Adam Harriss is currently employed as a SaaS Manager at SmartDrive. Adam has several duties that accompany him at this job. He is in charge of managing the company’s core product’s current business, along with its forward progression. He strategizes to developement ware service that acknowledges compliance standards for the product. Also, He is tasked with redesigning product development procedures from start to finish. Components that he helps redesign include:
- Strategic intent of product
- Definition of product
- Investigation and validation of product
- Product development
- Product Launch
He is an expert on various fields and areas of business. He holds expertise in marketing, product management, new business creation, and strategy. Throughout his career, he has been able to assess the size and attractiveness of opportunities, and determine for which ones his teams have the capacity to win, then determine the customer needs and drive his teams to address them. Some other skills that he has acquired from his past experience include:
- Business plan development
- Market requirement definition
- Go-to-market strategy
- Product messaging
- Market optimization
- Assessment of consumer needs
Adam Harriss has spent a majority of his career creating businesses. His entrepreneurial experience makes him an expert in the field of start-up methodology. Small business owners can look to him for advice on managing the balance between developing a growth engine and mitigating risk.
Outside of work, he participates in many leisure activities. Throughout high school, he was an avid tennis player and even coached for a few years. Recently, he has played for an indoor volleyball league and soccer team. Adam enjoys staying in shape and keeping physically active. San Diego’s beautiful environment allows for activities like swimming, hiking, and rock-climbing.
Adam Harriss San Diego's success started at a young age. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with High Honors and his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. Afterwards, he went on to attain his Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School. His primary focus was on early and international business.
The business world
From 1994 to 1998, Adam Harriss interned in the CDMA Marketing department at Qualcomm, which is focused on the development and manufacturing of wireless telecommunication services. His duties included extensive research and development of a large library of vital information.
After his time with Qualcomm, he worked for Computer Economics for two years. The company focused on researching financial solutions for IT management. As a research analyst, it was Adam’s responsibility to forecast developmental opportunities for Nokia’s new mobile applications. He also provided analysis and strategies for McKesson HBOC, a pharmaceutical distribution company.
Adam Harriss San Diego took his first big step into the world of entrepreneurship in 2000. He founded an online entertainment business called Pandorium. After visualizing the idea, writing the business plan, and recruiting a staff, he joined EC² Incubator. This program founded by George Lucas helped entrepreneurs who were starting their own business by providing resources and assistance.
From 2000 to 2002, he worked as a Venture Analyst for ideaEDGE Ventures. His position required him to monitor deal flow, assess opportunities, and create business plans. He worked raised over $20 million in funding for mobile Internet venture, M7 Networks. He repositioned M7’s products and built a strategic collaboration with wireless ASPs.
Hewlett-Packard
Adam Harriss worked at Hewlett-Packard Company from 2002 to 2012. This company is a multinational IT corporation that provides products, technologies, and software for clients. HP’s clientele base is comprised of individuals, businesses, and large enterprises. Various sectors employ the use of HP services like the government, education, and health administrations.
Throughout his employment at HP, Adam participated in the development of major innovations. He worked in several different positions, always seeking new opportunities to improve the company. When he first joined HP, he led major investment decisions in various business dealings. These included RFID, home entertainment, and sensor networks business investigations. After analyzing several potential new business opportunities, his first major endeavor at HP was to found a new business unit in retail photo printing.
Adam co-founded Retail Photo Solutions in 2002. With two other associates, he created a startup that competed with Kodak and Fuji photo finishing. He had made major contributions to the project, creating the original business plan and raising funds from the HP Executive Council. He helped devise the product line strategy and owned product definition and pricing as well.
In addition, he conducted due diligence on potential external business partners as well.
From 2004 to 2007, Adam Harriss worked as a Senior Product Manager. He managed the pricing, positioning, design objectives, and messaging of the entire portfolio of hardware and software products in the Retail Photo Solutions group. Under his leadership, his company was able to develop hardware and software solutions that attracted Wal-Mart, the largest client in the world.
He often worked with third party analysts to acquire customer feedback to improve the products in his portfolio. To execute on this feedback, he provided training and orientation for most of the Retail Photo Solutions Marketing Staff. His other responsibilities included promoting photo products through trade shows and public relations events.
Adam worked as a Business Development Manager in 2008. His primary task was to manage Hewlett-Packard’s relationship with business partners. These relationships were based on sectors including payment, connectivity, and software solutions. He also developed sales plans through 3rd party software companies.
Rising through the ranks quickly, Adam became a Strategy Manager in 2009. While working in China for eight weeks, he helped develop a strategy for HP’s laser printing that addressed product innovation and portfolio adjustments and channels expansion and management. This strategy provided a $100 million opportunity for Hewlett-Packard. In addition, while working in strategy, he analyzed the business portfolio of HP’s entire 29 billion dollar printing division that planned strategies for optimizing its return over the next three years. His work in portfolio management enabled HP to maintain operating profits while doubling the planned continuous annual growth rate.
In 2010, Adam Harriss San Diego was placed in the position of Android WebOS Consumer Products Manager. His job entailed creating strategies for eReaders and Android application marketing. He led an investigation against using Palm Inc.’s operating system in HP’s printers. He cited lack of compelling use cases and cost/benefit analysis in recommending against use of this OS in the HP printer portfolio.
From 2011 to 2012, Adam worked as a Senior Product and Business Development Manager. His priority in this position was to manage a new business development program. This program identified, recruited, and verified partners’ products, and then implemented them into HP’s print locations. He further developed a partner management package that included business terms, user experience, and integration services. This helped create a system of printable content for smaller business partners.
Adam created the social media and mobile systems partner program to filter online content to print destinations. This allowed the company to retain and acquire new consumers who wanted to print personal and syndicated content. Adam also managed the design of retail-publishing solutions tailored for CVS’s photo center, the world’s third largest photo business.
After HP
Adam Harriss worked at a company called Localmotiv from 2010 to 2013 as Vice President of Business Development. Localmotiv is a demand-side hyper-local mobile advertising platform. The company provided a SaaS that enabled companies to generate- advertisements for based on location and demographic. He developed relationships and business terms with mobile developers and ad-supplying platforms that enabled the advertising businesses to display mobile ads in their apps and mobile web sites.
Right before working for SmartDrive, he helped create PerkCounter. From 2012 to 2013, he acted as Vice President of this mobile application. PerkCounter enabled businesses to create loyalty programs for their customers. Clients would scan a code from the business and accumulate points. After gaining enough points, they could trade them in for rewards.
Adam helped conceive the idea, hired a development team, and managed the overall progression of the product. Within six months of the idea’s inception, the application launched. Since then, it has acquired 25 customers through the use of sales tactics.
Other endeavors
Adam enjoys partaking in other ventures besides work. When he is not exploring the outdoors or immersing himself in business, he focuses on the arts. He has developed a taste for oil painting and drawing with charcoal. His talents gained him recognition when he won Best of Show at the San Diego Fair a few years ago. Adam Harriss is a man of art as well as a man of business.
Adam Harriss San Diego plans to continue expanding his knowledge and experience in the business industry. He is constantly looking for new ways to improve his company’s business model. At the same time, he hopes to make a bigger difference in the world through his philanthropic efforts.
Adam’s niece has dilated cardiomyopathy. This disease causes the heart to become weakened and enlarged. When this happens, the heart cannot pump blood efficiently and the other organs start to deteriorate. He is an active supporter of COTA, the Children’s Organ Transplant Association.
Founded in 1986, COTA has worked tirelessly to provide assistance to families who require life-saving transplants. The association’s first patient was a toddler from Indiana who needed a liver transplant. Since the toddler’s family did not have money, and their insurance did not provide coverage, they needed to find another source of income. Within weeks, however, the community was able to raise over $100,000 through generous donations. The money allowed for the toddler to go on the liver transplant list.
Today, the organization helps build fundraisers and charity drives to raise money for surgery. COTA will assist any child under 21 who is in need of a crucial transplant. Volunteers can participate with COTA by making donations, volunteering in the community, or raising awareness.
Adam is currently working with COTA to set up a website for his niece. This will help raise donations for COTA that can be used to help address expenses related to a heart transplant surgery. Adam Harriss hopes to see major medical improvements for his niece in the future.