Apple Pay and platform modernization across a global brand portfolio
I led product delivery for Apple Pay on Aveda and later supported a broader order-management and payments modernization spanning 19 global brands.
Product Owner and Product Manager
19 global brands
10 people, including six engineers and three QA
$36M in annual revenue impact
The challenge
Estée Lauder was updating its order-management and payment infrastructure while keeping checkout, fulfillment, returns, and customer service working across a large brand portfolio. Each brand had its own priorities and launch timing, and several workstreams could be in development, QA, or launch preparation at the same time.
The work extended well beyond the payment button. A transaction needed to move correctly through authorization, fraud checks, order creation, fulfillment, refunds, reconciliation, loyalty, and customer support.
My role
I owned roadmap sequencing, backlog refinement, sprint planning, and delivery coordination for a 10-person core team. I worked across payments, fraud, finance and SAP, order management, database, transactional email, BOPIS, customer service, brand teams, and external partners.
My responsibility was to turn that complexity into work the team could deliver while keeping decisions, dependencies, and launch risks visible.
Key product decisions
Follow the full transaction
For Apple Pay, I brought finance IT, fraud, compliance, fulfillment, returns, and customer support into the work early. We validated authorization, capture, refunds, reconciliation, and downstream order handling across environments.
Sequence brands cleanly
When priorities changed, work close to completion was finished and newly started work was paused early. Current roadmaps, decisions, and dependencies made it possible to resume without unwinding rushed or half-complete work.
Make launch calls with evidence
When a performance concern surfaced before launch, I worked with engineering to understand frequency, affected flows, and customer impact. We moved forward with monitoring, alerts, and support readiness instead of allowing uncertainty to stall the launch.
A decision to leave work behind
During the OMS migration, we identified a low-frequency issue affecting PayPal self-service returns on the legacy platform. I reviewed support volume, confirmed the limited brand and customer exposure, and worked with engineering to verify that the new platform would resolve it.
I recommended against a temporary legacy fix. The team stayed focused on the migration, avoided duplicate engineering work, and resolved the issue through the new platform.
Outcome
Apple Pay launched successfully and became one of Aveda’s most-used mobile payment methods. The broader modernization spanned 19 global brands and supported $36M in annual revenue impact.
The program also created a more repeatable way to manage overlapping brand migrations, surface launch risks, and coordinate the teams responsible for the complete transaction lifecycle.
What this work reinforced
A checkout change is only complete when the customer experience and the systems behind it work together. Payment product decisions have to account for what happens after a customer taps the button, including fraud, order creation, fulfillment, refunds, reconciliation, and support.