Hi, I'm Fran.

 
 

I’m having fun on the internet.

I’m currently happily employed as a Senior Product Manager at SimplyHired.com, the largest job search engine.  At Simply Hired, I’m responsible for all of our business development deals and our partner network of 5,000+ hosted job boards.  Wearing my product hat, I’m also responsible for driving our job seeker experience, publisher products and our SEO traffic. 


Before joining Simply Hired, I worked at Overstock.com, where I oversaw our Visual Sciences implementation (hardcore web analytics) and ran our A/B and multivariate website testing program. 


School and a taste of the working world.

In college, I was a serial intern, working at a video startup in Boston as a Kauffman Entrepreneurial Fellow and two summers in GE leadership programs (GE Healthcare Technologies in Milwaukee and GE Corporate EMEA in Brussels, Belgium.)


I graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a major in Marketing, and I kept myself busy by leading the Entrepreneurship Club and running Adworks, the campus advertising agency.  During college, I was fortunate to have opportunities to study in Perth, Australia and in San Jose, Costa Rica.


Corn and startups?

I grew up in Granger, Indiana, miles from the I-80 (a reoccurring highway in my life).  My childhood is full of hilarious tales of entrepreneurship...ask me about my snow cone wagon, my newt-for-rent, or my domain name arbitrage businesses sometime!  To this day, I’m still fascinated with the ability that entrepreneurs have to create value and make the world a better place. 


As interested as I am in starting my own business someday, I realize that I have a lot to learn before I'd like to make a run for it myself.  Living in Silicon Valley, the center of it all, I’m trying to take in all that I can, meet great people and enjoy the ride.


A tiny horn toot...

  1.   Notre Dame McCloskey Business Plan Competition, "1st Place Undergraduate Team" (2002) and "Best Written Plan" (2003).

  2.   American Marketing Association, 1st place in national case study competition. Honorary board member of local chapter (2005).

  3.   Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, named "Student Leader of the Year" (2003).

  4.   ND Club Coordination Council, named "Notre Dame Student Leader of the Year" (2003).

  5.   Marketplace Business Simulations – 2nd place in the 2005 global business simulation competition.

  6.   Boy Scouts of America, Eagle Scout.  Led development of a local park.

  7.   Perfect attendance throughout high school (immune system of steel)


I love skiing, scrabble and waffles.

...and unusual fruit, green tea, Belgian beer, ND football, modern art, SEO, viral marketing, and start-ups!


Contact me.

I love to hear from old friends and people with similar interests.  Drop me a note.





© 2009 Francis Larkin

 

Fran around the web...

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