Resume

Resume

Resume

Kate Makrigiannis

Kate Makrigiannis

Kate Makrigiannis

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When no one’s totally sure what to do next — that’s where I thrive.

When no one’s totally sure what to do next — that’s where I thrive.

When no one’s totally sure what to do next — that’s where I thrive.

I’m a product leader, coach, and systems thinker with 10+ years of experience turning ambiguity into strategy and MVPs into momentum. I help teams align, focus on what matters most, and build products that actually work — even (especially) when the context is messy and the stakes are high.

I’m a product leader, coach, and systems thinker with 10+ years of experience turning ambiguity into strategy and MVPs into momentum. I help teams align, focus on what matters most, and build products that actually work — even (especially) when the context is messy and the stakes are high.

I’m a product leader, coach, and systems thinker with 10+ years of experience turning ambiguity into strategy and MVPs into momentum. I help teams align, focus on what matters most, and build products that actually work — even (especially) when the context is messy and the stakes are high.

PRODUCT EXPERIENCE

PRODUCT EXPERIENCE

PRODUCT EXPERIENCE

Freelance Product Consultant

k8mak consulting

Thoughtful consulting and advice for organizations and individuals doing work that matters: Advising mission-driven teams on product strategy, MVP development, and first-time UX—especially in healthcare, climate, govtech, and education.

Current focus: Leading MVP and content strategy for a personalized menopause and hormone therapy platform blending AI, clinical research, and compassionate UX.

  • Past clients include B Lab, Gatsby, Sagely, and more.

  • Frequent contributor to product discovery coaching, UX mentorship, and systems-level product thinking.

Freelance Product Consultant

k8mak consulting

Thoughtful consulting and advice for organizations and individuals doing work that matters: Advising mission-driven teams on product strategy, MVP development, and first-time UX—especially in healthcare, climate, govtech, and education.

Current focus: Leading MVP and content strategy for a personalized menopause and hormone therapy platform blending AI, clinical research, and compassionate UX.

  • Past clients include B Lab, Gatsby, Sagely, and more.

  • Frequent contributor to product discovery coaching, UX mentorship, and systems-level product thinking.

Freelance Product Consultant

k8mak consulting

Thoughtful consulting and advice for organizations and individuals doing work that matters

Product Strategy & MVP Lead
May 2024 – Present

  • Using AI to deliver personalized, science-backed medical advice for perimenopausal and menopausal women to manage symptoms using hormone therapy (HT) - MVP release coming summer 2025!

  • Leading product strategy, MVP development, and content design for a personalized, science-backed digital tool helping women navigate hormone therapy (HT) during perimenopause and menopause.

  • We're building it to tackle one of the most under-resourced areas of women’s health - where stigma, under-education, and broken care systems leave millions of women without clear, personalized treatment options.

  • Our platform blends AI, clinical research, and compassionate UX to increase HT literacy, reduce patient and clinician frustration, and empower shared decision-making between users, providers, and insurers.


Highlights:

  • Shaped and executed the MVP roadmap for summer 2025 launch

  • Led UX content development across homepage, quiz, and treatment plan flows

  • Synthesized research across user needs, clinical guidelines, and insurance friction points

  • Built tools to guide women toward ideal HT options - and help clinicians personalize care in minutes, not months

  • Ensured inclusive, evidence-based, non-commercial design and tone throughout

  • More coming very soon!

Additional Work

  • Crafted engaging product discovery curriculum for Sagely mentors to educate and empower the US Air Force’s newest electromagnetic spectrum warfare software teams at Wavelength

  • Guided B Lab technology transformation from a waterfall-style project operating model to a more user-centered, outcome-driven product approach to drastically reduce the time for companies to complete goals for short-term impact and to finish the extensive B Corp certification process

  • Optimized Gatsby’s first-time UX by removing distracting elements and by reducing CMS starter site integration and deployment steps to decrease onboarding dropoff rates

  • Launched Gatsby’s Agency subscription tier to accommodate customers with teams needing more Editor seats, ways to organize client site projects, and client site billing transfers to increase a key customer segment’s satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value (LTV)

  • Fostering meaningful mentorship and coaching relationships with aspiring and entry-level Product and UX folks through My Mentor Path, Out in Tech and Black Girls CODE

Freelance Product Lead

Sperity Health

Healthcare startup with B2B/B2C subscription membership

  • Enhancing member experience via responsive member-facing web app with HIPAA-compliant internal startup tooling integrations

  • Launched 0→1 MVP in 4 months, including health data visualization, dynamic content display, account registration, authentication and support

  • Coordinating marketing, discovery, development and release activities with founders, team leads and medical professionals amidst wild, hockey-stick level growth

Freelance Product Lead

Sperity Health

Healthcare startup with B2B/B2C subscription membership

  • Enhancing member experience via responsive member-facing web app with HIPAA-compliant internal startup tooling integrations

  • Launched 0→1 MVP in 4 months, including health data visualization, dynamic content display, account registration, authentication and support

  • Coordinating marketing, discovery, development and release activities with founders, team leads and medical professionals amidst wild, hockey-stick level growth

Freelance Product Lead

Sperity Health

Healthcare startup with B2B/B2C subscription membership

  • Enhancing member experience via responsive member-facing web app with HIPAA-compliant internal startup tooling integrations

  • Launched 0→1 MVP in 4 months, including health data visualization, dynamic content display, account registration, authentication and support

  • Coordinating marketing, discovery, development and release activities with founders, team leads and medical professionals amidst wild, hockey-stick level growth

Staff Product Portolio Lead

Rise8

Govtech (DoD) product development & consulting agency

  • Mentored product and program managers across portfolios, leading to more effective stakeholder management, clearer roadmaps with dependency sequencing, and backlog management techniques for vertically-sliced, end to end user experiences

  • Simplified US Space Force software factory onboarding and system access processes, resulting in a 75% faster time to initial productivity for new contract software teams

  • Oversaw Cape Canaveral pipeline modernization along with cybersecurity validation procedures to decrease deployment cycle time by 92% from 6+ months to 2 weeks - almost rocket science

Staff Product Portolio Lead

Rise8

Govtech (DoD) product development & consulting agency

  • Mentored product and program managers across portfolios, leading to more effective stakeholder management, clearer roadmaps with dependency sequencing, and backlog management techniques for vertically-sliced, end to end user experiences

  • Simplified US Space Force software factory onboarding and system access processes, resulting in a 75% faster time to initial productivity for new contract software teams

  • Oversaw Cape Canaveral pipeline modernization along with cybersecurity validation procedures to decrease deployment cycle time by 92% from 6+ months to 2 weeks - almost rocket science

Staff Product Portolio Lead

Rise8

Govtech (DoD) product development & consulting agency

  • Mentored product and program managers across portfolios, leading to more effective stakeholder management, clearer roadmaps with dependency sequencing, and backlog management techniques for vertically-sliced, end to end user experiences

  • Simplified US Space Force software factory onboarding and system access processes, resulting in a 75% faster time to initial productivity for new contract software teams

  • Oversaw Cape Canaveral pipeline modernization along with cybersecurity validation procedures to decrease deployment cycle time by 92% from 6+ months to 2 weeks - almost rocket science

Principal Product Mgmt & Transformation Coach

Kaiser Permanente

Transforming a massive healthcare project org into a dynamic product org chasing meaningful results by championing user-centric focus for patient-facing product groups and beyond

  • Facilitated goal-setting workshops for Cardiac Physicians and Product leads to align on short-term key results related to collecting, analyzing, and responding to critical patient biometric data (blood glucose and blood pressure). Forecasted future outcomes related to medication adherence and improving lifestyle choices like diet, activity, and sleep

  • Refocused KP Digital planning and prioritization processes to focus on measurable value (OKR impact) by facilitating 15 senior executive OKR workshops to identify valuable opportunities within user feedback vs. measurable user behavior from analytics

  • Ignited Product communities with engaging workshops and “Bring-Your-Own-Backlog” strategy, storywriting, and reporting events that addressed gaps in the production bug report process, devised success metrics for Patient Welcome experience enhancements, and triaged issues plaguing abandoned mobile app features

  • Published 12 interactive product team workshops with hands-on activities for topics from Product Vision and Discovery to OKR Development and Service Blueprinting/Journey Mapping

  • Executed monthly strategic experiments to optimize product development processes, significantly shortening overall delivery cycle times while boosting the measurable value delivered in each release

Principal Product Mgmt & Transformation Coach

Kaiser Permanente

Transforming a massive healthcare project org into a dynamic product org chasing meaningful results by championing user-centric focus for patient-facing product groups and beyond

  • Facilitated goal-setting workshops for Cardiac Physicians and Product leads to align on short-term key results related to collecting, analyzing, and responding to critical patient biometric data (blood glucose and blood pressure). Forecasted future outcomes related to medication adherence and improving lifestyle choices like diet, activity, and sleep

  • Refocused KP Digital planning and prioritization processes to focus on measurable value (OKR impact) by facilitating 15 senior executive OKR workshops to identify valuable opportunities within user feedback vs. measurable user behavior from analytics

  • Ignited Product communities with engaging workshops and “Bring-Your-Own-Backlog” strategy, storywriting, and reporting events that addressed gaps in the production bug report process, devised success metrics for Patient Welcome experience enhancements, and triaged issues plaguing abandoned mobile app features

  • Published 12 interactive product team workshops with hands-on activities for topics from Product Vision and Discovery to OKR Development and Service Blueprinting/Journey Mapping

  • Executed monthly strategic experiments to optimize product development processes, significantly shortening overall delivery cycle times while boosting the measurable value delivered in each release

Principal Product Mgmt & Transformation Coach

Kaiser Permanente

Transforming a massive healthcare project org into a dynamic product org chasing meaningful results by championing user-centric focus for patient-facing product groups and beyond

  • Facilitated goal-setting workshops for Cardiac Physicians and Product leads to align on short-term key results related to collecting, analyzing, and responding to critical patient biometric data (blood glucose and blood pressure). Forecasted future outcomes related to medication adherence and improving lifestyle choices like diet, activity, and sleep

  • Refocused KP Digital planning and prioritization processes to focus on measurable value (OKR impact) by facilitating 15 senior executive OKR workshops to identify valuable opportunities within user feedback vs. measurable user behavior from analytics

  • Ignited Product communities with engaging workshops and “Bring-Your-Own-Backlog” strategy, storywriting, and reporting events that addressed gaps in the production bug report process, devised success metrics for Patient Welcome experience enhancements, and triaged issues plaguing abandoned mobile app features

  • Published 12 interactive product team workshops with hands-on activities for topics from Product Vision and Discovery to OKR Development and Service Blueprinting/Journey Mapping

  • Executed monthly strategic experiments to optimize product development processes, significantly shortening overall delivery cycle times while boosting the measurable value delivered in each release

Group Product Manager, Customer Data Platform

Zendesk

Influencing technical platform data teams with user-centered design and experience thinking

  • Drove the development of Custom Objects for Admins to weave crucial business data into their Support workows, providing Agents more customer context to enable faster ticket resolution and advanced automations to solve known problems quickly and route complex tickets to specialists

  • Drove competitive analysis and marketing/onboarding content strategy alongside design to influence and align platform portfolio roadmaps

  • Conducted user and market research to identify key use cases for custom data, competitive gaps, and opportunities for strong first-time admin onboarding/schema setup experiences

Group Product Manager, Customer Data Platform

Zendesk

Influencing technical platform data teams with user-centered design and experience thinking

  • Drove the development of Custom Objects for Admins to weave crucial business data into their Support workows, providing Agents more customer context to enable faster ticket resolution and advanced automations to solve known problems quickly and route complex tickets to specialists

  • Drove competitive analysis and marketing/onboarding content strategy alongside design to influence and align platform portfolio roadmaps

  • Conducted user and market research to identify key use cases for custom data, competitive gaps, and opportunities for strong first-time admin onboarding/schema setup experiences

Group Product Manager, Customer Data Platform

Zendesk

Influencing technical platform data teams with user-centered design and experience thinking

  • Drove the development of Custom Objects for Admins to weave crucial business data into their Support workows, providing Agents more customer context to enable faster ticket resolution and advanced automations to solve known problems quickly and route complex tickets to specialists

  • Drove competitive analysis and marketing/onboarding content strategy alongside design to influence and align platform portfolio roadmaps

  • Conducted user and market research to identify key use cases for custom data, competitive gaps, and opportunities for strong first-time admin onboarding/schema setup experiences

Senior Management & Product Consultant

Pivotal Labs (Broadcom/VMware Tanzu Labs)

Agile software development consulting firm: Coached client product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research and discovery using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Directly managed a San Francisco team of Product Management and UX Design consultants working to coach and mentor client product practitioners while guiding product development execution

  • Coached product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research - using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Notable clients: US Department of Defense, StubHub, Allstate, Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, Honeywell

Senior Management & Product Consultant

Pivotal Labs (Broadcom/VMware Tanzu Labs)

Agile software development consulting firm: Coached client product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research and discovery using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Directly managed a San Francisco team of Product Management and UX Design consultants working to coach and mentor client product practitioners while guiding product development execution

  • Coached product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research - using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Notable clients: US Department of Defense, StubHub, Allstate, Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, Honeywell

Senior Management & Product Consultant

Pivotal Labs (Broadcom/VMware Tanzu Labs)

Agile software development consulting firm: Coached client product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research and discovery using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Directly managed a San Francisco team of Product Management and UX Design consultants working to coach and mentor client product practitioners while guiding product development execution

  • Coached product managers and teams to develop greenfield products, modernize applications, and drive customer research - using Lean UX and Agile XP practices

  • Notable clients: US Department of Defense, StubHub, Allstate, Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, Honeywell

Product Management & Agile Software Instructor

General Assembly

I curated and taught the curriculum for a 10-week Product Management course with 8 students practicing class lecture concepts within weekly graded homework assignments using product ideas of their own, culminating in a final product pitch presentation.

We covered a wide variety of Product Management themes, including but not limited to:

  • Lean MVP hypotheses and problem statements, user personas and interview techniques, product-market fit, prioritization, roadmaps, and key metrics (OKRs)

  • UX design, sketching, wireframes vs. prototypes, assumptions, and usability testing

  • Agile methodologies, artifacts, terminology, and stakeholder management

  • Software demos, testing, documentation, and release notes

Students scored my curriculum and performance as a instructor

  • “My instructor effectively helped me achieve course learning objectives” - 9.5/10

  • “Lesson agenda was well-organized and I was given sufficient time for activities” - 9.4/10

  • “I feel prepared to continue practicing these skills outside of class” - 9.2/10

Product Management & Agile Software Instructor

General Assembly

I curated and taught the curriculum for a 10-week Product Management course with 8 students practicing class lecture concepts within weekly graded homework assignments using product ideas of their own, culminating in a final product pitch presentation.

We covered a wide variety of Product Management themes, including but not limited to:

  • Lean MVP hypotheses and problem statements, user personas and interview techniques, product-market fit, prioritization, roadmaps, and key metrics (OKRs)

  • UX design, sketching, wireframes vs. prototypes, assumptions, and usability testing

  • Agile methodologies, artifacts, terminology, and stakeholder management

  • Software demos, testing, documentation, and release notes

Students scored my curriculum and performance as a instructor

  • “My instructor effectively helped me achieve course learning objectives” - 9.5/10

  • “Lesson agenda was well-organized and I was given sufficient time for activities” - 9.4/10

  • “I feel prepared to continue practicing these skills outside of class” - 9.2/10

Product Management & Agile Software Instructor

General Assembly

I curated and taught the curriculum for a 10-week Product Management course with 8 students practicing class lecture concepts within weekly graded homework assignments using product ideas of their own, culminating in a final product pitch presentation.

We covered a wide variety of Product Management themes, including but not limited to:

  • Lean MVP hypotheses and problem statements, user personas and interview techniques, product-market fit, prioritization, roadmaps, and key metrics (OKRs)

  • UX design, sketching, wireframes vs. prototypes, assumptions, and usability testing

  • Agile methodologies, artifacts, terminology, and stakeholder management

  • Software demos, testing, documentation, and release notes

Students scored my curriculum and performance as a instructor

  • “My instructor effectively helped me achieve course learning objectives” - 9.5/10

  • “Lesson agenda was well-organized and I was given sufficient time for activities” - 9.4/10

  • “I feel prepared to continue practicing these skills outside of class” - 9.2/10

Product Owner, Customer Loyalty

Intercontinental Hotels Group

Iterative product discovery & development for Customer Relationship Management products used by 5000+ hotels around the world to enhance guest experiences on-property

  • I led product research, concept prototyping, and development to redesign the webapp experience for franchise hotel managers to create, schedule, and redeem on-site guest promotions

  • I managed the product roadmap, enhancements backlog, release schedule, and offshore development budget for a daily Guest Arrivals informational report emailed to hotel front desks to prepare personalized welcome experiences using Loyalty Rewards member data

Product Owner, Customer Loyalty

Intercontinental Hotels Group

Iterative product discovery & development for Customer Relationship Management products used by 5000+ hotels around the world to enhance guest experiences on-property

  • I led product research, concept prototyping, and development to redesign the webapp experience for franchise hotel managers to create, schedule, and redeem on-site guest promotions

  • I managed the product roadmap, enhancements backlog, release schedule, and offshore development budget for a daily Guest Arrivals informational report emailed to hotel front desks to prepare personalized welcome experiences using Loyalty Rewards member data

Product Owner, Customer Loyalty

Intercontinental Hotels Group

Iterative product discovery & development for Customer Relationship Management products used by 5000+ hotels around the world to enhance guest experiences on-property

  • I led product research, concept prototyping, and development to redesign the webapp experience for franchise hotel managers to create, schedule, and redeem on-site guest promotions

  • I managed the product roadmap, enhancements backlog, release schedule, and offshore development budget for a daily Guest Arrivals informational report emailed to hotel front desks to prepare personalized welcome experiences using Loyalty Rewards member data

Certified Scrum Master

ThreeFiveTwo (352, Inc.)

I facilitated user research, sprint planning, backlog refinement, software demos, and stakeholder management for both co-located and distributed balanced development teams

  • Oversaw agency’s largest-ever client product team (24) building AutoTrader’s MakeMyDeal, an automotive marketplace platform for consumers to privately negotiate with dealers online

  • Redesigned agile effort estimation web app planningpoker.com with enhanced gameplay features like card flip animations, velocity tracking, custom timers and point scales, and .csv story import

  • Produced a unified web presence for Hancock Bank and Whitney Bank, two banks navigating a complicated merger. We kept consumer banking activities easily-accessible, allowed for easy user re-authentication, and worked to merge navigation options into a single intuitive information architecture to reduce any potential confusion surrounding new unified brand

Certified Scrum Master

ThreeFiveTwo (352, Inc.)

I facilitated user research, sprint planning, backlog refinement, software demos, and stakeholder management for both co-located and distributed balanced development teams

  • Oversaw agency’s largest-ever client product team (24) building AutoTrader’s MakeMyDeal, an automotive marketplace platform for consumers to privately negotiate with dealers online

  • Redesigned agile effort estimation web app planningpoker.com with enhanced gameplay features like card flip animations, velocity tracking, custom timers and point scales, and .csv story import

  • Produced a unified web presence for Hancock Bank and Whitney Bank, two banks navigating a complicated merger. We kept consumer banking activities easily-accessible, allowed for easy user re-authentication, and worked to merge navigation options into a single intuitive information architecture to reduce any potential confusion surrounding new unified brand

Certified Scrum Master

ThreeFiveTwo (352, Inc.)

I facilitated user research, sprint planning, backlog refinement, software demos, and stakeholder management for both co-located and distributed balanced development teams

  • Oversaw agency’s largest-ever client product team (24) building AutoTrader’s MakeMyDeal, an automotive marketplace platform for consumers to privately negotiate with dealers online

  • Redesigned agile effort estimation web app planningpoker.com with enhanced gameplay features like card flip animations, velocity tracking, custom timers and point scales, and .csv story import

  • Produced a unified web presence for Hancock Bank and Whitney Bank, two banks navigating a complicated merger. We kept consumer banking activities easily-accessible, allowed for easy user re-authentication, and worked to merge navigation options into a single intuitive information architecture to reduce any potential confusion surrounding new unified brand

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