Niel Cody

Summary

Product leader with over twenty years in hospitality: eight on the floor, from Michelin service to running three venues, then the systems behind them. Leads five product areas across a group of six point-of-sale brands: AI, menu and product management, insights, loyalty and inventory. Ships AI that acts, not just answers, and judges everything by one test: will it work when the venue is full?

Selected achievements

1. Took an AI agent from a two-person trade-show demo to production. In its first tracked month it was used by 199 customer organisations and 292 users, and it now takes actions inside a live point of sale.
2. Rebuilt a loyalty platform from bespoke builds into configurable multi-tenant SaaS. Delivery from weeks to under one; estate from under 10 instances to over 250.
3. Authored the company goal architecture after a missed year: cross-divisional, measurable, cascading. One quarter in, ahead of the prior year.

Experience

1. Senior Product ManagerOolio2024 — Present

   Five product areas: AI, menu and product management, insights, loyalty, inventory. Each with a tech lead, engineers, a product owner and QA. Member of the leadership group shaping the data strategy.

2. Product Manager, Customer EngagementBepoz, Oolio group2021 — 2024

   Rebuilt the loyalty platform as configurable SaaS. Delivery from weeks to under one. Estate from under 10 to over 250.

3. International Business Development ManagerBepoz2015 — 2021

   Made the product fit five markets. Built QA from zero, recruited six product owners, and led the Atlassian rollout across the global teams.

4. Founder, hospitality consultantBRC Mafia, London2012 — 2018

   Six years with independent UK operators, on the floor rather than in a boardroom. Client revenue up by as much as 25%.

5. Senior Account ManagerBeyond Stock2012 — 2015

   Negotiated and delivered a POS, stock and financial control rollout across a 60+ site pub group. Where I crossed the table.

Earlier career, on the floor

1. Co-founder, Barmade 2010 — 2012
2. Head of Operations, Etive Pubs 2009 — 2011 · Three venues, £3.5m turnover. Revenue up more than 10%, gross margin up 10%, labour cost down 12%.
3. Assistant General Manager, The Living Room, Islington 2008 — 2009
4. Bar Manager, Living Ventures 2006 — 2008
5. Head Bartender and Bar Trainer, Living Ventures 2004 — 2006

Core skills

• Product strategy and portfolio leadership
• AI products in production: agents, evaluation, guardrails
• Platform consolidation and data foundations
• Loyalty, CRM and customer engagement
• Point of sale, payments, menus and inventory
• Building product, QA and product owner functions
• Decision records, kill signals and outcome measurement
• Hospitality operations and P&L