention policy across international jurisdictions. Ownership of API rate limits with TrackMan during peak season.

DATA
CONTRACT
Rapsodo → Diablo Ingestion
The kind of field-level contract I write with engineering before integration work starts.
FieldTypeSourceNotes
player_idstringRapsodoMapped to internal roster ID via crosswalk table
session_tsISO 8601RapsodoNormalized to UTC on ingestion
pitch_velocityfloat (mph)RapsodoNullable on sensor dropout
spin_ratefloat (rpm)Rapsodo—
release_point_xyzfloat[3]RapsodoCoordinate system documented separately
error_codeenumDiabloPopulated on ingestion failure, feeds retry queue
RFP
Regional Reporting Platform
San Diego Padres — vendor selection that became the foundation for Basetek.
Background

Baseball Operations needed a regional reporting platform to replace manual spreadsheets consolidating attendance, cost, and player development data across affiliate sites.

Evaluation Criteria

Data security & compliance (25%) · Integration flexibility / API access (25%) · Total cost of ownership (20%) · Implementation timeline (15%) · Vendor support model (15%)

Submission Requirements

Technical architecture diagram, sample data contract, references from at least two comparable sports or entertainment clients, milestone-based implementation timeline.

Outcome

The selected partner became the technical foundation for Basetek, which went on to cut operating expenses by 31%.

HOW I
DECIDE
Data First, Then the Person Using It
The two filters every roadmap decision goes through before it becomes a requirement.
Data

Before I prioritize anything, I want to see it in SQL or Power BI first — not hear it secondhand in a meeting. Structured stakeholder feedback loops come after the data, to explain the "why" behind the number, not to replace it.

User Experience

Every platform I've built started with watching the actual daily workflow of the person using it, not a stakeholder's description of it from a level removed.

Example

When international scouts said mobile access to prospect data "would be nice," the usage patterns showed most evaluations were happening in person, on the road, not at a desk. Mobile access became a v1 requirement for Diablo instead of a backlog item.

Relationships & Trust

None of this works without the people on the other side of it.

I've never shipped anything by just being good at backlog grooming. Every platform on this page got built because I sat with the person who'd actually use it, figured out what they needed, and kept talking to them after launch — not just at the kickoff meeting.

I ask before I assume

Structured feedback loops and feature-variation testing instead of guessing what a stakeholder meant in a two-line Slack message.

Different rooms need different language

Finance gets a variance narrative they can take into their own meeting. Operations gets a straight answer. Same facts, different altitude.

I don't disappear after launch

The friction that shows up in week two matters more than the demo in week one. I stay embedded with Operations and Training until it's actually working.

Vendors are partners, not line items

Clear expectations and structured intake up front, so the relationship doesn't fall apart the first time something slips.

Beyond the Roadmap

What I do off the clock.

A mix of things that have nothing to do with product management, and a few side projects that probably have too much to do with it.

Hobbies & Interests
Competitive Pickleball Church Livestream, Audio & Tech Volunteer Blackstone Griddle Cooking Co-op & Strategy Video Games
Side Projects — In Progress
TESTING

Portfolio Management Agent

Building AI agents to help manage and monitor decisions across a personal stock portfolio.

COMPLETE

Expense Honesty Dashboard

AI-built dashboards that track personal spending and keep expenses honest, no manual entry required.

COMPLETE

Fantasy Baseball Claude Agent

A Claude agent that tracks and manages a fantasy baseball league throughout the season.

TESTING

Home Hardware Optimization

Modding and tuning home hardware and network setups for optimal performance.

My Toolkit

Product Ownership

Product Lifecycle Ownership Roadmap Strategy & Prioritization OKR / KPI Development UAT & Requirements Definition Vendor & Procurement Management

AI & Automation

Claude & Copilot Agent Deployment SQL Data Cleaning PRD Development Process Mapping Risk Log Management

Technical Fluency

SQL Power BI API Integration Data-Informed Decision Making

Leadership & Delivery

Global Team Leadership (40+, 8 Countries) Agile / Scrum JIRA / Confluence Executive Communication Go-to-Market Planning
PMP
Project Management ProfessionalPMI · 2025–2028
CSM
Certified Scrum Master2026–2028
CSPO
Certified Scrum Product Owner2026–2028
Bachelor of Business AdministrationUniversity of Central Florida
Associate of Business AdministrationGalveston College

Want to talk shop?

Reach out — I usually get back within a day.

Briancruz32@hotmail.com LinkedIn Download Resume