Making technology useful and usable has been her mission since her university days. In this issue, Amy shares more about her personal mission for modern technology, travelling and a deliciously icy hobby of hers.
1. Hi Amy! Please tell us about your professional background.
I have spent most of my career in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. I studied Human-Computer Interaction at Stanford University where I was fortunate to learn from some pioneers in technology and design. I was dazzled by the dot-com boom but also found meaning and potential in making technology useful and usable for ordinary people.
Over the course of my career, I have built digital products and platforms across a range of industries and companies. Always on the boundary between product management and user experience, each role allowed me to immerse myself in a completely different context. Some highlights include personalising vacation planning at Disney, reimagining an online university experience for working adults, and peeking into people’s refrigerators to understand the diverse grocery habits across Southeast Asia.
I came to Singapore in 2017 to join RedMart, Singapore’s homegrown grocery startup, where I gained a deep understanding of those shopping habits, as well as the nuances of automating warehouses and delivering ice cream. We were then acquired by Lazada and welcomed into the Alibaba family. Between those transitions and countless Product/UX community events, I have gained invaluable insights into the vibrant tech scene across Southeast Asia, India, and China.
2. Share more about the modules/courses which you teach at NUS-ISS.
I teach Product Thinking for Organisations. It focuses on the mindset shift required throughout entire organisations to enable product and technology best practices. This topic is near and dear to my heart as I have spent much of my career advocating internally for more user-centric and experimental corporate cultures.
More broadly, I work on continuously enhancing our curriculum for the Digital Products and Platforms Practice.
3. Why did you choose to teach at NUS-ISS?
I have had a mission since my university days: to make technology useful and usable for ordinary people. I truly believe that modern technology provides the tools to solve meaningful problems and improve people’s lives.
After the last decade in leadership positions at product companies, I wanted to challenge myself in new ways. NUS-ISS presented an opportunity to contribute my experience from another angle. As we grow our capabilities as an industry, I hope that we can collectively solve better problems.
4. What do you enjoy most about your work?
Technologies and product development processes have evolved significantly during my career and I have grown alongside them. Watching the frameworks change so frequently, I learned that there is no straightforward formula. I enjoy adapting best practices and devising new techniques to solve the problem at hand.
I am still iterating on how best to teach this approach in short courses. Now that my “product” is the DPP curriculum itself, I am enjoying applying those product techniques to our courses to enable the most effective learning.
Above all, I love working with teams to create something more than I could ever achieve on my own.
5. How do you keep up with the industry?
I participate in Product and Design communities across the US, Southeast Asia, and India. I do a lot of mentoring, which keeps me abreast of specific challenges on the ground. Thanks to LinkedIn, my past colleagues keep me updated on the important issues and trends in our field. I also listen to podcasts and read, although my reading list expands more quickly than I can consume it.
6. What are your favourite activities when you are not working?
My great joys in life are exploring, eating, and being active so that I can eat some more. In San Francisco, my regular activities were skiing, running, and ocean swimming. These have not really fit into my Singapore routine but there has been plenty of food and travel. My last big trip was to Argentina to see glaciers and penguins. I’m hoping to try skiing in Japan next year. I guess I like the cold.
Hiking on a glacier in Patagonia, Argentina
Getting ready for a swim in the San Francisco Bay
7.Tell us something about yourself that very few people know.
I make my own ice cream. I have an ice cream maker and I like to experiment with new combinations of flavors. My most recent batch was pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crumble/crust in honor of Thanksgiving.