Rocco is a senior content professional.
He is also the funniest Italian living out of Italy after Gino D’Acampo. But Rocco can actually cook.
Who is he?
What does he do?
For the past ten years, Rocco has worked in content for Fortune500 companies, in different capacities: Content specialist, Localisation specialist, Content producer, Manager of content Authoring and Publishing, and Product Owner for content tools.
Which value Rocco can add to a company?
Rocco can design compelling content strategies and consumer journeys.
For example, in 2021, he was responsible for orchestrating the Tommy Hilfiger’s Black Friday campaign from ideation to execution, which generated €22 million in turnover (a 37% YoY increase) and 7 million unique visits in just 11 days.
Rocco is one of the leading experts in content operations in the EMEA region. For four years, he has been leading the authoring and publishing on Tommy.com editorial, product and CX content without ever skipping a beat: no deadline missed, not a single quarter going over-budget. In this capacity he has coordinated two vendors (one for authoring, one for translations) and three direct reports, and has been leading the vision and shaping the structure of content operation teams at PVH.
Rocco is also an expert in eCommerce technology. From 2023 up to today he has been responsible for reshaping and evolving the capabilities of Tommy Hilfiger’s and Calvin Klein’s websites, and he generated Euro 300.000 in savings and reduced website downtime to 0% by transitioning PVH to an Headless CMS and a MACH-compliant content distribution architecture. He is also currently working on a reboot of performance marketing capabilities for PVH which is projected to increase top-line revenue of a sound 35%.
Moreover, Rocco has a natural affinity with producing copy at scale, and governing content quality in a multi-contributor environment. For example, while he was in Localisation at Nike, he re-invented the translation Style Guide of the brand in the EMEA region to include important branding and Tone Of Voice information. His work was adopted in all the EMEA markets and ended up being Nike’s very copywriting style-guide in EMEA.
Why does Rocco not have a portfolio?
Rocco has mainly worked on high volume content production projects, with a follow-the-sun operating model and daily deliveries. In cases like these, in which the copy one drafts, or the content strategies one designs, and the customer journeys one conceives, are published continuously for many days in an uninterrupted fashion, is less customary to keep a track record of things people have been working on, and it is assumed that the years of work experience testify for one’s ability.
Why the last job title Rocco has had is one of a “Product Owner”?
Terrific question. After being in content creation/production for both Nike and PVH for 6,5 years in total, Rocco has decided to momentarily step back from creating and producing content, and from managing people, to have a closer look at how websites and apps are made under the hood.
Not surprisingly, he has chosen the content specialty as a privileged POV to explore software development, and has accepted the challenge of rebooting and enhancing the content production capabilities for PVH (Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein).
This means adopting and adapting new software solutions that make the process of getting content from the brainstorming table of a marketing team to the end-user’s smartphone quicker and cheaper.
To be his first attempt at product management, Rocco has been very successful, generating tons of savings for the company, and making the life of his colleagues easier when authoring digital content.
He now misses working with copy, images, localisation and UX, and the challenge of nurturing a team. He even came to the conclusion that stepping aside from the people management game at 33, while growing into it, to learn Agile leadership and understand the SaaS lifecycle, was a bit of a faux pas.
Nonetheless, he has learned a lot about the deep recesses of information technology and network architecture, and about Agile servant leadership, and this enables him to be a savvier Content and People manager now that he gets back in the game.
I have a Product manager role I would like to interview Rocco for. Would he be up for it?
Yes. Rocco does like Product management. At this point in his career, he would gladly consider roles that are centred on connecting users with businesses rather than (only) managing backlog priorities and documentation.
Which kind of colleague Rocco is?
He is very easy to work with, and after 6+ years of working in the Netherlands, he has not adopted Dutch directness yet.
Which kind of people manager Rocco is?
He always tries to motivate his direct reports by showing them the value of what they do in the framework of overall corporate objectives. This means he strives to assimilate as much information as possible from his line of report, and passing it effectively down the line in a way that is motivating to the people he works with.
He is open towards other people opinion and he shares credit with them while taking responsibility for what doesn’t work.