My Story

I’m a people manager, leading a group of program managers in the LinkedIn Editorial Team. We support 250+ individuals, based in 10+ countries by using qualitative and quantitative data to create insights, build workflows and tools to make work easier. As the first team of its kind with Editorial, I worked with departmental leadership to define our scope, principles and priorities.

Prior to LinkedIn, I worked as the Head of Operations in Software Engineering at The New York Times, asking myself “how can we enable our engineers to work better? What tools? What systems? What policies?”. I was also a Product Manager working on the Commerce Team where I owned the development of strategy and managed the execution of our online store. Before that, I worked as the Program Manager for various teams including: Smarter Living, Real Estate, and Home Delivery Price Increase. No matter what role or team I prioritize communication and team health — establishing productive workflows and communication practices early on. This allows me to quickly identify and mitigate any risks that arose during the discover, build, release, learn process, ensuring on time and on budget releases.

The NYT(dis)abilities employee resource group started because of a conversation between me and a colleague. Although our disabilities are different, we had enough shared experiences to learn from each other. We realized that if we had similar experiences, others must as well. And if we could create a space for Disabled employees to share resources, tips, and stories — we might create a better working environment for each other. Through this work, we were able to build easily sharable tools to help other employees navigate the dizzy-ing world of the healthcare system. By identifying larger shared concerns, we have been able to advocate for policy change to senior leadership. Through this work, I have been able to turn my experience with Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis into positive change.

In my spare time, I am the executive producer for BBQ Films, a company that produces immersive film and television screenings. I run operations for the company. At times this means owning the budgets; other times it involves ideating, building sales materials, and going on sales calls; and at other times it means hiring and managing staff. We find creative solutions to budgetary, resource, and logical constraints through collaboration and teamwork. I’ve been able to bring my passion for continuous learn, deep knowlege of sitcoms, and geekdom for logistics and planning to a company founded in community.

My experiences taught me that effective team leadership in today’s ever evolving landscape requires thoughtful change management. In order to respond to market and technological changes, I champion the ideals of agile and continuous learning. Every team can learn from its successes and its failures. By keeping change management a main focus, everything else runs smoother — from feature releases, to bug fixes, to data analysis.

My path to The Times and BBQ Films took me around the world and gave me experience in different fields of work: from the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, to debt collection, to Social Media Management. 

No matter where I work, I find ways to connect with coworkers and find ways to work better. Most of the time over a coffee and a shared story. Drop me a line and tell me yours.

Image © Earl Wilson 2016