KH

Hi, I’m

Kaariz Hussain

Operations & Project Coordinator

I keep events, vendors, budgets, and customer communication moving — with 4+ years of hands-on experience coordinating daily operations and improving the processes behind them. When a process needs software that doesn't exist, I build that too.

View My Work Contact Me

At Pop In! Playspace & Cafe, 2021–2025

01 — About

A little about me

I'm an operations and project coordinator with 4+ years running concurrent events, vendor relationships, and budgets in fast-paced, client-facing environments.

The pattern in how I work: run the process, find where it's quietly costing everyone time, then build the fix. Usually that means SOPs, trackers, and training. Sometimes it means software — which is how Prospect happened. I watched job-search tracking fall apart across spreadsheets and inboxes, so I shipped a free tracker to fix it. I use AI tools daily to move faster on both.

  • Based inNew Rochelle, NY
  • FocusOperations & Project Coordination
  • CurrentlyOpen to opportunities
  • ToolsNotion · Google Workspace · Claude

02 — Experience

Where I've worked

  1. 2021 — 2025

    Lead Operations Coordinator · Pop In! Playspace & Cafe

    • Ran day-to-day operations for a children's indoor playspace and café, coordinating 2 to 5 events per week end to end and serving as the primary point of contact for 70+ monthly client and vendor communications.
    • Negotiated vendor contracts that delivered a 10% year-over-year reduction in operating costs while managing invoicing, budget tracking, and reimbursements.
    • Built a tracker toward the end of my time at Pop In! that identified vendor price increases.
    • Wrote the SOPs and playbooks used by staff, trained approximately 8–10 new hires on procedures, and followed up to verify adoption and correct gaps.
    • Rebuilt the client booking and communication workflow: edited AI-drafted templates, documented the workflow for the team, and trained staff on it. I estimate it saved 5+ hours of administrative work per week. Read the case study ↓
    • Managed the owner's day-to-day calendar alongside the venue booking calendar, prepared materials for vendor and staff meetings, and tracked action items through completion.
  2. 2017 — 2022

    Sole Operator · Independent E-Commerce

    Generated $10,000+ in annual profit operating a multi-platform resale business across Depop, Grailed, and eBay, managing 1,000+ transactions in total, independently.

03 — Work

Selected projects

Each project is labeled by what it is: a workplace result, a launched product, a working prototype, a concept, or an analysis of sample data. Select one to read more.

The Nickel and Dimed live demo, on sample data: a monthly bill that rose 281% on an unchanged unit price, and $2,190 in modeled annualized price increases across three vendors, with a label marking the figure as modeled.
Live demo, on sample data: a 281% bill rise on a flat unit price, and $2,190 in modeled annualized price increases.Dashboard on sample data: $2,190 in modeled annualized price increases.

Nickel and Dimed — case study

Takeaway. On sample data it identified $2,190 in modeled annualized price increases, and correctly ignored a 281% bill spike that was only a bigger order.

The problem

At Pop In! I negotiated vendor contracts by hand and cut operating costs about 10% year over year. This is that job, automated: hand it a messy vendor spend export and it finds which vendors quietly raised prices.

What it found (modeled data)

  • Party pizza · Tony's Pizza Co. — $34 → $37 (+8.8%), Mar 2024$1,263 modeled annualized · high confidence
  • Balloon arch · Party Time Balloons LLC — $43 → $47 (+9.3%), Dec 2023$508 modeled annualized · high confidence
  • Whole bean coffee, 5 lb · Roast House Coffee Co. — $50.06 → $58.43 (+16.7%), Sep 2025$419 modeled annualized · medium confidence (two observations)

Annualized impact is the per-unit increase times a year of quantity: what each increase would cost if it held. The increases themselves are modeled, so these figures show what the method finds, not costs or savings anyone realized.

What it didn't flag

A decor supplier's monthly bill rose 281% and raised no alert, correctly: its unit price never changed, the business just ordered more. Telling those two cases apart is the point of the project.

About the data

The dataset is a synthetic reconstruction, not a financial record. The vendor list, unit costs, party volume, and which vendors raised prices come from running Pop In!; the exact dates, amounts, quantities, and size of each increase are modeled, because the original records weren't accessible. Vendor names are anonymized.

Open the live demo → Read the code → Link to this project
Three screens from the PartyPal prototype: choosing a party package with prices shown up front, adding extras as toggles, and an itemized booking summary with a $100 deposit due today and the balance due at the party.
Prototype screens: choose a package, add extras, review the itemized summary.Prototype summary screen: itemized total, $100 deposit today, balance at the party.

PartyPal — case study

Takeaway. A design concept with a clickable prototype. It isn't a launched product, and I'm not claiming measured results.

The problem

Parents booking a birthday for under-fives hit opaque pricing and a string of back-and-forth calls just to lock in a date. Stressful for families, and a constant interruption for the staff fielding the calls.

My contribution

Product design end to end: UX, UI, and the prototype. iOS, mobile-first.

Key decisions

  • The price is shown up front and as a running total at every step, so the cost is never a surprise
  • One guest stepper instead of a confusing "additional kids" add-on: 10 included, $15 each after, capped at 30
  • A $100 deposit to hold the date; full payment isn't due until the party

What I learned

MVP scope is easiest to define when it's anchored to a concrete business need.

View the full case study (PDF) → Link to this project
The opening slide of the Open Loops case study: “Somebody promised something. Nobody followed up.” in white and an amber-to-rose gradient on black.
Opening slide of the 16-slide case study.

Open Loops — case study

Takeaway. Follow-up tracking for assistants: it finds commitments nobody owns, shows whose move it is, and ranks what is slipping.

Problem
Commitments made in passing in Slack, with nobody tracking them.
What it does
Finds them, shows whose move it is, ranks them by urgency, and drafts the follow-up. You send it; the tool never does.
Prioritization
Someone waiting on you never drops off today's list. Your own overdue items fade after three days.
Status
Working prototype, running every evening on my own workspace. Not yet tested by independent users.
Read the case study (16 slides) → Read the code →

Under the hood

Detection is plain rules, not a model. A model only fetches the messages and posts the result, and it drafts the nudge but never sends it. The same messages always produce the same digest, so every bug can be reproduced.

The worst bugs were silent: a bare "Attached." used to close every open promise in a thread. The rule now is that anywhere it can't tell, it says so.

Link to this project
Prospect's home screen, showing a job-search board that counts the days since each employer last replied.
Prospect's home screen: a board that counts the days since each employer last replied.

Prospect — case study

Takeaway. Evidence of initiative and execution: a problem, a build, and a public launch.

The problem

A job hunt ends up spread across spreadsheets, inboxes, and memory, and applications go quiet without anyone noticing.

What I built

A full-stack tracker (React, Node.js, Supabase) with a multi-stage pipeline, real-time status, a dashboard, and CSV export. It counts the days since anyone last replied, flags what has stalled, and drafts the follow-up. It offers Gmail import, and you can start without an account.

How I prioritized

I held new features to one test: does it remove work someone would otherwise redo by hand?

Status

Live and public. A few friends have used it.

Try Prospect → Link to this project

Additional project

FairPost — case study

Takeaway. A written product concept and PRD: the problem, the MVP, and the risk I'd watch most closely.

The problem

A "Junior Project Coordinator" role asked for 3–5 years' experience, a PMP certification, and advanced Excel — for a job that was really scheduling meetings and updating status reports. A strong candidate read it, assumed they weren't qualified, and never applied. The company never knew why.

The MVP

  • Requirement Splitter — forces every requirement into must-have vs. nice-to-have, so teams see when they're over-filtering.
  • Bias Detector — flags gender-coded and elitist language, with plain reasons and alternatives.
  • Fairness Score — one 0–100 signal across language, requirements, transparency, and readability.

The risk I'd lose sleep over

That FairPost becomes a compliance shield — a high score that lets companies look fair on paper while biased hiring continues behind it. My guardrail: track downstream hiring outcomes, not just posting quality.

What I learned

An AI product's success has less to do with model quality than with whether it changes human behavior. The real challenge isn't intelligence — it's placement in the workflow, incentives, and enforcement.

View the full deck (PDF) → Link to this project

04 — Skills

What I bring

Operations & Coordination

  • Project planning & execution
  • Vendor & contract management
  • Event coordination
  • Budget tracking & invoicing
  • Client & stakeholder communication
  • Documentation & process improvement
  • Onboarding & training

Tools

  • Microsoft Office
  • Google Workspace
  • Notion
  • Slack
  • Canva
  • Claude
  • ChatGPT
  • Jira (coursework)

Technical, project-based

  • SQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • React & Node
  • Supabase
  • Claude API
  • AI-assisted workflow automation

05 — Education & Certifications

Credentials

06 — Contact

Let's talk

Have a project, a role, or just want to say hi? My inbox is open.

kaarizh@gmail.com