An interview with Kelly Moore, Senior Manager of Product Management at Golden Section
Product Development is a key pillar of what we do at Golden Section, and is led by people with a clear and defined purpose in building something great. Senior Product Manager Kelly Moore started working in Product Development over 15 years ago, and worked her way up through the ranks, from systems analyst to business analyst, eventually becoming a product manager.
In her journey towards working at Golden Section, she led a Supplier Diversity Services team as a Product and Program Manager. Those roles started her on a journey to Golden Section, and purpose focused work.
Today she has found a place at Golden Section leading a purpose driven team.
What is your role at Golden Section?
My role as Senior Manager of Product Management at Golden Section is to lead a cross-functional group of product people (product managers, business analysts, and designers), to be reliable and trustworthy resources for all our founders. We focus on product-led development which will guide our founders to meaningful exits through a strategic and timely delivery.
How do you support founders at Golden Section?
Our founders are the cornerstone of our organization. Everything we do is focused on their success. As the leader of a team who interacts with our founders on a regular basis, my role is to make sure that the team has what they need to be successful, whether that is helping them to solve conflicts in product priorities, assisting with building out meaningful product roadmaps, or helping them find training to improve their skills.
My interaction with founders is somewhat indirect, but I am always just an email away from a quick chat to catch up, to strategize, or to help solve problems. I love getting an opportunity to have some face-to-face time with our founders, and to listen to what is going on in their business. It’s a great opportunity to brainstorm ideas and strategize about future plans.
What is a story you can share about how you successfully accomplished a challenging part of your job?
When I came to Golden Section, I was managing a couple of products and was the only Product Manager at the company. After launching Studios, it was determined that we would need a bigger Product team, and that we would need to put processes in place to be able to accommodate many projects simultaneously.
Product services, at that time, included the founder, a Project Manager, and the Tech Team Lead (TTL). There were no other product roles to help guide the founder on product priorities, there was no product strategy or roadmap for the team to pursue. Founders were deeply involved in the day-to-day product operations, and the team was very dependent on them to provide on-the-spot direction and product requirements at a very low level.
One of the biggest challenges I faced was how to incorporate other product roles to help relieve the burden of product management. Our founders needed to free up more of their time to focus on their business (sales, marketing, revenue, etc.). They were spending a significant amount of time, sometimes the majority of their time, working on product, and many of them, suffice to say, are not ‘product people’. They are experts in their industry, and they have great ideas about solutions to solve problems, but they aren’t necessarily experts in the process of developing a product.
My goal was to find a way to help founders release some of their product responsibilities by implementing new processes that were carried out by various roles within each product team at Golden Section. I understood the emotional connection that our founders had with their products, as most of them are visionaries and tend to know exactly what they want. I had to balance the degree to which our product team was making decisions on their behalf, and understand that there was a high level of trust that had to be achieved for this to work.
After spending months listening to our founders, meeting with team members, and getting some time away from the day-to-day activities to get some clarity on the bigger picture, we were able to establish a new, scalable, repeatable process which could be applied to all of the products we work on.
Our founders are involved at a much higher level, providing strategic direction, and sharing new and exciting business opportunities that will drive their product roadmaps. They are able to focus on delivering value to their customers by providing exceptional customer experiences. They are also able to develop internal goals to continually improve product-market-fit to eventually get them to a meaningful exit.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
I have been working in Product Development for close to 20 years, but I started my career as a preschool teacher… so it’s been quite a journey. I have worked for large companies like McKesson and SMBs such as Stewart Title, as well as start-ups whose clients were Fortune 100 companies. I have experienced all-things product related in my years working across various industries. I am not sure there are many problems that I haven’t had to face, and I still love the challenge of getting to be involved in finding the right solutions.
I am passionate about product, and I have found my niche in the product development field.
Why did you choose to work at Golden Section?
I was excited about the idea of working with start-ups/founders who were joining Golden Section as partners, and not just clients. I wanted to be a part of their journey and I knew that I could bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table when there are so many uncertainties that our founders face throughout the journey. If I have an opportunity to relieve some of that burden for them and help them to build something great, I’m all in!
Kelly brings significant experience in Product Development to every organization we work with at Golden Section. To learn more about product, or how we can help your organization along their journey click here.
