Daniella Kisza

Experience

Senior Product Manager, Follett Higher Education / Willo Labs

September 2023 - October 2024

Reported to the VP of Technology (dotted line to CPO), leading data architecture, infrastructure, and platform tool development, while building user-facing applications focused on monetization, security, scalability, and operational efficiency.

• Strategic Product Leadership: owned and executed a one-year product roadmaps, spearheading high-impact initiatives while driving the end-to-end development and scale of three core products from 0 to 1 and 1 to N in a two-sided marketplace.
• Product Development and Delivery: led the build and launch of two new proprietary BI tools, serving as the single source of truth for company operational data, significantly enhancing efficiency and support workflows for 15+ teams across the organization, reducing reporting and analytics turnaround time (TAT) from 1-2 weeks, to less than 2 hours.
• Market Expansion and Penetration: built the product that led market penetration efforts in the U.S. and expanded into the Canadian independent market, successfully scaling adoption of the IA program and related offerings, reaching .41 million new students.
• Metrics and Impact: defined and tracked the metrics that achieved national operational improvements (1K+ campuses and 5M+ students), including increased financial reporting accuracy, reduced implementation delays, and higher customer satisfaction.
• Cross-Functional Influence: influenced cross-organizational product managers to develop internal APIs and third-party integrations, enabling significant upgrades to operational visibility and company KPIs.
• Regulations and Compliance: ensured product and data infrastructure met institutional and governmental compliance requirements for security, student privacy, and accessibility across U.S. and Canadian markets.
• Executive Collaboration: partnered directly with C-level and engineering leaders to overhaul the product org and culture under the new CPO, transitioning from waterfall to agile to prioritize rapid development, user-centered design and data-driven decision making.
• Student Experience Optimization: with a focus on DEI, designed solutions ensuring students had affordable and easy access to course materials, boosting awareness and adoption of Inclusive Access (IA) benefits without instructor dependency.
• Stakeholder Engagement: conducted extensive research with institution admins, bookstore managers, publishers, and students to uncover pain points and deliver actionable insights for product and process improvements.

Senior Product Manager, Podium Education

October 2020 - November 2022

Reports directly to the CPO/Co-founder, leadingthe B2B2C e-learning product line to scale it 7x in 1 year, reaching a customer-rated level of excellence (NPS= 65+), achieving top-tier technical skill-based training during a high-growth stage and Series B funding round.

• Tripled revenue through 2 product launches, overseeing the go-to-market strategy across engineering, curriculum, marketing, support and sales teams, measuring and scaling crucial parts of the funnel and customer journey.
• Increased NPS by 10 points across 3 products through a company-wide data integrity initiative, enabling quick and accurate data-driven decisions for C-level and frontline stakeholders with automated analytics and permission-based reporting.
• Managed the go-to-market expansion strategy to research and plan the launch of our 4th product, achieving board approval.
• Reduced 35% of customer service costs in one quarter and improved CSAT +18% by implementing an AI-driven support system.
• Owned 'Build vs. Buy' evaluations with engineering on business-critical platforms, including API and LTI integrations for our LMS.
• Saved the business $0.5 million/year by forging and managing relationships with vendors (Shopify, Replit) on behalf of our Digital Marketing and Web Development customers, removing cost-friction in a multi-user learning experience.

Product Manager, Codecademy

February 2016 - October 2020

My role is at the junction of product development and people operations. I lead Codecademy’s learner support services, owning the people and product features that help millions of coders solve their most common programming questions, to our premium support tier designed to get learners to outcomes by driving product engagement and retention. Additionally, I've worked on the project teams responsible for bringing all three of Codecademy's revenue-generating products to market (Pro, Intensives, Go).

• Reports directly to Codecademy's VP of Product & Content, as the key stakeholder responsible for ensuring delivery of high-quality online learning experiences to serve three verticals of the product (Web Developmet, Data Science, Computer Science), managing all launches and life cycles through maturity (Codecademy Pro Intensives, January 2017).
• Associate Product Manager for the launch of Codecademy Go, our first mobile app; co-led alpha and beta testing to develop the feature set for the MVP while building a technical team to prototype the content production process to scale.
• Built, from the ground up, the B2C Learner Support arm of the organization which now provides technical support to tens of thousands of customers per month; required scaling a remote part-time workforce from 0-100 in less than 6 months. Later worked with our CEO, VP of Product, and VP of Finance—navigating a very complex legal landscape—to lead a reclassification of 150 contractors to part-time employees (Oct-Sept. 2017).
• Defines and monitors health metrics for new product launches, including conducting user research efforts around learner retention and customer satisfaction: reduced our program churn rate by 50%; increased NPS by 250%; and cut Learner Support costs by 27%.
• Co-led the inception of our Customer Support team; ran analyses and executed a systems improvement plan which overhauled all tooling and people operations, from designing the information architecture of our customer knowledge base to hiring our first CS director to grow the team from 1 part-time contractor to 4 full-time employees (2016).

Product Operations Manager, Codecademy

June 2015 - February 2016

Works cross-org with C-level execs, product managers, software engineers, designers, marketing, and content developers to build, manage, and scale four of our B2C learner support services (e.g. code collaboration, assessments, professional guidance) that drive product and business KPIs, including revenue, engagement, and retention within Codecademy Pro.

Technical Programs Manager, General Assembly

June 2014 - May 2015

Managed General Assembly's New York City Front-End Web Development, User Experience Design, and Visual Design programs throughout all stages, from ideation, testing and development, through to production.

• Led the production of a $1M+ (annual revenue) educational product.
• Tracked program health metrics to ensure margins met company goals (historically +3-5% over target).
• Managed 30+ front-end web development practitioners/instructors, recruited and onboarded new hires.
• Responsible for quality of student experience, led to the highest Net Promoter Score (NPS) across all part-time programs - an average of 50+ NPS, quarter-over-quarter, 2014.
• Informed product decisions with quantitative/qualitative data reports, used to implement refreshes in an agile environment.
• Directed program's weekly touch points with cross-functional teams (Product, Sales, Instructor Development, Marketing, Community Management).
• Worked bi-weekly with producers in 13 global markets to define success and improve project management methods; trained and mentored new producers.
• Partnered with the legal team to write a script to increase efficiency of student contract processes. The software leverages RightSignature's API to bulk download contracts, rewrite file names, and organize documents via a singular naming convention in accordance with State regulations, resulting in a massive reduction in time spent (50+ hours down to ~5 minutes). Script written in Ruby.
• Analyzed 2014 program retention by leveraging historical data in Looker and pulling database info related to student course drops, resulting in key discovery of the top reason for ~$210k loss in company revenue.

Programs Producer, General Assembly

August 2013 - June 2014

• Managed the production of Front-end Web Development and User Experience Design.
• Led weekly strategy sessions with instructors to analyze feedback, prioritize objectives, and improve program metrics.
• Developed and maintained program's global internal and external production resources and best practices.

Technical Project Manager, FreshNeck

November 2012 - October 2013

Collaborated daily with CEO and remote web developers to design site banners, promotional graphics, and mailing inserts, in response to company branding strategy sessions. Accompanied in testing, analyzing, and delivering feedback on the web user experience during the launch of www.freshneck.com.

Product Marketing Manager, Onevest

May - November 2012

Responsible for developing and executing external growth strategies and marketing events. Directed the organization of the company's community of web users. Worked with clients to curate and edit crowdfunding campaigns. Utilized storytelling and design skills to construct infographics of crowdfunding data.

Marketing and Public Relations Associate, The TASC Group

January - May 2012

Participated in marketing strategy sessions for clients, including a national non-profit campaign. Produced media lists for targeted client outreach, including NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Marketing Associate, Seidenberg Creative Labs - Pace University

October 2011 - June 2012

Targeted and tailored client-specific strategies supported by primary and secondary research to increase brand recognition for several startup companies. Assisted in creating website templates and designs for two new businesses.

Education

Pace University, New York, NY

BBA in Marketing, Summa Cum Laude, 3.8 GPA, May 2013

General Assembly, New York, NY

Completed the following part-time courses, each ~60 hours: Front-End Web Development, Back-End Web Development, Product Management, User Experience Design

Notable Achievements

• Bootcamp Hostel Skol Lá na Vila - São Paulo, Brazil, Selected by Brazilian agency, Naked, as one of twenty creative minds from all around the world, who came together for one week in Brazil during the 2014 FIFA World Cup to live, learn, create and celebrate. Read more here. (July 2014).
• AAF 2013 National Student Advertising Competition, Created an integrated marketing campaign (A Room Worth Sharing) for sponsor Glidden paint under the American Advertising Federation (May 2013).
• Ideated and designed a crowdfunding infographic on behalf of Rock The Post that was published here on Forbes.com (June 2012).

Affiliations

• #BUILTBYGIRLS, Wave Advisor
• Baruch College Campus High School (BCCHS), Coding Club Mentor
• Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), Young Executive Committee member
• Beta Gamma Sigma, AACSB accredited honor society for graduating top 10% of class
• Others: Alpha Delta Sigma National Honor Society, Alpha Chi National Honor Society, Tau Sigma National Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society

Personal Projects & Interests

• Woodwork
• Mentoring, coding, snowboarding, coed soccer, hiking, biking, gardening, local exploration and traveling abroad.