Rico Garcia — Resume

RESUME / PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

NEW YORK, NY / 2026

RICO GARCIA

ROLE

:

Principal Product Manager

DOMAINS

:

0-to-1 products, AI, Data, Product Discovery, EdTech

CONTACT

:

757-717-9517 / ricardougarcia@gmail.com

LINKS

:

ricardougarcia.com / linkedin.com/in/ricardougarcia

EXPERIENCE

[01]

PRINCIPAL PRODUCT MANAGER

JAN 2026 - PRESENT

MAGPIE LITERACY / NEW YORK, NY

3-PHASE REPLATFORM

K-2 > K-8 EXPANSION

GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE

Own Platform Data for a K-8 reading application: data infrastructure, internal analytics, and educator-facing dashboards.

Sole PM leading a new team through a full replatform, trust restoration, and K-2 to K-8 expansion.

Led a three-phase replatform from monolithic ETL to a governed data lake (dbt, CI/CD, Postgres-served marts),

removing the scaling and data-consistency constraints blocking growth while the product stayed live.

Migrated the faultiest dashboard via a controlled, time-boxed blackout, establishing the no-downtime playbook for later

phases.

Built the discovery program grounding the roadmap: surveys, competitor analysis, in-person interviews, and classroom

site visits.

Established first Product/Research data governance (shared definitions, lineage docs, BI tool) and stood up observability

from zero: usage reporting, SLI/SLOs, DataDog alerting.

Shipped an unplanned assessment scoring rework against a hard back-to-school deadline; led cross-team data deletion

compliant with FERPA, COPPA, GDPR, and NY2D.

Solo-shipped the first published Platform roadmap, a nine-video educator enablement series, and a self-built WCAG 2.2

compliance scanner.

[02]

SENIOR AI PRODUCT MANAGER

JAN 2025 - JAN 2026

SAFERDATA LABS / NEW YORK, NY

MVP / 90 DAYS

97% EVAL ALIGNMENT

4 PILOTS

Product discovery and market validation for a stealth MIT startup building an AI foundation model for structured data,

targeting U.S. financial markets.

Delivered MVP in 90 days with a lean team; secured 4 pilot commitments and 5 follow-on engagements.

Built MCP-powered demo prototype achieving 97% alignment in evaluation tests across segmentation and probability

modes.

Achieved 4.5/5 or higher demo feedback and 100% feature request submission, validating usability and feeding the

roadmap.

Conducted fintech and embedded banking market analyses to define product opportunities and intersection points.

Acquired training data, ran structured LLM evaluations, and developed testing methods for accuracy and explainability.

[03]

PRODUCT MANAGER

JAN 2023 - JAN 2025

INSTRUCTURE INC. (CANVAS LMS) / NEW YORK, NY

+$2M YEAR 1

+102% LISTINGS

+65% MAU

End-to-end product strategy and execution across multiple business lines at a global EdTech leader.

Owned creation of a new EdTech Marketplace consolidating legacy sources into one catalog: +102% listings in 5

months, +$2M first-year revenue, 95% positive user sentiment.

Built and launched 5 new product offerings across 3 engineering teams; sunset 2 legacy products.

Led Partner Portal development: +65% MAU and +75% total accounts in 5 months, surpassing OKR KPIs; 8 new features

became the most-used in the application.

Created LTI configuration experience driving +43% provider-published assets in 7 months.

Consolidated 3 repositories, cutting 20+ hrs/week of maintenance and eliminating end-user drop-off.

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RICARDOUGARCIA.COM

RICO GARCIA / EXPERIENCE (CONT.)

PRINCIPAL PRODUCT MANAGER

[04]

PRODUCT MANAGER

JAN 2022 - JAN 2023

LEARNPLATFORM INC. / NEW YORK, NY

TTV: 14 DAYS > 0

~3,000 TAGS / 90 DAYS

Developed Customer Created Product feature, eliminating ~330 contractor hours and cutting Time-to-Value from 14

days to immediate.

Owned LearnCommunity asset library roadmap; automation added ~3,000 validated metadata tags in 90 days, making

it the largest U.S. EdTech repository for privacy, interoperability, efficacy, and compliance.

Built branching offline demo prototypes and produced video media for marketing, support, and sales enablement.

Delivered national webinars and RFI/RFP responses; sole product expert enabling the Growth Team.

[05]

DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS

NOV 2019 - JAN 2022

AGILE MIND / NEW YORK, NY

1 > 29 PARTNERSHIPS

+$700K / 2020

Expanded +90% of all partnerships while achieving quarterly retention and expansion quotas.

Grew NYC tier 1 white space from 1 to 29 partnerships in the first year (+$300K).

Landed the largest new partnerships in Massachusetts and New Jersey: +$700K revenue in 2020.

[06]

REGIONAL EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER

JUN 2016 - OCT 2019

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS / NEW YORK, NY

$8.4M VS $7.4M TARGET

Achieved $8.4M credited revenue against a $7.4M team target.

Built a personal pipeline exceeding $3M in year one and $6M in year two.

Launched three new EdTech products with the go-to-market team.

EARLIER EXPERIENCE

VP of Marketing & Sales / Downtown Norfolk Entertainment / 2012-2016

Owned 100% of revenue; delivered $730K first-year new category revenue against a $296K target (+140%); led full rebrand.

Resource & Development Manager / The AIDS Fund / 2009-2011

Helped grow funding to a record $6M, the largest AIDS nonprofit in Hampton Roads, VA; generated $3M in sponsor and

government contracts.

SYSTEMS / STACK

LANGUAGES

JavaScript / React / Node / Express / SQL / HTML / CSS

DATA + AI

dbt / Postgres / CI-CD / DataDog / MCP / LLM evaluation / LLM tooling (Claude Code, LibreChat) / Warp /

Mongo Atlas

TOOLS

Figma / Pendo / GitHub / Heroku / Railway / Bolt / Navattic / CRM ecosystems / Diagramming &

whiteboarding (Miro, Lucid) / Video production

EDUCATION

Columbia University

Full Stack Software Engineering Certificate

2021-2022

Old Dominion University

Communications

2010-2012

Tidewater Community College

Associate Degree

2008-2010

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RICARDOUGARCIA.COM