“Kate has the rare ability to be both strategic and practical. She surfaced the hard truths about where we were stuck and gave us a clear, inspiring plan forward. Her outcome-based roadmap continues to shape our work.”
- [B Lab CTO]
Biz/Org
B Lab (Global nonprofit driving businesses toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals)
Year
2020–2021
Product Strategy
Mission-Driven Work
Project Overview
How do you guide thousands of companies toward the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals? At B Lab, the SDG Action Manager was designed to be that path. But despite strong registrations, most companies dropped off.
The problem wasn’t the mission. It was the experience.
B Lab asked me to diagnose and reframe the product strategy. I delivered a discovery process, outcome-based roadmap, and vision that re-centered the work on clarity, delight, and measurable progress.
Key Contributions
Reframed product strategy around outcomes, not tools.
Conducted 18 cross-team stakeholder interviews and full system mapping.
Defined success metrics (time to goal, abandonment rates, NPS 70+).
Delivered an outcome-based roadmap with Now/Soon/Later sequencing.
Introduced “wild ideas” for long-term delight, like Duolingo-style pacing and a Slack “B Hive” community.
“Kate has the rare ability to be both strategic and practical. She surfaced the hard truths about where we were stuck and gave us a clear, inspiring plan forward."
The Challenge
Complexity at every step: long registration, confusing overlap with the B Impact Assessment, and manual verification queues.
Siloed teams: improvements happening in isolation, creating a fractured company journey.
Tech driving strategy: product roadmaps focused on tools instead of outcomes.
Abandonment and confusion: companies dropped out before ever reaching meaningful progress.
Approach
I kicked off with a full discovery process:
18 one-on-one stakeholder interviews across tech, brand, standards, review, and partners.
End-to-end process mapping, from marketing site to Salesforce queues.
Information architecture audit and card sort.
Analysis of confusion-related support tickets (>50% of volume).
Review of strategy docs, standards changes, and org-wide goals.
We reframed the work through an outcome-based roadmap, not a feature list.
Solutions
Vision 2023: accessibility, internationalization, and user delight at the core.
Defined outcomes: shorten time to progress, raise NPS, reduce confusion tickets, cut abandonment.
Now/Soon/Later roadmap:
Now: small wins: copy fixes, CSS styling, unified org language.
Soon: IA cleanup, simpler assessments, funder buy-in.
Later: Duolingo-style pacing, Slack “B Hive” community, modular verification.
Impact
Shifted mindset: strategy first, technology second.
The engagement gave B Lab a clear product vision, organizational alignment, and a roadmap tied directly to user outcomes. Instead of chasing features, the team could focus on what mattered most: helping companies take real, measurable steps toward sustainability.
Ready to turn a mission into measurable progress?
