Matthew Fouts Résumé

Program & delivery leadership

Leading complex commerce programs from strategy to launch.

I bring business, engineering, and operations together to deliver retail programs at scale.

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Open to Director-level roles · Remote, US

Matthew Fouts
Matthew FoutsProgram & delivery leader
800+ stores
Same Day Delivery on AE.com with DoorDash
30+ technical teams
Coordinated across the same-day delivery launch
50+ people
Across the four American Eagle teams I managed

Selected work

Commerce programs. New ways to shop.

Selected work at American Eagle Outfitters, Rural King and SensorTags.

What leaders say

From the people I have delivered with

“Matt possesses a unique blend of strategic thinking, attention to detail, and leadership skills…”

Prathap PrabhakaranSenior Director, Systems Engineering, who worked with Matthew at American EagleLinkedIn recommendation, May 2024

“…a solid track record of delivering highly cross-functional projects involving domestic and international teams…”

Andy DoddsSr. Director of Product Management, Inventory Planning & FulfillmentLinkedIn recommendation, May 2024

“He is experienced in managing complex programs with consistent, successful results.”

Nicholas MillerSenior Web Developer at Rural King, who reported to MatthewLinkedIn recommendation, Jan 2020

Read all eight recommendations on LinkedIn

How I lead

Clarity for complex work.

I connect business priorities, people and delivery.

AI in my daily work

I use Claude and ChatGPT daily for continuous improvement, automating repeatable work, and business analysis.

  • Make the plan clear

    Lead teams to execute priorities through pilots and manageable releases.

  • Get teams aligned

    Bring functions together around one plan. Surface trade-offs early.

  • Own the resources

    Lead people, budgets and partners with clear accountability.

  • Build delivery discipline

    Establish ways of working that support predictable delivery.

30+ teamsTechnical teams on Same Day Delivery
American Eagle
50+ peopleAcross four teams I managed
American Eagle
$3M budgetBudget I managed
American Eagle
Experience behind the approach

At American Eagle, I managed a $3M budget and four key teams across development, QE, performance and support. Same Day Delivery involved 30+ technical teams, from checkout to store operations and support.

At Rural King, I owned the ecommerce software-development budget, led 20+ developers and introduced Scrum. My experience also includes agency partnerships, statements of work and contract negotiation.

Credentials: Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Product Owner.

Experience

A career connecting strategy and delivery

American Eagle Outfitters

Senior Project Manager (contract)

Dec 2021 – Sep 2026

Global Inventory & Sourcing (2 teams) · Fulfillment & Engagement · Retail clothing imagery printed on demand

  • Led a 50+ person team across development, QE, performance and support that launched Same Day Delivery on AE.com with DoorDash to 800+ stores, working with 30+ technical teams from checkout to store operations and support.
  • Managed a $3M budget at American Eagle Outfitters.
  • Managed four key teams: two in Global Inventory & Sourcing, Fulfillment & Engagement, and Retail clothing imagery printed on demand.
  • My fulfillment team also launched American Eagle’s DoorDash Marketplace and TikTok Shop integrations, putting the brands on new channels.
  • Led development and quality engineers to execute the roadmap.
  • Took initiatives from ideation through pilot, prototype and operationalization with developers, architects, QA, data analysts and product managers.

Rural King Farm & Home

Lead Technical Project Manager

Jul 2017 – Mar 2020

Ecommerce · Charleston, Illinois

  • Project manager on the Magento Commerce replatform of RuralKing.com, which won Magento’s 2018 Imagine Excellence Award for Best-in-Class Fulfillment.
  • Created and launched Ship-to-Store, expanding from two distribution centers to 60+ stores, and rolled out Buy Online, Pick Up In Store to more than 110 stores.
  • Owned the ecommerce software-development budget, direct reports and evaluations; managed 20+ developers and brought Scrum to the team.
  • Moved ecommerce shipping from UPS to FedEx with the logistics director, and launched new site search, filters and pricing and stock rules with the UX team.
  • Worked with Magento’s Order Management team to improve the OMS against Rural King’s strategic goals.

Earlier

  • Customer Success DirectorSutrix Group

    2022, part-time

    Enterprise accounts including T-Mobile and Elastic Path: statements of work, client presentations, contract negotiation and escalations.

  • Lead Technical Project ManagerRural King Farm & Home

    Jul 2017 – Mar 2020

    Led the award-winning Magento Commerce replatform, launched Ship-to-Store across 60+ stores and Buy Online, Pick Up In Store at more than 110 stores, and managed 20+ developers.

  • IT ManagerJohns Dental Laboratories

    2016 – 2017

    VMware and Veeam infrastructure, Active Directory and Wi-Fi consolidation, and a company-wide knowledge portal with ticketing.

  • Project ManagerSensortags Inc.

    2011 – 2016

    Led programming, design and market-research teams on an ecommerce site grown through search and paid marketing; global sourcing and risk plans that cut costs.

  • Project ManagerFouts Ventures

    2007 – 2016

    More than 300 client websites, a call-center platform grown from 4 to 520 users, $20,000–$100,000 contracts, and domestic and international teams.

  • Founder and CEORose-Learning and Prof-desk

    2007 – 2011

    Tutoring and education-technology companies started while studying at Rose-Hulman.

Off the clock: tournament chess

Point of view

“AI can build the pieces. Someone still has to make sure they fit.”

I recently split a castle build for Valor MMO, a 3D MMO I’m developing in Unreal Engine 5.8, between six AI agents: keep, barracks, chapel, stables, courtyard and gatehouse. Every module passed its own validation. Put together, the buildings needed 3,256 units of width, and the castle ward had 2,800. Every agent succeeded. The project failed.

To resolve it, I widened the ward from 2,800 to 3,600 units and repositioned the buildings to preserve their clearances.

The valuable work is moving up a level: defining the architecture, managing dependencies, catching conflicting assumptions, deciding what should not be automated, and owning the final outcome. That is the Director’s job, and it is the one I want.

Read the post on LinkedIn

Off the clock

Tournament chess since 1996

Chess taught me to plan several moves ahead, look for the threat before it lands, and make sound decisions with the clock running. I still run programs that way.

Fouts vs. IM Nazar Firman 1–0

Masters and Future Masters, Philadelphia, June 2003 · Age 15 · Round 5

Pirc Defense: Classical Variation (B07) · 27 moves

Start position. Press play or pick a move.

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At 15, I defeated International Master Nazar Firman, rated 2505, in 27 moves. He earned the grandmaster title in 2011. Game score on chessgames.com.

  1. 2006

    Indiana state high school champion

    Four players tied for first in the high school section of the State Chess Tournament. At 18, I won the title on tiebreak, with the Teddy Jacobi $2,000 scholarship.

    Source: Tribune-Star, May 9, 2006

  2. 2004–06

    Three straight state team titles

    Won the Indiana state high school team championship three years running with Terre Haute South Vigo High School.

    Source: Tribune-Star, March 7, 2006 (the 2004 and 2005 titles)

  3. 2006

    National Junior Chess Congress winner

    At 18, I finished first individually in the 17–18 section, and first as a team with Terre Haute South Vigo High School.

    Source: Tribune-Star, March 7, 2006

  4. 2003

    At 15, beat IM Nazar Firman and Fabiano Caruana

    I scored 3 of 5 and gained 89 rating points at the Masters and Future Masters, a 10-player event in Philadelphia at the start of World Open week. I beat International Master Nazar Firman, who days later tied for first in the World Open, and 10-year-old Fabiano Caruana. He went on to challenge for the World Championship, win five U.S. championships and reach a peak rating of 2844, the third-highest in history behind only Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen. My only losses were to grandmasters Jaan Ehlvest and Pavel Blatný. The result earned me a Life Master-level norm.

    Sources: US Chess crosstable · saved copy of the crosstable · the Firman game · World Open results · Fabiano Caruana on Wikipedia

  5. Simuls

    Two draws with Hikaru Nakamura

    Both came in simultaneous exhibitions, where he takes on a room of players at once. I also attended the chess camps his family ran at their home in New York.

US Chess title
Candidate Masternorms-based
US Chess rating
2014peak 2070
FIDE rating
2123ID 2029006

Also president of the Rose-Hulman Chess Club.

Two wins at 15: Matthew Fouts beside Fabiano Caruana and Nazar Firman, the two titled players he beat at the Masters and Future Masters in Philadelphia, June 2003.

Masters and Future Masters, Philadelphia, June 27–29, 2003: tournament results on US Chess · saved copy of the results

Photos: Fabiano Caruana by Frans Peeters (CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped) · Nazar Firman by Stefan64 (CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped). This image is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Education and credentials

An engineer’s training, a manager’s toolkit

M.S., Engineering Management

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology · 2014

Supply chain management, technology management and forecasting, business law and accounting.

B.S., Engineering Physics

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology · 2010

Electrical engineering concentration. Undergraduate research on a femtosecond laser project at Rose-Hulman Ventures; student government senator.

Certifications

Verify on Scrum Alliance

Toolkit

Delivery

  • Program and portfolio management
  • Roadmap execution
  • Budgeting
  • Vendor and agency management
  • Agile and Scrum
  • Risk and change management

Commerce

  • Magento / Adobe Commerce
  • Order management (OMS)
  • Ship-to-Store and BOPIS
  • Carrier integration
  • Marketplace integrations
  • Site search and pricing rules

Tools

  • Confluence
  • Trello
  • Bitbucket
  • Slack
  • VMware and Veeam

Contact

Hiring a Director for program management, ecommerce or delivery?

I’m open to Director-level roles, remote across the US. Email is the fastest way to reach me.

Based in Terre Haute, Indiana.