Ed Blankenship

Ed Blankenship has a diverse range of work experience spanning multiple industries and roles. Currently, they are the Product Director for the Product Experience Platform (PXP) at Akeneo: The Product Experience Company. Ed leads a team of Product Managers, Staff Engineers, SREs, and Engineering Squads in developing the PXP, which is a data pipeline foundation for the Akeneo Product Cloud.

Prior to their current role, Ed worked as a Program Advisor at Heavybit Industries, where they mentored startup founders on building enterprise-ready products. Ed also held various roles at Contentful, including Group Product Manager for Commercial and Core Services, and Group Product Manager for Growth. Additionally, Ed served as the Head of Product at Algorithmia, which was later acquired by DataRobot, where they focused on MLOps and helping developers integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning into their applications.

Before entering the tech industry, Ed worked at Microsoft as a Senior Product Manager and Technical Program Manager, where they were involved in Azure DevOps, Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server. Ed also served as a Board Advisor to the Microsoft Garage, an internal entrepreneurship and incubation group. Earlier in their career, Ed worked as an ALM/DevOps Practice Technical Lead and ALM/TFS Consultant at Imaginet and as a Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, Inc.

Ed's work experience also includes roles as a Senior Consultant at Sogeti USA and as a Software Engineer at Clinics of North Texas. Overall, Ed Blankenship has a strong background in product management, program advising, and technical leadership across a variety of industries.

Ed Blankenship earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Computer Science from Midwestern State University in 2004. Ed further pursued their education and obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Business Administration and Management from the University of Washington from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, they attended Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management for a Kellogg on Marketing program focused on Microsoft. In terms of certifications, Ed holds a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) - TFS 2010 Administration certification, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Alumni designation, and a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title, which they acquired in 2008. Ed also has a Certified Professional Scrum Master I certification and a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) certification.