Jen Benz, Esq.
RESUME
SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
Leverages teams to develop and drive product vision, strategy, and roadmaps.
As the leader of a product organization, I manage teams to:
Transform qualitative and quantitative data, market research, customer feedback, and other inputs into a product vision and strategy that empowers teams and individual contributors to create and execute strategically aligned roadmaps.
Align our strategy with those of other departments, including Marketing, Sales, Finance, Operations, and Care teams for a more impactful company-wide execution.
Craft a compelling story of the product vision to evangelize with the broader organization.
Creates a culture of learning and experimentation to maximize customer impact and hit key business metrics.
I coach my teams to:
Utilize design thinking best practices, such as the double diamond and rapid experimentation, to solve the right problems with the right solutions.
Develop Learning and Experimentation Plans that identify assumptions and define measurable success metrics that lead to clear next steps.
Collaboratively create product launch and rollout plans with Marketing, Sales, Customer Care, and other stakeholders, ensuring for stakeholder input and alignment along the way.
Define and measure OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to look beyond launch and evaluate customer impact.
Builds teams and manages people with a coaching style of leadership.
As a leader, people are my top priority. Trusting, growing, and unlocking the potential of individuals allows individuals, teams, and the organization to flourish. Specifically, I:
Set a department culture of empowered product teams who move fast with data by providing the teams with clear expectations, informative trainings, and direct feedback.
Mentor teams on best practices for conducting market research, gathering customer empathy, developing and prioritizing product roadmaps, and applying design thinking principles in the discovery and development processes.
Provide the appropriate level of coaching and guidance based on an individual’s level of experience by utilizing the Situational Leadership methodology.
Provide contextual, relevant feedback using the SBI (Situation, Behavior, Impact) model.
Develop comprehensive and fair hiring processes for PMs, Designers, Researchers, Data Analysts, and Product Marketing Managers, including drafting inclusive job descriptions that encourage applications from a diverse pool of candidates, designing interview plans, conducting interviews, and making hiring decisions.
Facilitates cross-department collaboration to achieve joint goals.
Product is a core function that impacts and is impacted by many different parts of an organization. In order to ensure strong relationships with other departments and maximize cross-department synergies, I:
Proactively develop relationships with peers and leadership in other departments through frequent and transparent communication, leveraging multiple methods, such as written, verbal, video, and in-person.
Conduct design thinking sessions with teams from other departments to share knowledge, understand competing priorities, and identify any overlap in our visions and plans
Coordinate planning and prioritization of potential joint initiatives to ensure roadblocks are removed, resources are available, and collaboration is occurring on all sides.
Support other departments’ initiatives, such as speaking at Marketing and Sales events, demoing during Sales meetings, writing articles, and contributing to RFPs and other proposals.
EDUCATION
American University
Washington College of Law - JD
Member of Idaho State Bar Association
American University
Kogod School of Business - MBA
University of California at Santa Barbara
Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies
Junior Year Abroad - l’Université de Mirail in Toulouse, France
EMPLOYMENT
The LEGO Group
Director of Product Management - Kids’ Digital Engagement
2022- Present
Classkick
VP of Product & Design
2021- 2022
Intuit (acquired TSheets in 2018)
Group Product Manager
2019 - 2021
Senior Product Manager
2016 - 2019
Clearwater Analytics
Product Manager
2011 – 2016