Ben Kroft — Résumé
Senior Product Manager | Enterprise platforms and data products
Knoxville, Tennessee.
More than eight years across product, UX, and software delivery. Leads enterprise platforms supporting more than eight billion gallons of annual fuel sourcing, combining product strategy, research, data-platform fluency, and AI-assisted prototyping.
Pilot Company
Senior Product Manager
September 2024–present
Product Manager
June 2023–September 2024
- Portfolio leadership: promoted after 15 months. Owns strategy and roadmap for supply planning, graph optimization, price management, and logistics integrations supporting more than eight billion gallons of annual fuel sourcing.
- Forecasting and capacity: designed and delivered a Google Maps-based capacity-management product with a seven-person team alongside a new sales forecast. After the July 2025 rollout, the combined products improved execution versus plan by $0.0011 per gallon, normalized for market conditions, adding $10M in gross profit over the following 12 months.
- Forecast accuracy: a Meta Prophet model on Databricks, trained on two years of history, replaced a six-week rolling average and reduced MAPE from 28% to approximately 13%. Ben led discovery, requirements, data-engineering coordination, and downstream optimization changes.
- Price management: leads product direction for a 17-person delivery team and data-engineering partners building a greenfield suite and Databricks Lakebase engine for hundreds of thousands of daily prices from market APIs, rack feeds, and AI-enabled email capture.
- AI-assisted discovery: built a React prototype with Figma Make and Claude to validate workflows across Supply, Wholesale, Logistics, Billing, Accounting, and Pricing. The business case projected processing in minutes instead of up to an hour and elimination of a six-figure annual software license.
Sources and details
individual contribution
Bencin: UX Designer to Senior UX Designer, 2018–2022; Product Owner, 2022–June 2023. Pilot: Product Manager, June 2023–September 2024; Senior Product Manager from September 2024.
Ben Kroft
individual contribution
Ben built a functional React prototype using Figma Make and Claude to validate workflows across Supply, Wholesale, Logistics, Billing, Accounting and Pricing. It supported an approved price-management business case.
Ben Kroft
team outcome
Pilot replaced a six-week rolling average with a Meta Prophet model on Databricks trained on two years of history, reducing forecast MAPE from 28% to approximately 13%. Ben led business discovery, requirements, data-engineering coordination and downstream optimization changes.
Product, modeling and data-engineering team
individual contribution
At Pilot, Ben owned strategy and roadmap for supply planning, graph optimization, price management and logistics integrations supporting over eight billion gallons of annual fuel sourcing.
Ben Kroft
individual contribution
The résumé describes Ben leading product direction for a 17-person delivery team and data-engineering partners building a greenfield price-management suite and Databricks Lakebase calculation engine for hundreds of thousands of daily prices from market APIs, rack feeds and AI-enabled email capture.
Ben Kroft
team outcome
Ben designed and delivered a Google Maps-based capacity-management product with a seven-person team alongside a new sales forecast. Following the July 2025 rollout, the combined products added $10M in gross profit over 12 months and improved execution versus plan by $0.0011 per gallon after market normalization.
Combined forecasting and capacity products and delivery team
projection
The approved price-management business case projected processing in minutes instead of up to one hour and elimination of a six-figure annual software license.
Business case supported by Ben’s functional prototype
Bencin Studios
Product Owner
2022–June 2023
UX Designer → Senior UX Designer
2018–2022
- Promoted twice from the agency’s first design specialist and fifth employee to Product Owner as the company grew to approximately 20 employees. Owned discovery, requirements, backlogs, estimates, proposals, and delivery across three to four concurrent client engagements and teams of up to four.
- Led end-to-end UX in Figma for a five-person team building a Microsoft HoloLens training and communications prototype for a NASA subcontractor, enabling remote coaching through complex aerospace procedures.
Sources and details
individual contribution
Ben was Bencin’s first design specialist and fifth employee, progressed through Senior UX to Product Owner as the company grew to approximately 20, and owned discovery, requirements, backlogs, estimates, proposals and delivery across three to four concurrent client engagements with teams of up to four.
Ben’s product and UX work within delivery teams
individual contribution
Ben led end-to-end UX in Figma for a five-person team developing a Microsoft HoloLens training and communications prototype for a NASA subcontractor, supporting live remote coaching through complex aerospace procedures.
Ben’s UX direction within the five-person team