Topher leads Product Owners across ~10 Agile teams at Synchrony Financial (VP Digital Payments org, white-label credit cards). The day-job is opportunity cost — exit is Aspire-revenue-gated (~June 2027 financial gate). Active build: Rooster, the custom Copilot agent living in VS Code on the SyF laptop (Aria bootstraps via corporate-safe exports, then steps back — need-to-know only, no personal-stack details cross the wall). Domain thinking gets captured as shareable primers (emerging payments, agentic commerce).
Active Items
Synced from the Kanban boardWaiting on You
(1)SyF Second Brain — remaining interview parts
Parts 2-4 (Map, Rhythm, Synthesis) sequential; outputs stitch into OneNote + Rooster.
In Progress
(1)Rooster iteration — corporate-safe knowledge exports
Feed Rooster domain primers + role context via approved channels. Aria bootstraps, then steps back.
Blocked
(1)PiKVM over-the-shoulder build
V4 Plus — delivery/priority dependent.
Key People
Jaime Otten
Also at Synchrony — leads UX Research (household risk concentration)
Platforms & Tools
Rooster (VS Code + Copilot)
SyF laptop only. Corporate-safe exports from Aria bootstrap it.
SyF GPT + OneNote
Approved-tool surface for the second brain
Recent Events & Decisions
Emerging Payments domain primer shipped
Corporate-safe export for the Synchrony agent: card-product/tokenization model, wallet-provisioning map, Fiserv CWS context. /info/emerging-payments-domain-primer.
The Rotisserie Chicken Problem essay
Agentic-commerce emotional-buying argument — reframes the day-job agentic-commerce conversation. /info/agentic-commerce-emotional-buying.
Fiserv College World Series client event (Omaha)
Session notes + recap in the drawer; industry context feeds the primer.
Rooster built
Custom Copilot agent running in VS Code on the SyF laptop.
Pivot: SyF Second Brain over M3 Pilot
Compliance lift on on-prem capture outweighed ROI; approved-tools approach instead.
Memory Files (source of truth)
The markdown files Aria reads for deeper contextmemory/drawers/day-job/copilot-ide-research.md Research (2026-04-28) on GitHub Copilot in IntelliJ vs VS Code for Topher's non-coding SyF use cases (user stories, AC, business docs). Includes enterprise approval dynamics and alternatives.
memory/drawers/day-job/emerging-payments-domain-primer.md memory/drawers/day-job/fiserv-cws-omaha-2026-recap.md memory/drawers/day-job/fiserv-cws-omaha-2026.md memory/drawers/day-job/full-context.md Complete synthesis of all four SyF Second Brain interview parts (Foundation, Map, Rhythm, Synthesis). The single M4-only source of truth for Topher's day job at Synchrony Financial. M4-only — never export in full.
memory/drawers/day-job/jaime-rovo-agent-discovery.md Side task — Topher building ROVO agents for Jaime's UX research org. Discovery interview prompt drafted 2026-04-29; awaiting Jaime's session export to spec the agent portfolio.
memory/drawers/day-job/jaime-rovo-discovery-output.md Verbatim markdown export from Jaime's Claude Chat (Haiku) discovery interview, 2026-04-29. Source for the agent specs in jaime-rovo-agents/.
memory/drawers/day-job/overview.md Canonical drawer surface. Role depth lives in full-context.md + interview-outputs/ (per the Greeter map).
memory/drawers/day-job/pikvm-setup.md CLOSED 2026-04-22. PiKVM V4 Plus ordered but never opened — returning to pishop.us. Use case superseded by Rooster (VS Code + GitHub Copilot + local git repo on company laptop).
memory/drawers/day-job/second-brain-m3.md CLOSED 2026-04-22. Pilot paused 2026-04-21 (compliance lift too heavy vs. ROI); fully closed 2026-04-22. Superseded by Rooster (VS Code + GitHub Copilot + local git repo). M3 stack remains built but on hold.
memory/drawers/day-job/syf-interview-part-1-foundation.md Self-contained Claude Chat prompt covering Sections 1-3 (How I Work, Role & Scope, Org Context). First of four parts. Canonical copy source is cc.madebyotten.com/info/syf-second-brain.
memory/drawers/day-job/syf-interview-part-2-map.md Self-contained Claude Chat prompt covering Sections 4-5 (The 10 Agile Teams, Active Initiatives). Requires Part 1 output pasted in. Canonical copy source is cc.madebyotten.com/info/syf-second-brain.
memory/drawers/day-job/syf-interview-part-3-rhythm.md Self-contained Claude Chat prompt covering Sections 6, 9, 10 (Recurring Work, Outputs I Produce, Key Relationships). Parts 1 & 2 outputs pre-embedded (ran 2026-04-21 — no manual paste needed). Canonical copy source is cc.madebyotten.com/info/syf-second-brain.
memory/drawers/day-job/syf-interview-part-4-synthesis.md Self-contained Claude Chat prompt covering Sections 7, 8, 11-15 (Friction final consolidation, Tools, Calendar, Current AI Usage, Compliance, Career/Runway, Misc). Parts 1, 2, and 3 outputs all pre-embedded — zero manual paste required. Canonical copy source is cc.madebyotten.com/info/syf-second-brain.
memory/drawers/day-job/syf-second-brain-overview.md Topher's plan to build a portable AI second brain inside SyF-approved tools (OneNote + SyF GPT + GitHub Copilot when approved). Pilot on M3 paused 2026-04-21 in favor of this approach.
memory/drawers/day-job/synchrony-pay-moonshot.md UniFi → Synchrony Pay rebrand + multi-channel checkout vision. The moonshot Topher carries alone across two trains. 100% politically blocked. Retention-linked — if the Second Brain can't land a polished visual case, he may let it go and exit. M4-only.
memory/drawers/day-job/synchrony.md Topher's Senior Train Leader role at Synchrony — Emerging Payments train, direct reports, manager/skip chain, key PM partners, exec stakeholders, political dynamics. M4-only.
memory/drawers/day-job/full-context.md Primary role context (per the Greeter drawer map)
memory/drawers/day-job/interview-outputs/ SyF interview outputs — most recent loads with the drawer
memory/drawers/day-job/jaime-rovo-agents/ Jaime ROVO agent specs (intake / synthesis / quarterly-digest)