Where I come from

My favourite ice breaker question to ask is, "what is the weirdest job you've ever had?"

It's a hard one for me to answer. I've done more weird jobs than I can think of - including things like running the Provincial Fencing Championships as a teenager, or my first management role - leading a team of students making beds in university dorm buildings during the summers.

Tech isn't my first career. I came to the industry more than a decade ago sort of by accident, after finishing a BFA and spending some time in the non-profit sector, where I ran large-scale events. I used to be the person skulking in the background, wearing mirrored sunglasses and an earpiece radio, and checking timing points on a clipboard. I have a natural affinity for organization and project management, and events work was the continuation of the skills I built as a teenager organizing fencing tournaments.

When I started working in software, I discovered that there was actually a surprising amount of overlapping skills between managing events and managing products. Instead of negotiating permit requirements and fine-tuning vendor setup plans, I was figuring out what the scope and sizing would be on features, and what customers would tolerate, love, or pay for. Many of the principles followed over: communicate clearly, know what's important, focus on the goal.

What I do best

My specialization as a product manager is in uncomplicating messy problems.

I love to dig into how and why something poses an challenge, and I love spitballing with my partners in engineering and desing on how we might creatively solve it. My unique strength is my ability to tease apart all of the requirements and communicate them clearly and comprehensibly. I can help almost any audience understand how something works, why it's hard to get right, and what we can do about it.

I would love to use these skills with your team. If you're interested in someone who can help you unravel your difficult problems and weave all the threads back together neatly, then let's connect.