Nico van der Merwe
VP of Product  ·  Head of Product  ·  Enterprise Software & Regulated Tech
Cape Town, South Africa
+27 82 795 7135
2nicohirsch@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/2nicovdmerwe
activeraccoon.com

Product and delivery leader with 10+ years building and scaling software products in regulated, high-stakes environments. I operate at the intersection of technical depth, user-centric design, and commercial delivery — moving quickly where it matters, and precisely where it counts.

My background spans enterprise software production, UX-driven product thinking, and leading cross-functional teams through complex, multi-vendor systems. I hold an MA in User Experience Design and an MBA, and I apply both deliberately: strategy earns nothing if the product doesn't work for the person using it.

Product Leadership Roadmap ownership, discovery-to-delivery, release governance, stakeholder alignment
Regulated & Enterprise Software Compliance-adjacent delivery, audit trails, high-reliability systems, enterprise SLAs
UX & Product Design User journey design, friction reduction, onboarding, conversion and retention thinking
Technical Fluency C#, C++, JavaScript; engineering trade-off analysis; credible collaboration with dev teams
Cross-Functional Leadership Teams of up to 18 across design, engineering, QA, and operations
Metrics-Driven Delivery Production analytics, performance reviews, continuous improvement culture
AI-Augmented Workflows Applied Claude and ChatGPT for process design, documentation, and productivity
Tools Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, Monday.com, Git, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365

Enterprise identity verification is one of the few product domains where getting it wrong has real-world consequences — for the person being verified, the business relying on the result, and the regulatory environment that governs both.

Orchestrating verification across multiple data sources, document types, and decision layers is a complex systems problem with a deceptively simple user-facing requirement: it must work, every time, without friction. That tension between backend complexity and front-end simplicity is exactly the kind of problem I am built for.

Having operated in iGaming — a regulated, high-throughput environment where compliance, identity, and fraud prevention are business-critical — I understand the operational reality of building products where trust is the core proposition. I know how enterprise clients think about risk, SLAs, and integration, and I know what it takes to deliver products that earn that trust consistently.

Going national means your product has to be right before scale makes any mistake permanent. That requires product leadership that is precise, structured, and unafraid to hold the line on quality. I take that seriously.

Founder & Studio Director  — Active Raccoon Studio
Cape Town / Remote  |  2024–Present
Founded and operate an independent software studio, owning all product, delivery, and technical decisions from concept through live operations.
  • Own the full product lifecycle: discovery, scoping, systems design, build, QA, release, and post-launch performance
  • Designed and shipped a mobile product with IAP monetisation, live leaderboards, analytics integration, and player engagement systems across Unity, build pipelines, and third-party SDKs
  • Applied AI tooling (Claude, ChatGPT) systematically across code generation, documentation, process design, and task automation — improving output velocity and quality
  • Built and directed external contributors across art, audio, and QA; defined briefs, quality gates, delivery milestones, and integration priorities
  • Operate with no room for ambiguity: every decision has a downstream consequence in a live product
Relevance Demonstrates end-to-end product ownership, technical delivery accountability, and the discipline required to ship software products that work for real users at scale.
Freelance Project, Program & Business Development Manager
Cape Town / Remote  |  2024–Present
  • Scope, plan, and deliver cross-functional projects for client organisations across multiple industries
  • Manage vendor relationships, timelines, budget tracking, and stakeholder reporting
  • Translate strategic intent into structured delivery plans, with clear accountability and milestone governance
Head of Studio  — Wonderlabz (iGaming Software)
Hybrid  |  2020–2023
Led studio operations and delivery governance for a regulated iGaming software business. Managed multi-disciplinary teams of up to 18 across product delivery, design, engineering, and QA.
  • Increased studio productivity by 36% while reducing operational costs by 18% through workflow redesign, process discipline, and metrics-led optimisation
  • Drove organisation-wide Agile adoption, redesigned delivery pipelines, and established production governance that improved throughput without sacrificing quality
  • Partnered with commercial and compliance stakeholders to ensure product delivery met regulatory requirements and enterprise client expectations
  • Built and sustained a high-performance team culture — recognised with the Culture Excellence Award (2021)
Relevance iGaming is a compliance-critical, regulated software environment with enterprise B2B clients who demand reliability, audit capability, and trust. Leading delivery at this level — with measurable results — maps directly to the demands of enterprise identity and verification products.
Head of Design  — Virtuality Live
On-site  |  2017–2020
  • Owned design strategy and UX direction across Unreal Engine and mobile digital products
  • Led cross-functional creative and technical teams, maintaining quality and schedule across complex, multi-stakeholder deliveries
  • Managed client relationships and translated business requirements into structured, deliverable product briefs
  • Supported by an Epic MegaGrant (2020) — a competitive award recognising technical and creative excellence
Senior Software Development Engineer  — Bla Bla Bla Studios
On-site  |  2016–2018
  • Developed mobile applications in C#, C++ and JavaScript using Unity and Pixi.js
  • Led front-end development, stakeholder requirements analysis, and release readiness
  • Contributed to QA processes, feature delivery, and cross-team technical communication
Technical Team Lead  — Ingenious VR
Hybrid  |  2014–2016
  • Led a VR/AR engineering team through full-cycle development across prototypes and production releases
  • Owned risk management, delivery planning, client communication, and technical innovation
  • Managed the complete build pipeline from brief through deployment
Games Manager & Senior Game Designer  — bored.com
On-site  |  2014–2015
  • Managed licensing, release planning, and third-party developer coordination for a high-traffic browser games platform
  • Used Google Analytics to drive iterative engagement and retention improvements through data-informed design decisions
Qualification Institution Year
MBA (Management) UNICAF University 2021–2022
MA User Experience Design Falmouth University 2021–2022
Postgraduate Diploma — Creative Application Development Falmouth University Awarded Sep 2020
Certificate — C# Game Development / 3ds Max Modelling Learn 3D Autodesk Centre 2014–2015
Google Project Management Professional Certificate Google
Google Cloud IAM & Networking for AWS Professionals Google
Culture Excellence Award Wonderlabz  ·  2021
Epic MegaGrant Epic Games  ·  2020  ·  Competitive award for technical and creative excellence
Top Lecturer Award City Varsity Cape Town  ·  2016
TEDx Belleville Speaker 2015

I have spent my career building things — not managing the appearance of building things. I am hands-on by instinct, structured by discipline, and direct by habit. I do not waste time on noise, and I do not let teams get comfortable with "good enough" when the product demands more.

I am drawn to companies where the work genuinely matters. A product that determines whether someone can access financial services, prove who they are, or participate in a national system is not a product you build carelessly. I want to be in the room where that standard is set and held.

References available on request.