About Tony

Learn more about me as a person, outside of work. Learn more about my personal view on life, my likes, dislikes, and much more.

Who?

About Tony Pagliocco

Welcome, I hope you find your time here well spent.

I’m Tony Pagliocco and I currently live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I moved to the UAE from Seattle, WA, USA in Dec of 2020. I’m currently the Senior Vice President of Product Management at Aldar, where I lead the Aldar Groups product management teams to help lead the discovery and delivery of amazing products that create amazing experiences for those who purchase, live, or invest in the Aldar ecosystem.

I’m originally from Boston, MA and I went to Arizona State University where I got my degree in Computer Science. I’ve worked in a number of different industries in my career but always doing similar work, which is finding the problem, identifying the solution, and delivering it with success to our users.

Outside of work, I’m an active member of the Rotary Club International of Dubai, and I volunteer as an advisor to start-ups and ProductME, a Dubai based product management community.

Early Days

My Early Years

Growing up, I was big into athletics and school, and in high school, wrestling was my passion. As I went to college, I kept my passion for wrestling but also that is where I found my love for gaming and a new thing in 1995 called, “The Internet”. I originally was majoring in Exercise Science to be a Chiropractor and a wrestling coach, but one sprint break, I found myself drawn to the complexity of the internet and after learning how to build my first website, I changed my major to computer science and never looked back after that.

Breaking In

How I got into Product

In my early career, I was a software engineer, working mostly in PHP and Javascript, but it was one of my early jobs at SheKnows.com, I went from “cooking the food” to “designing the menu” and this became my first taste of driving amazing user experiences via the digital products my teams would bring to market. It is here, I can confidently say that moving into product management, before it was popular, was a blessing because it gave me foundational knowledge that helps me to this day, help steer teams to understanding the art of product and it’s value, instead of just building features.

Recreation

My Hobbies and Interests

Strategy

Chess

As a gamer, I love the strategic aspects of chess. You can find me on chess.com as pagliocco.

learning

Coding

I love learning how to build new things to keep my game sharp and help automate my life.

battling

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Being a long time wrestler, it’s the closest thing I can do for that 1 on 1 battle type activity.

knowledge

Reading

I don’t read as much as I want, but I love being to bury myself in a book and come out refreshed.

mentality

Philosophy

I’m an avid fan of Stoicism and I try to employ it’s activities, like journaling, into my daily life.

social

Networking

I love meeting new people, growing my network, and being able to grow from the diversity.