Career Path of a Head of Product as an Independent Consultant

After graduating, I got a job at a litigation consulting company in the Bay Area. I learned so much there, primarily about Excel, which I still love, about accountability, and really about attention to detail.

I also learned it was not what I wanted to do. Back in 2000 when I graduated, iPhones were not a thing. There were some cool small telecom startups trying to disrupt the cell phone market, bringing better coverage, cheaper service, and more phone options to customers. The litigation company I worked for was hired by large telecom companies to sue those startups.

That really got me thinking: shouldn't large companies be trying to do better? Shouldn't they provide better service to their customers and look at these startups for ideas on how they can improve? This realization was kind of my first "aha" moment. I knew I wanted to do something different, but I just didn't know what that was.

I decided to go to business school to try to figure out how to help large organizations be better. I got into NYU Stern, which brought me to the East Coast. After I graduated, I tried to find a role in customer research and customer engagement, but again, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.

So, I ended up taking a job at Smith Barney, not in those types of roles at all. That turned into a job at Citibank after their merger, and I ended up spending 15 years there, which seems like a lot of time, especially looking back. But it was such a wonderful time in my career.

I had so many different jobs: business development, marketing, communications, recruiting strategy. I was willing to try anything that was thrown my way. That's one of the great things about working at a large company; there are so many different opportunities to try new things and see what piques your interest.

Despite that, after 10 years in their wealth management division, I realized it just wasn't what I wanted to do. So, I raised my hand and got an opportunity to work within the Citi Ventures team, which is a venture capital division. My role was to be a liaison between the retail bank and the startups that the ventures team was talking to.

This was like my other "aha" moment. I was able to work with and mentor startups, and I realized that the startup world was really invigorating for me. People came to work passionate; it was just a different energy that I really vibed with.

After a few months, I was asked to join a new division of Citi called Citi FinTech. They were building the mobile bank of the future for retail customers. This is when I was introduced to digital product management, and my life changed. This was when everything really came together for me.

Digital product management is all about understanding the customer: their needs, their pain points, their journey, their motivators. Then, you build the products and services that make that customer's life better and address those pain points. This is what I wanted to do in 2000, I just didn't know what it was.

So, what I would say is: be patient, be curious, ask a bunch of questions, and network a lot. Raise your hand, try new things, and try those things that scare you. You'll figure it out. Don't worry about finding the perfect job right out of college, because you probably won't, and you probably don't even know what that is right now.

Twenty-four years after graduating, I'm not sure I know what my perfect job is, but I do know what I'm really passionate about and what I need to be fulfilled at work. So, just go along with the journey and enjoy it. I'm really proud of where I've landed after my 24 years.