Treasurer

Second Nature is an online journal for critical thinking about technology and new media in light of the Christian tradition. I plan editorial strategy, review submissions, edit, manage social media, blog and occasionally contribute.

Founding Editor

Founded in 2013, the International Institute for the Study of Technology and Christianity (IISTC) exists to promote the study of technology in light of the Christian tradition. As co-director and co-founder, I develop long-term strategy to achieve our mission, including fundraising strategy, networking with organizations of similar mission and serving as a founding editor of Second Nature Journal.

Co-director

Bachelor of Arts

As the Global Director of Customer Success and Technical Support at Netlify, I am leading a world-class team of support engineers, providing 24/7 assistance to our growing base of enterprise customers who are adopting composable architecture.

Drawing on the success of our highly acclaimed Concierge program at Gatsby, I am expanding and refining it to cater to a larger audience of developers and businesses who use different web frameworks, to empower users, increase retention and provide expansion opportunities.

I am also introducing Customer Success as a critical function at Netlify, defining clear responsibilities and identifying key opportunities to reduce churn and drive expansion.

And following the acquisition of Gatsby by Netlify, I'm leading the initiative to merge our two support teams, ensuring a seamless and unified experience for all of our customers, no matter where they come from.

Global Director of Technical Support and Customer Success

• Supported city retail sales team in planning for advertising campaigns utilizing all Chicago Tribune products including print, pre-print, digital, and out of home advertising. 
• Provided reporting, research, lead generation and inventory assessment. 
• Assisted in maintenance of client accounts by communicating with clients, fulfillment and creative teams.
• Trained new sales reps.

Advertising Sales Planner

Director of Customer Success

Conducted guided research for subjects relevant to the eighth edition of Dr. Em Griffin's book, A First Look at Communication Theory, assisted in the organization of a manuscript for the new edition of the textbook, and created a topical index for the entire textbook.

Research Assistant

At Up and Up Agency, I had the opportunity to work with a talented team of developers, designers, and marketers dedicated to creating fun, innovative, accessible, and fast internet experiences for end users and the people who serve them.

As a front-end developer, I took on a variety of projects and initiatives that helped to advance the agency's mission. One of my proudest accomplishments was spearheading the agency's use of pattern libraries and writing about it for CSS-Tricks. This allowed us to create more efficient, scalable, and consistent front-end code across all of our projects.

In addition, I developed an internal CSS style guide that standardized our approach to CSS/Sass and enabled us to achieve greater consistency and maintainability across all of our projects. I also led the agency's adoption of SVG and automated build tools, which helped us to create faster, more performant websites and web applications.

One of my most challenging projects was learning Drupal 7 on the 

Frontend Web Developer

∙ Refactor a complex React/Redux application for a major insurance company, increasing stability and maintainability of code and introduced unit testing strategy to increase test coverage by 1370%.
∙ Perform accessibility remediation for enterprise clients to bring them into WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.
∙ Speak and write effectively on various front end development topics including accessibility, component-driven development, React, Gatsby, and remote work.

Frontend Developer

• Utilized Polk automotive market data, Scarborough, Nielsen, and other marketing resources to help plan the sales strategy for automotive advertising sales teams at both our Greenville and Asheville newspaper locations.

• Planned and executed strategic integrated marketing campaigns--including paid search, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, print, and targeted digital display--for franchise and independent automotive dealerships.

• Developed a web analytics consulting process to help qualify new clients and increase revenue, achieving year-over-year revenue growth of 22%.

Digital Strategist

• Support city retail sales manager and team with reporting, research, lead generation, and digital and print inventory assessment. 
• Assist in maintenance of client accounts for transitional desks by communicating with clients, fulfillment, and creative team to facilitate a smooth transition between sales reps. 
• Work with sales manager to develop advertising proposals and provide creative assistance for new clients.

Sales Planner Intern

Staff Software Engineer, Customer Success

Junior Frontend Developer

As a freelance web developer, I had the pleasure of working with a variety of clients to design and develop custom WordPress themes. My tech stack included HTML, CSS, SCSS, Less, Javascript, jQuery, PHP, and WordPress.

In addition, I collaborated with a family of new and used car dealerships to design and implement custom dashboards that tracked high-level sales metrics for each dealership and the business as a whole. I implemented these dashboards to monitor the ROI of paid advertising campaigns, providing valuable insights to upper management.

Through my work, I helped my clients to gain a deeper understanding of their sales metrics and advertising campaign performance, leading to improved decision-making and increased revenue. By creating custom WordPress themes and dashboards, I enabled them to better connect with their customers and provide a more satisfying user experience.

Web Developer

• Served as consultant and account executive for apartment communities in the western suburbs of Chicago. 

• Collaborated with marketing directors, property managers, and leasing directors to plan, budget, and execute successful multi-platform advertising campaigns. 

• Developed advertising plans utilizing the Chicago Tribune Media Group and Apartments.com portfolio, including SEO services, web development, internet listing services, SEM, digital display, mobile, print, pre-prints and out of home advertising. 

• Negotiate with new and existing clients to protect profit margins while securing customer satisfaction. Managed $800,000 of revenue from local and national Real Estate Advertisers, achieving 15% growth.

Digital Ad Sales Consultant

• Provided post-sales support for Chicago Tribune digital advertising including email, mobile, and desktop campaigns across all Chicago Tribune websites. 
• Processed, reserved, trafficked creative, delivered and analyzed reporting and optimized digital advertising campaigns ranging in value from $100 to $70,000. 
• Ensured successful delivery of all campaigns while offering quick and accurate service to sales teams and customers.

Digital Advertising Campaign Specialist

Engineering Manager, Customer Success

Senior Software Engineer, Customer Success

• Lead front end development for complex architectures utilizing Gatsby, Drupal, Auth0, and Apollo Server.
• Define requirements, estimate new features, review pull requests and provide constructive feedback for other front end developers.

Senior Frontend Developer

During my time at Gatsby, I started as the sole Customer Success Engineer, responsible for support, consulting, integrations, and sales engineering. Over three years, I built a team of empathetic and customer-focused individuals, and we achieved outstanding results.

I scaled our customer support from just me to a global team of three dedicated engineers, supporting over 1,400 paying customers and thousands of free users of Gatsby Cloud hosting and content preview products.

I also implemented a monetized customer success program called Gatsby Concierge, which helped customers use Gatsby more effectively, reducing churn and generating over six figures in annual recurring revenue at 40% margin.

To ensure our customers were happy and satisfied, we rolled out a quarterly business review process and renewal planning, resulting in over $500k of expansion revenue.

Our customer-centric approach paid off, and we were acquired by Netlify in February 2023.

Senior Director of Customer Success (acquired by Netlify)

Founder

Building ColorBliss and other assorted software products.

independent software developer

github

devto

productHunt

Know about Ben Robertson's work experience, education, bootcamps, certifications, and much more. Ben Robertson