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Episode 45 - Building Data Driven Products & Dodging Unsolicited Advice (with Emily Reid)

AI Product Management
API Product Management
Digital Transformation
Diversity & Inclusion
Women in Product
Episode 45 - Building Data Driven Products & Dodging Unsolicited Advice (with Emily Reid)
24 Mar 2021
Emily Reid head shot
An interview with Emily Reid. Emily is a Product Manager for FCT, a Canadian insurance company. We talk about her passion for data, how she aims to demystify it, and the importance of staying in your lane & not trying to be the smartest person in the room. We also talk about the perils of being a woman in tech, and how she has to put up with patronising and unwanted advice from men.
Content Warning - May Contain Adult Language or Themes
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About the Episode

An interview with Emily Reid. Emily is a Product Manager for FCT, a Canadian insurance company, as well as consulting for AgeRate, a healthtech startup. Emily is passionate about demystifying data and is leading FCT's charge towards being a data-driven, API-enabled company.

We talk about a lot, including:

  • The most important question - is it "this data" or "these data"?
  • The pros & cons of working for a big, established firm and the imperative to move to a more agile mindset
  • Why she moved from banking into product management, and the misogynistic attitudes she was trying to get away from
  • How she skilled up in product management hard skills, as well as data science fundamentals
  • The importance of embracing not being the smartest person in the room
  • How a background in biotech at uni helped her really explain complicated concepts
  • The importance of picking good product metrics & why you need stats knowledge to be an effective PM
  • How data science isn't the be all and end all, how to factor failure into the process, and why we might see a new breed of data science specialist product managers
  • Why unsolicited internet advice is never welcome and people should just stop
  • How she has been judged and patronised as a young, up & coming, blonde woman in technology

And much more!

Contact Emily

You can connect with Emily on LinkedIn or check out her writing on Medium.