Hi, I’m Emma. I’m product manager, yoga instructor, and pour over enthusiast based in Boston, MA.
I’m passionate about designing products, services, and experiences that improve people’s lives.
A public health researcher turned financial product manager, my career has taken several twists and turns. A common thread throughout my non-linear path is a strong desire to improve people’s lives - whether through launching a new product or program or teaching a transformational yoga class. My ideal project is one that engages both the right and left sides of the brain - analytical with a heavy dose of creativity.
Portfolio
Organizational Design
Bringing structure to ambiguity; finding patterns in chaos. Such is the heart of organizational design. Recently, I worked with a successful bank in Bolivia to launch an innovation lab to support the launch of new digital products and services for its clients.
Product Design
I enjoy creating digital products and experiences that support the well-being of the people who use them. I helped launch a product that brings principles from behavioral science to support the creation of wealth for small businesses in Bolivia.
Program Design & Strategy
Whether its building a business case or thinking through delivery models, program design is a common theme across my experience. Most recently, I helped build the Mastercard / Accion Partnership, a four-year program that aims to bring digital products and services to small businesses around the world.
Accion
2017 – Current | Washington, DC & Cambridge, MA
Eager to move from theory to practice, I joined Accion’s Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) where I spent a year and a half redesigning one of CFI’s flagship programs: the Africa Board Fellowship. Through this work, I gained an appreciation for the importance of strong corporate governance in the microfinance sector. The program was spun off as the Board Leadership for Impact program in 2019. Wanting to work more directly with Accion’s portfolio companies, I joined Accion’s Global Advisory Solutions in late 2018. My role spans business development and strategic partnerships, product management, and impact measurement and management. Recently, I have been focused on challenging existing measurement paradigms to unpack the impact of our work on end-customers.
Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
2015 - 2017 | Cambridge, MA & Nairobi, Kenya
As a Master of Public Policy candidate at Harvard, I had the opportunity to step back and think about what skills would best prepare me for a career in the social sector. I focused my coursework on microeconomics, statistics, development theory, and management and leadership coursework. Between my first and second year, I spent the summer interning with Sanergy, a social enterprise with the mission of providing safe and affordable sanitation for Nairobi’s informal settlements, a community that had been excluded from urban development schemes. This experience gave me an appreciation for the complexities of balancing social and commercial returns and piqued my interest in impact investing.
Pathfinder International
2013 - 2015 | Cambridge, MA
Fulbright Program
2011 - 2012 | Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
My experience in Tanzania left me with an appreciation for the hustle thats required to get things done in emerging markets but craving some additional structure and headquarters level experience. I joined Pathfinder International, a global sexual and reproductive health organization to support global analytics and monitoring and evaluation.
Eager to start my career in the development space and gain experience working in an emerging market, I moved to Tanzania in the fall of 2011 on a Fulbright fellowship. My research was focused on understanding the behavioral drivers of health outcomes and diagnose the barriers women face in accessing specialized care. Through my research, I had the opportunity to speak with women who had spent years navigating systems that had repeatedly failed them. This experience gave me an appreciation for customer understanding when designing programs, services, and experiences.