Her Story
About Ashlee
I've been in product management for 10 years, and my journey has been anything but traditional. I started in healthcare, spending 8 years in pharmacy with plans to go to pharmacy school, but realized that wasn't for me. My chief pharmacy officer at the time went to a small healthcare IT startup and invited me to join, saying I had subject matter expertise in medication therapy management and they wanted to build software around it. That's what kicked off my product management career. After years in healthcare IT, I wanted to try something different because I came to realize I love creative solutions, I love partnering with people, and I love solving complex challenges. I pivoted to Sprout Social, a social media management platform, to see if product management was a repeatable process I could do in a different industry. It was incredible because there was so much more creativity compared to healthcare, which has a lot of red tape based on compliance and regulations. I learned so much throughout every company I've been with, and at Sprout Social, it opened up my skill set to include media management, which is how I ended up at Iron Mountain about 5 months ago. Now I work in the digital business unit focusing on audio-visual capabilities, everything video, media, and audio-related, working with partners who have such assets for storage and search capabilities. What I'm most proud of is seeing ideas go from a napkin to the real world, with millions of users now using software that I helped design. That collaboration, bringing ideas to light and building rapport both internally and externally, is what really drives me.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Ashlee
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would start by asking what current software she uses every single day, because product management requires you to rely on your subject matter expertise when you're getting started. That's how I was able to get into it - I knew about medication therapy management. For someone else, if they're using software like Canva every day, maybe we start with Canva and look for openings for a product owner or internships there. Really rely on what you do every day, what you use every day, what your interests are, and go from that experience and build on top of that. Then we'll look into those companies to see what their requirements are and how we can get those transferable skills that you already have from your current work experience, and pivot your resume to really tailor towards that. We're not falsely adding information or experience we don't have, but we're utilizing what you currently have, plus the experience you might have outside of that, whether that's volunteering for a specific application that you're using. It would more so not be stating something to someone, but more so picking their brain and asking them questions to navigate the conversation, to then be able to guide that person appropriately.
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