I started out as a research analyst at Nielsen, assessing the viability of bringing new consumer products to market - including A/B testing product concepts, ability to solve customer needs, price viability, and forecasting revenue opportunity.

While I didn’t realize it at the time, this experience (while for testing consumer products) gave me a formidable foundation in user research, understanding what makes a successful product, and preparing business cases for new products.

I then spent some time doing CPG Brand Management, which in retrospective is not unlike Software Product Management. I had ownership of a product line, set the product vision & strategy, used data and research to inform innovation, and worked cross-functionally to deliver on roadmaps, product innovation and re-design projects.

However, knowing my heart was in Technology, I knew Software Product Management was what I wanted to be doing long term. So I decided to first gain experience at a tech startup, as a step towards product management.

Changing industries, I took at Customer Success Manager job working for Label Insight, a retail tech startup. Because I had been in our customers’ shoes, I was able to deeply understand their use cases and emphasize with their challenges, while also needing to get my hands dirty in implementing data solutions. I worked with our largest Retailer & Government customers taking data feeds from us, and learned to work with databases, APIs, and collaborate cross-functionally with Product & Engineering.

After a year of working for with large customers doing API integrations, I had the opportunity to transition into a Partnership Manager role, including managing a large-scale inbound integration to support a new joint product offering.

I led go-to-market, including packaging, pricing, product marketing & sales enablement. I also worked in a business analyst capacity supporting Product Management by gathering product requirements and helping to report on progress towards an MVP & ultimately supporting the Product team through launch.

During my time in Customer Success & Partnerships, I had applied (and been turned down) for 3 Product Manager jobs at my company. Each time, we had more qualified candidates that received the job, but word had gotten around that I was interested in transitioning to Product, and people started to see me as a “product manager to-be”.

One day I received a call from our co-founder, who had been my boss and Chief Strategy Officer, and who had just taken the job of our CEO. He asked me if I was still interested in Product, and said he had been discussing with our Head of Product that they had the perfect role for me: Product Manager for a joint offering we had with NielsenIQ. I wouldn’t yet have a dev team, but I would be a part of the Product Team, and would be leading product strategy, pricing, packaging and go-to-market. I immediately said yes. Years later, this product became so successful, that NielsenIQ acquired Label Insight to ensure they could have exclusive rights to this use case.

After some time, a true Product Manager role (with a dev team) opened up on our Images team, and our head of product immediately offered me the job. In this role I gained invaluable experience as a Scrum Product Owner, working with engineering & design, and delivering on our product roadmap, as well as technical experience in integrations, applied data science, service APIs, catalog experiences, and more.

Eventually I moved into our Insights team where I led our Explore (Product Discovery & Marketplace) platform, and pioneered a brand new E-commerce (Search & Recommendations) solution.

In January 2021, I was promoted to a Senior Product Manager soon before NielsenIQ’s acquisition of Label Insight, due in large part to my products being a meaningful factor in the acquisition. I eventually received a 2nd XFN team of Engineering & Design, hired a Product Owner as a direct report for my growing team, and assumed responsibility for my former boss’s role of Supplier Product Lead - representing half of the Label Insight revenue & operating plan.

Under my leadership as Supplier Product Lead, our Supplier product revenue growth for the first time has exceeded our Retail business, our Explore solution has become our most repeatable product as a company, and we are now leading the company in realized revenue growth, with over 100% budgeted 3 Year growth in the business operating plan.