Most recently at LendingClub, I partnered with the Strategy team to evaluate the readiness of our technology platform as the company prepared itself to expand its product offerings and obtain a bank charter. We found that there was a lack of consistency in the way the company was capturing, storing, and managing customers’ personally identifiable information, and there was no system of record for authentication credentials or customer PII. The company would not be successful in obtaining a bank accreditation if these table stakes were not in place. Luckily, I identified two scrum teams within the tech platform organization that managed some key components and services we would need to solve this problem.

I pulled the teams together to create one larger team, and together we launched the One Lending Club Experience program, also known as One LC.

The One LC program stitched together a set of core technology platform services that enabled other business and product teams to provide well-informed, meaningful, and personalized solutions for LC members. One LC furnished teams across the company with customer identity data, account data, financial data, and login information, and provide one single consistent LC member snapshot- a "One LC view".

Goal

Enable the company and its business teams to successfully launch new product offerings and attain a bank charter by ensuring that key data are properly captured, stored, extractable per legal and compliance mandates.

Establish a centrally located system of record as well as an authentication service to better store, manage, and secure customer identity and account data throughout all stages of the member lifecycle.

Outcomes

Program improvements resulted in 40% decrease in customer data errors + $1.5-$2M in additional weekly loan issuance.

Launched end-to-end consumer-facing Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) program required by SEC for LC’s bank charter; provided customers with a safer account experience and reduced account security threats by 98%.

At LendingClub, I created the company’s very first content strategy, and I built the first website team. This team would go on to redesign the company’s entire website, launch a refresh of the company’s brand, and ship the company’s first content management system for internal stakeholders.

As Director of Product Management for Content and Website, I created a team that comprised two content managers and an Agile scrum team. I partnered with designers, researchers, and product managers across the business to set up a series of Test & Learn Cycles, the output of which would guide and inform our team with valuable insights and key health metrics. Test & Learn Cycles made it possible to roll out a high-performing new website and brand without compromising LC’s financial objectives.

Goal

• Increase conversion rates by 2%

Outcomes

• Exceeded goal within 6 months of launching MVP site; 4.5% increase in conversion

• Mobile optimized web component of project drove large portion of the 4.5% increase in conversion

• $250M in quarterly revenue increase with final go to market productized website redesign

• CMS introduced significant business efficiency for the Marketing teams; allowed LC to improve its SEO strategy

• New CDN / networking protocol which LC didn't have before. Dramatically improved LC web performance. Also required for mobile optimized web (MOW)

• Stood up LC’s first production level A/B test infrastructure, and replaced a homegrown testing tool with Optimizely

As Handpick's Director of Product Management, I provided my team with the vision and the strategy to deliver the ultimate ingredient and recipe app, as well as meal kits sold through online grocery retailers. Together, we created a proprietary ingredient-pairing technology platform that leveraged social media data insights to create meal kits that appeal to even the pickiest eater.

Some high-level accomplishments on Handpick's B2B and B2C products:

• Led and managed a team of content managers, designers, and product managers that are in charge of developing Handpick's B2B website, eCommerce products, recipe apps, and content pipeline

• Shipped the company's redesigned iOS app and first Android app, increasing user acquisition by 10x and engagement by 5x. The iOS app was named Best App in Food & Drink and was featured on the Homepage

• Analyzed social data insights to understand what influences consumer food consumption

• Led the ideation, strategy, and launch of Handpick's first eCommerce website, and subsequently helped launch similar eCommerce experiences for grocery retail partners

• Researched, designed, and implemented Handpick Smart Groceries, the company's first monetization strategy and revenue model based on creating meal kits that are designed around grocery retailers' SKUs/CPGs

• Reinvented Handpick's content strategy by creating an in-house production lab of original recipe and dish content, including meal kits, recipes, and various food editorial content, while maintaining the company's supplemental corpus of aggregated recipes and dish data

• Partnered closely with the Engineering and Data teams to devise a series of machine learning models and internal tools to analyze recipes, ingredients, and social food post data

At Polyvore, I was hired to be the first Product Manager in charge of Search, the Product Catalog data pipeline, and a new product, the Taste Graph. The Taste Graph was the core engine that calculated personalized recommendations for users based on their person style and tastes in fashion. I managed various engineers, data editors, and content managers in the areas of search, content, and data analysis. I enjoyed working cross-functionally with the Revenue, account management, and editorial teams, as well.

At Yummly, I led the product team that was responsible for all data and search features, including the recommendations platform, the recipe content pipeline, the ingredient dish taxonomies, and the semantic search functions on mobile and web. I was also the principle product manager responsible for launching the site's new data-driven browsing experience homepage, which features recipe categories based on the recipe metadata that was most important to users when they were looking for recipes. The redesign of the browsing experience increased on-site engagement by over 200% in the first quarter.

In addition to these consumer-facing features, I also led the strategy and creating the roadmap to build  internal tools for editing the recipe data graph that powered all of Yummly’s features.

Core Skills Applied: Product Management, UX, Information Architecture, Search Refinement, Information Retrieval, Data analysis, Machine Learning, NLP, Content management & Content Strategy.

While working on Foodily's Ingredient and Recipe Ontology, I conceived and implemented an exhaustive and scalable semantic map for the core product and maintained it throughout my time as a linguist, data editor and eventually as I became the company's first Product Manager. I worked closely with the engineering and marketing teams to develop a sophisticated search engine and content pipeline that was scalable, engaged users, and generated repeat traffic.

Throughout my product management career, I’ve partnered with engineers, software architects, data scientists, and information security experts to develop backend tools that are vital to running successful, profitable online businesses. In these cases, the customers are internal stakeholders like GMs, product teams, and executive leaders who need federated access to centrally located information and core services. The backend tools and services I've focused on are in the following categories:

1. Content Aggregation

2. Data Management

3. Security and Authentication

4. Content Management

5. Data Visualization