Every now and again you are presented with an opportunity to take everything you’ve learned and apply it to a daunting new challenge. That was what led me to join the National Restaurant Association, my first not-for-profit organization, as Senior Product Manager, Career Development.

The Association had been trying, for years, to launch a new online training and certification product that was different from anything else in its portfolio. Though a lot of great foundational work, industry research and conceptualization had taken place, there was a lift to be done to “productize” the idea and bring it to market.

And, to add a twist or two and increase the difficulty of the dive, the Association decided the new product would also be the debut of an all-new technology ecosystem being developed to enhance the features, capabilities and user experience for all training products.

I did my best to hit the ground running, defining and documenting the product’s multi-faceted value proposition in the context of customer needs. That allowed me to quickly understand the market context for the product and collaboratively translate it into requirements that were used by our internal IT team and vendor developers to frame and prioritize the development roadmap.

And, as the product neared launch, I enjoyed reconnecting with my roots as a product manager to partner with Marketing and Sales on the go-to-market strategy and campaign. The journalism/English major in me delights in developing/writing/finessing marketing messaging. And the performer in me will always enjoy training Sales and others on the ins and outs of a product.

The product successfully launched in May 2019 … but, as any product manager will tell you, a product launch is just a milestone, and it’s when the “real” work truly begins. There is the ongoing iterative development work to polish the rough spots and continue growing the feature-set. And all this while the product is out in the world, engaging with customers in the marketplace and revealing the valuable reactions and feedback that will help shape the product line’s future.

It’s an exciting time for a product manager, and I’m always happy to be in the thick of it.

My first role with Pearson allowed me to combine the graphic design, writing and editing skills that I had cultivated earlier in my career with thinking more strategically from a target market perspective.

SkyLight Professional Development, at the time, focused primarily on marketing master's degree programs and graduate courses to K-12 teachers. 

At that time, the bulk of the work was print-based as I focused on writing, editing and designing direct mail pieces, brochures, flyers and trade show collateral. I got to dabble in creating email campaigns.

The highlight of this role was having the opportunity to be heavily involved in a major re-branding initiative focused on design and messaging cohesion across multiple product lines. I got to work closely with a third-party vendor hired to help with the initiative. 

Given some of the challenges faced with marketing professional development to institution-level customers, I was promoted to product manager in 2004 to help drive cross-functional conversations focused on aligning development priorities with our sales and marketing strategies. 

I added product line strategy responsibilities to my marketing role and began making regular and frequent trips to the Santa Monica, CA-based office where development was based. 

Tasked with leading by influence, I learned to leverage market research and analysis to better shape business cases and to infuse a stronger customer perspective into the development roadmap. Doing so, I was able to drive a market extension of the flagship products to create a smaller, more cost-friendly line that strategically fit better with the sales strategy. 

In late 2005, Pearson acquired Cambridge-based K-12 professional development provider Co-nect and merged it with LessonLab to create Pearson Achievement Solutions. Following the merger, I had the opportunity to design and direct a $50K market research project involving focus groups in Chicago, Boston and Dallas.

In early 2008 I made a lateral move from the professional development services business to Pearson's larger-revenue core curriculum business joining the science curriculum team as a Director of Product Management.

I was placed in charge of managing $40M-revenue legacy alternative and supplemental science curriculum product lines that included activity kits and legacy titles Pearson had acquired in previous years. 

My biggest priority was to lead the evaluation of potential third-party partners for providing supplemental activity kits in conjunction with the launch of Pearson's new K-8 science programs.

Inventory of certain components from the legacy titles were beginning to run low and, though obligated to support customers of those titles, Pearson wanted to avoid a large-scale re-printing and warehousing effort. I designed a online solution for replacing out-of-print components that preserved our obligation to legacy title customers while minimizing costs for Pearson.

I was hired by Pearson's Professional Development International group (later folded into Global Schools) to manage the development of a blended on-site and online professional development products focused on training K-12 teachers in global markets.

This role provided me with my first experience in managing a team virtually. I recruited, hired and supervised freelance staff spread across multiple countries spanning three different continents to build several professional development courses.

I worked with contributors based in the United States, Chile, Spain, Colombia to develop HTML5-based course content for deployment on a proprietary Pearson learning management system (LMS). 

After spending several years in roles with a development-heavy product management focus, I leapt at an opportunity to delve back into my Marketing roots for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) as Director of Marketing, Technical Solutions.

My role and the Technical Solutions team I managed were completely new within the HMH Marketing team. I relished the opportunity to direct a team of 4 full-time Marketing professionals. And the culture at HMH provided an opportunity to work cross-functionally to more effectively communicate the overall product strategy internally while ensuring customers understood the capabilities of our platforms and interoperability options. 

The Technical Solutions team was responsible for digital initiatives, including technical services, partnerships and alliances, website support, and renewals.

Taking direct responsibility for the platform marketing and communications strategies, I drove the go-to-market strategy for the launch of the next-generation HMH online learning system. New HMH programs in Social Studies and Science with a $45M revenue target are being deployed on the new system.

My team also developed and executed the website and email campaign strategy for the back-to-school implementation initiative.