GoHealth Career Growth & Development

Describe your career journey so far. What skills or experiences have you acquired along the way that have helped you get to where you are now?

I started my career in management consulting and have moved through strategy, innovation, business intelligence and product roles. All of my past roles came together when I was chief of staff to the CEO at GoHealth and serve me well now as senior vice president of product where I have the opportunity to lead product managers, program managers, designers and machine learning engineers. The biggest skills I’ve gathered along the way are becoming comfortable navigating ambiguity, the ability to learn whatever I need to drive an outcome and learning to effectively leverage the strengths of people around me.

I’ve also learned that while hard skills matter, the people and influence part of leadership really matters and so does emotional centeredness. You can’t be a very effective leader if you aren’t emotionally centered and taking good care of yourself. 

What support did you receive from individuals or resources that helped you step into a leadership role?

I’ve been blessed to have individuals around me who always encourage me to reach for more and remind me of my strengths. The best advice I’ve gotten is “always walk through open doors,” and that has taken me into roles and opportunities that I never could have dreamed of on my own.

From a resource perspective, I value books, newsletters and articles that have been suggested by peers, coaches and mentors. I’ve found that a lot of people ask for advice, get great books and articles to read and then don’t bother to read them. There’s such a wealth of knowledge that people can find if they read.

Books: A few that I’ve been recommended over the years and now recommend even if they’re old include: “How Finance Works” by Mihir Desai, “The Goal” by Eliyahu Goldratt, “The Making of a Manager” by Julie Zhuo, “Work Rules” by Lazlo Bock, “Data Science for Business” by Tom Fawcett, “Your Oxygen Mask First” by Kevin Lawrence.

Newsletters that I read every day are: various Axios newsletters, the WSJ Ten Point, Superhuman. There’s also a strong community of women leaders who produce valuable (free) content on Substack, LinkedIn and in books. I love reading Ami Vora, Deb Liu, Julie Zhuo and more.

How do you encourage other women on your team to become leaders themselves? Are there any stories you can share that showcase how you’ve done this?

Women on my teams have often told me great ideas in private one-on-ones but don’t bring them up in broader forums. I always encourage my whole team and especially the women, to bring up good ideas in group settings and take ownership for driving their ideas to resolution.

I also encourage my team and especially the women on the team to care about areas beyond their own domain.

I’ve included women on my teams in various meetings they didn’t have access to, so they get context straight from the source. I’ve seen them grow in their understanding and awareness of the strategic discussions going on and then develop better solutions.

I’ve also seen women who I’ve encouraged to speak up in meetings put themselves out there and become valued resources across the entire organization as people realize the strength of their contributions.