Chris Zaugg

Chris Zaugg has more than 20 years of experience in executive leadership roles and has worked for various organizations. Chris started their career as an Executive Director at Cru Global in 2000 and later became the Director of Digital Strategies in 2009. During their tenure, they led the digital transformation of the organization by defining and building innovative digital strategies, new tools, and digital properties. Chris also served as the Product Owner and Visionary while developing a proprietary CRM platform that was utilized by thousands of staff and several organizations. Later, they joined OPIN in 2014 and became its President/Product Owner and Visionary. In this role, they modernized the information technology solutions business that provided digital products to Fortune 500 companies and spearheaded new sales efforts for product upgrades. Chris increased upgrade revenue by 300% and educated and collaborated with enterprise customers on new product upgrades and services to foster trusting partnerships and generate business growth. Chris also expanded business strategy to focus on a new product offering as a growth opportunity. In 2017, they created initial concept within OPIN Systems and launched Uptick as its Chief Executive Officer. Chris co-developed a functional design for the SaaS product and adopted the use of an Agile approach, led a team and served as Product Owner/Visionary for up to 20 throughout the entire product lifecycle, including product managers, UX designers, developers, marketing, and support staff, to ensure optimal usability and a quality customer experience. Chris facilitated 100+ coaching sessions with current and prospective customers covering general leadership concepts, conflict management, performance reviews, and product best-practices. Chris drives their passion for improving managerial skill development with the creation of 114 blog posts, 50 podcasts and related materials that drove pipeline and company credibility, and developed two successful digital courses that focus on effective 1:1 meetings and performance reviews.

Chris Zaugg completed a BMA degree in Music and Religion at the University of Michigan. In 2014, they obtained a Certified Enterprise Content Management Specialist certification and a Certified Information Governance Practitioner certification from AIIM International. In 2015, they obtained an IT Project Management Certificate from the University of Minnesota. In 2016, they obtained an Inbound Marketing certification from HubSpot. In 2017, they obtained an AdWords Search Certification from Google. In 2023, Chris Zaugg received an Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner certification and a Certified Scrum Product Owner certification from Scrum Alliance. Chris also earned a Talent Optimization Certificate from The Predictive Index. Chris Zaugg will attend the University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management from 2023 to 2026, pursuing a Master of Business Administration degree.