Oct 2025 – Present · 6 mos · New York City Metropolitan Area · On-site

• I’m building something new focused on helping people reconnect to themselves and each other. We sit at the intersection of spirituality, self-discovery, and human connection.
• Our mission is simple: to bring emotional intelligence, reflection, and curiosity into the fabric of daily life through intuitive, design-led experiences.
• We’re backed by AlleyCorp and building our founding team.
• Learn more or join us: www.getlora.com, or email me at michelle@getlora.com

Jan 2024 – Present · 2 yrs 3 mos · New York City Metropolitan Area

• Product Advisor to founding team helping with all things growth, retention and monetization.
• The social app empowering home cooks. Because every chef deserves an audience 🌶
• 1M+ downloads
• iOS App of the Day (2/19/22)
• High of Top 25 in iOS Food & Drink
• As seen on Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars
• https://www.peppertheapp.com/

Aug 2023 – Oct 2025 · 2 yrs 2 mos

• Fast Company Most Innovative Companies 2024 (social media)
• https://www.fastcompany.com/91038197/social-media-most-innovative-companies-2024
• Apple App of the Day 2024 & 2025
• 1.5M+ Downloads
• Joined Co-Founders Jen and Kel as Founding Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder. Lead the Product, Design and Engineering teams working to build the best LGBTQ+ community app for people of all Queer shapes and sizes to find friends, their next roommate, pickup soccer league, kombucha scoby, or maybe even love of their life. At Lex we believe that every space can be a queer space and we want to help the queer community bridge the URL and IRL worlds one connection at a time.
• Helped raise $6M+ seed round, grew the app to 1.5M+ downloads, $1M ARR and successfully led the acquisition of Lex to 9Count (founded by ex-Musical.ly/TikTok co-founder & CEO).

Jan 2023 – Aug 2023 · 7 mos

• Worked with the co-founders to help create strategy, goals, metrics and execution plans as a part-time advisor (few hours/wk) + some fun product & strategy workshops.
• https://www.lex.lgbt/

Mar 2023 – Jul 2023 · 4 mos · New York City Metropolitan Area · Remote

• As Product School’s first-ever Executive in Residence, I was brought on to reimagine and rebuild their flagship Product Leadership Certification (PLC) program from the ground up. I drew on 15+ years of product leadership experience across top consumer tech companies — including Hinge, Netflix, Spotify, and Kayak — to design a best-in-class curriculum tailored to the real challenges faced by today’s product leaders.
• Product School is a global product management education company that provides training, mentorship, and career development services to aspiring and experienced product managers. Their instructors come from leading companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon, and the programs focus on delivering practical, hands-on learning in areas like product strategy, UX, analytics, and agile methodologies.

Jan 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 3 mos

• Advisor to the founding team focused on areas across Growth, Product and Monetization strategies.
• Beyond is a new dating and community app for modern relationships, defined as honest, intentional, and inclusive of all relationship styles.
• https://www.datebeyond.co/

Aug 2022 – Jan 2026 · 3 yrs 5 mos

• Sky's The Limit is a non-profit that connects underrepresented entrepreneurs with corporate mentors, funding, and learning opportunities on their road to launching and growing a business.
• https://www.skysthelimit.org/about

Aug 2021 – Jan 2024 · 2 yrs 5 mos · New York City Metropolitan Area

• Product Mentor for First Round Capital's Mentorship Program Fast Track (S12, S14 and S15)
• Fast Track is built on the belief that when you tap into the wisdom and generosity of a community, incredible things happen. Learn more here: https://fasttrack.firstround.com/about-the-program#faq

May 2021 – Dec 2022 · 1 yr 7 mos

• I led the product, design, and research organizations at Hinge across Growth, Monetization, Core Experience, Algorithms, Trust & Safety, and Lifecycle. During my tenure, the company grew from ~70 to over 350 employees and tripled both daily active users and revenue in under two years.
• I oversaw full end-to-end localization of the app into 30+ global markets and redefined our monetization strategy — launching a second subscription tier, implementing dynamic pricing, and introducing weekly packages.
• I also spearheaded the platform’s generational shift, successfully growing Gen Z adoption and expanding the audience mix by 160%. Under my leadership, Hinge became the fastest-growing dating app globally and the second most downloaded app in Europe.

Dec 2020 – May 2021 · 5 mos

Jan 2021 – Jan 2025 · 4 yrs

• Individual Scout with Pillar VC
• Current investments include: Wagr (acquired by Yahoo Sports), Entree, Ari
• Reach out if you have interesting businesses that you are working on, I'd love to chat!
• https://www.pillar.vc/

Jun 2019 – May 2021 · 1 yr 11 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

• Developed, owned and executed overall product strategy, roadmap and business for Kids & Family across TV, mobile and Web globally; Partnered directly with content, marketing, ratings, public policy and creative production/studio organizations to create a unified strategy across the Netflix Kids & Family global business.
• Leveraged consumer insights and data analysis to identify big opportunities for the Netflix Kids & Family business, prioritized features and enabled teams to execute on the vision.
• Led a complete overhaul to our parental controls features and worked directly with policy and insights to present our research and tools at roundtables with government and advocacy organizations across the globe, including FOSI, EU Commission, and UKCCIS.

Jan 2018 – Apr 2019 · 1 yr 3 mos · Boston, Massachusetts

• Led strategy and roadmap for three machine learning/data engineering squads focused on building out our personalization and recommendations platform. Scaled the system to accelerate innovation across the company, including marketing, curation, and cross-company product organizations.
• Partnered with teams across Spotify to leverage our recommendation models to create personalized listening experiences, such as Daily Mix, Family Mix, Your Year in Review, and Discover Weekly.
• Projects Included: Duo & Family Plan, Cold Start for New Users, Shared Listening Algo (now powers Blend), Group / Layered Recommendations, Discovery Recommendations

Oct 2015 – Jan 2018 · 2 yrs 3 mos · Cambridge, MA

• Hired as Kayak’s 4th PM. Defined product strategy and oversaw roadmap for the Hotel product experience across search, results page, map, and check out for both mobile and web platforms; Collaborated with global cross-functional stakeholders to inform product direction and strategy for the Hotel metadata, algorithm, ads, and SEO teams.
• Partnered with design, product and marketing to drive a full-scale, cross-platform product redesign and rebranding; Successfully launched desktop redesign within a 2-month deadline and released all mobile platforms within 3 months.
• Spearheaded the launch of two new verticals – Cruises and Vacation Rentals – including product research, strategy, market positioning and globalization.
• Worked with data scientists and search engineers to define personalized experiences using machine learning to build our results page algorithms.
• Defined and executed product enhancements using A/B testing and data driven decision making, leading to increased engagement and revenue.

Mar 2014 – Sep 2015 · 1 yr 6 mos · Boston, Massachusetts

• Led full-cycle agile product development from ideation to implementation for the MindTap Platform (mobile and web); served as Product Leader for 3 scrum teams managing platform enhancements, maintenance and new product development
• Defined and managed product requirements and translated into product roadmap, story maps and software development goals utilizing market and sales feedback, user testing/research and competitive analysis. Developed functional specifications using UX mockups, workflows and technical descriptions to clearly detail new feature requirements to analyst and development team
• Managed development projects and release timelines and communicated to sales and marketing to ensure all new feature development was disseminated across the larger organization and individual product groups
• Triaged and prioritized issues with QA and responded to front line escalation issues in order to ensure alignment with product requirements and quick response and remedy to any production issues

Jun 2013 – Mar 2014 · 9 mos

• Led full-cycle agile product development, with a focus on user facing in-app features and reporting, and oversaw a team of eight engineers (both on and off-site team members) to build an eLearning application (Common Core System of Courses) for tablets on iOS
• Successfully helped facilitate the development and launch of the eLearning application into the Apple Store marketplace and managed on-site deployment to over 50,000 end users in the LA Unified School District (overall client scope to exceed 500,000 end users)
• Led and collaborated with cross-organizational teams of software developers, project managers, UX designers and content producers to establish product and project requirements, deployment schedules, resource staffing and release outcomes
• Defined and managed product requirements and translated into a product roadmap, story maps and software development goals. Developed functional specifications using UX mockups, workflows and technical descriptions to clearly detail new feature requirements
• Collaborated with five other product owners to identify cross-team dependencies and project trends that required remediation and developed remediation plans with development teams and stakeholders prior to development sprints
• Solved cross-platform UI and functional design problems with the team and conducted QA Testing to clearly document breaks and bugs to ensure final product quality and design fidelity

Mar 2013 – Dec 2013 · 9 mos

• Gathered business and system requirements, created detailed workflows for 4 unique web applications with over 26 million users combined and created technical documentation to inform enhancements with prioritization for key stakeholders resulting in a 5 million dollar savings in customer technical support
• Conducted a full-scale business analysis of customer experience across the search, discovery, purchase and registration flow for Pearson's Higher Education portfolio of digital products across 4 different platforms and created documentation to inform enhancements and prioritization
• Collaborated with UX designers and a business architect to develop use cases, personas and the voice of the customer; Analyzed and improved product workflows for the companies next-generation product solution
• Participated in an executive selected team responsible for a full-scale redesign of Pearson 24/7 Customer Support website using analytics and information gleaned from the full-scale business and product analysis

May 2012 – Mar 2013 · 10 mos

• Alleyoop was a Pearson Incubated Start-up
• Spearheaded research projects focused on customer discovery, competitive landscape and user experience, conducted primary field interviews with target audience, evaluated qualitative and quantitative data, and communicated analysis to team in order to help inform product development and design
• Created a system of partner evaluation, including a scorecard and metrics, and used data to evaluate, inform and execute strategic partnerships and content acquisition
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams in product, marketing, curriculum and data to design and build an online learning platform using the agile development process
• Leveraged content expertise to review and edit Alleyoop’s science curriculum to create engaging, viable learning paths and aligned digital content to learning objectives with appropriate metadata. Completed first round alignment of Texas TEKS middle grades science to Alleyoop’s science curriculum

Jun 2010 – May 2012 · 1 yr 11 mos · Dallas, Texas

• As 9-10 Science Teacher Specifically:
• Identified key barriers to academic growth through data tracking and analysis to create catered lessons resulting in 76% of students achieving scores that met or exceeded 80% with a 92% overall passing rate as measured by comprehensive district-wide exams
• Promoted to Department Head after 1 yr of instruction; led 5 science teachers across grade levels to improve both teacher and student performance resulting in number one department performance across the district
• Planned and co-led a cross-functional group of faculty, advisors and administrators to analyze student state test data in order to inform strategies for growth, achievement and implementation resulting in the first Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results for the school in two years
• For Teach For America:
• Selected from approximately 46,000 applicants to serve in a highly acclaimed national service corps where recent graduates commit two years to teach in under-resourced and low-performing schools in order to close the educational achievement gap.
• Student Achievement Toolkit (ISAT) Committee: Invited based on performance to collaborate with staff, alumni and corps members in a selective committee to develop and implement an online resource for 4 regions in Texas aimed to increase organization development and effectiveness through providing foundational classroom models for incoming corps members.
• 2011 Test Preparation Science 8-12 Leader: Selected from 150 2010 corps members to create and lead two TExES test preparation webinars for the incoming 2011 corps members. Responsibilities included analyzing diagnostic scores to create a strategic approach to address corps members' strengths and weakness, creating and implementing training sessions based on this data, following up with resources for corps members and communicating with Teach For America staff on corps member progress and results.

Aug 2009 – May 2010 · 9 mos · Greencastle, Indiana

• Developed, managed and effectively implemented a system for one-day, on-site medical brigades that provided examinations, diagnosis and medication to approximately 740 community members utilizing limited space and resources in El Salvador; through campaigns obtained $10,000 and over 1,000 pounds of medical donations
• Designed and executed a training program focused on basic triage procedures and global medicine for 31 team members resulting in a 100% post-trip overall satisfaction rating
• Created bilingual health education seminars related to dental, sexual, prenatal and nutritional health