My Journey to Product Management

Across my 10+ year career I have worked in strategy consulting @Deloitte, public health consulting @CHAI, and product management @Doximity and @Contra.

The College Years

I attended Denison University, a small liberal arts college in the quintessential town Granville, Ohio. While I never expected to spend 4 years of my life in Central Ohio, I wouldn't change it for the world. Not only does Denison have a beautiful campus atop a hill and some of my best friends / favorite memories, but the academics and opportunities were top-notch. We had small classes (I never attended a class with >20 students), esteemed professors, and programs to help guide you from the Liberal Arts realm to your career.

At Denison, I majored in Psychology and minored in Spanish. I had every intention to go into Social Work or nursing. Fast forward to a four-week Organizational Studies program (fancy word for business program) and I found myself immersed in the world of business. In October of my senior year, I landed a job with Deloitte Consulting in the Detroit office and the rest was history.

A Quick Break

My job at Deloitte was slated to start in the February after my graduation. I used this opportunity to take some time to explore the world. I spent ~5 months living in Barcelona, Spain, working as an au pair for a family with a five-year-old and 3-year-old. The goal was for them to learn English by being immersed in the language. It was an awesome opportunity to explore Barcelona (an incredible city) and travel across Europe. Highly recommend a gap time if you can make it happen.

Consulting 101

My years at Deloitte were some of the most challenging years of my career and while I don't want to do it again, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. The opportunity to work across multiple Industries, companies, and types of projects was like a MBA program wrapped in a few months. They use the term drinking from a firehose and it's very true - I felt like I learned a new skill, new framework, and new way of managing clients on a weekly basis. To highlight a few of my projects:

• Worked with a large State Government to build and launch a new agency that tackled the 1M+ cases of abuse & neglect in the state by establishing a call center and investigation process.
• Designed a method to measure Corporate Social Responsibility for the Fortune 500 and used this to support companies in better incorporating social impact.
• Supported a retail company (where the target demographic was tweens) to expand internationally (with a 10.5% market share over 5 years). Included understanding growth pricing models and the nuances of re-building a domestic company in the UK, Germany, and China.

The Kingdom of Eswatini

After ~3 years in consulting, I decided I wanted to take my experiences elsewhere. I took a job with the Clinton Health Access Initiative

.... to be continued