Emily Pugh

About

I'm a product leader with 15+ years of experience building digital products and exceptional consumer experiences that accelerate growth, loyalty, and revenue across DTC, ecommerce, personalized subscription box service businesses, two-sided marketplaces, and digital platforms, from early-stage startups to high-growth consumer brands. I've owned products and customer experiences end-to-end, leading customer discovery, vision, strategy, roadmaps, design, execution, commercialization, launch, experimentation, and continuous improvement. My experience spans digital product management, ecommerce, CRO, personalization, customer lifecycle, retention, monetization, merchandising, platform strategy, category expansion, and 0→1 product development. I operate between big-picture thinking and hands-on execution. I enjoy helping businesses identify the highest-leverage opportunities for growth. That means understanding the customer, but never stopping there. I think in systems, not silos, connecting customer behavior, business strategy, operational reality, operations, technology, and data to uncover where thoughtful product decisions can create outsized commercial impact. Whether the opportunity is launching a new category, improving conversion, increasing customer lifetime value, transforming an end-to-end experience, or helping teams focus on the right priorities, I enjoy bringing clarity to complexity and aligning organizations around what matters most. Throughout my career I've partnered closely with founders, CEOs, executive teams, engineering, design, marketing, operations, analytics, merchandising, and customer experience to translate ambitious business goals into products customers love and businesses value. I've built and led teams, owned strategic roadmaps, and operated comfortably as both a hands-on product builder and a leader who empowers others. I believe exceptional customer experiences are more than great design. They're a competitive advantage. The smallest moments in a customer journey often create the greatest business impact when they're thoughtfully designed and continuously improved. Impact Highlights: • +41% in-year revenue growth to high eight figures • 3x ecommerce revenue growth YoY • 76% upsell adoption into higher-value subscription plans • 20% churn reduction and $350k retained revenue • Increased subscription acquisition conversion from 0.48% → 5%+ • Built and scaled a 0→1 two-sided marketplace contributing to successful Series A fundraising

Experience

• Director of Digital Product · Little Spoon11-01-2022 – 07-01-2024

  Little Spoon is a direct-to-consumer food brand offering clean, healthy, and award-winning baby, toddler, and kids meals and snacks through a biweekly subscription delivery service. Little Spoon has delivered 50 million meals to 400,000+ families and has been featured in Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal. Little Spoon was founded in 2017 in NYC and is a Series B. Role overview: ✅ Head of digital product leading product management and product design, with two direct reports. ✅ Co-leader of the technology team (~13+), including engineering and QA, in-house and remote globally ✅ Drive and evolve the entire experience (digital to delivery) to support the expansion of new food categories for new ages/eating stages and eating occasions for customer leads, active subscribers, and churned customers ✅ Drive growth via conversion rate, retention rate, order rate, average order value, units per transaction, adoption, margin, and the expansion of new categories and products ✅ Drive vision, strategy, goal-setting, roadmap, MVP definition, execution, requirements gathering, stakeholder management, sprints, process, methodologies, GTM commercialization ✅ Collaborate with founders, executive team, marketing, care, analytics, product, operations 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Led a major customer experience overhaul, launching 4 new food categories/subscriptions with Biteables™, Lunchers™, Snacks; and Puffs. 💰 Launched a reactivation journey for the launch of two new product categories/subscriptions, with a 12% conversion rate, and driving multi-plan adoption with 52% of reactivated users subscribing to an additional category 💰 Increased adoption 18% for a new category by improving ordering flexibility

• Senior Director of Product · Rockets of Awesome02-01-2020 – 04-01-2022

  Rockets of Awesome is a direct-to-consumer brand designing over-the-top awesome clothes for real life with babies and kids, accessible through a seasonal subscription box customized for the child’s preferences and needs, or a la carte via an online store. Investors include Foot Locker. With headquarters in NYC, Rockets of Awesome was founded in 2016 and is a Series C. Role overview: ✅ Head of digital product leading product management and product design, building a team of 2 direct reports ✅ Create a best-in-class shopping experience for busy parents, spanning across customer leads, active subscribers and a la carte shoppers, and churned customers ✅ Drive vision, strategy, OKRs, strategic planning, experience, execution, experiment test plans, stakeholder management, voice of the customer, requirements gathering, and commercialization ✅ Drive growth via conversion rate, CAC, LTV, NPS, average order value, box size, units per transaction, retention rate, referral rate, upsells, expansion and adoption 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Launched experiments to validate the value of an ecommerce shop a la carte experience, shifting the business from a subscription box-only business model to an omnichannel shopping experience. Then led the launch and optimization of the online shop which tripled revenue YoY without cannibalizing the subscription service 💰 Led expansion to the baby category (Mini), launching a personalized subscription box service, online shop, gifting program, and “graduation” UX to the big kids line 💰 Increased LTV by converting 76% of subscribers in a lean experiment to opt-in to a better box size 💰 Increased subscription conversion rate from 0.48% to 5%+ through A/B testing, UX/UI, and marketing messaging. 💰 Drove user engagement and purchase intent with high-performing digital experiences: Complete the Look - 34.7% CVR; Search - 10% CVR; Outfits Lookbook - 8% CVR 💰 Business went from Series B to Series C during my leadership

• Director of Product · Rockets of Awesome03-01-2019 – 02-01-2020

  Rockets of Awesome is a direct-to-consumer fashion apparel brand designing over-the-top awesome clothes for real life with babies and kids, accessible through a seasonal subscription box customized for the child’s preferences and needs, or a la carte via an online store. Investors include Foot Locker. With headquarters in NYC, Rockets of Awesome was founded in 2016 and is a Series C.

• Senior Product Manager · Rockets of Awesome03-01-2018 – 03-01-2019

  Rockets of Awesome is a direct-to-consumer fashion apparel brand designing over-the-top awesome clothes for real life with babies and kids, accessible through a seasonal subscription box customized for the child’s preferences and needs, or a la carte via an online store. Investors include Foot Locker. With headquarters in NYC, Rockets of Awesome was founded in 2016 and is a Series C.

• Senior Product Manager · Plated12-01-2016 – 12-01-2017

  Plated was a weekly subscription meal kit delivery service delivering chef-designed recipes and pre-portioned ingredients. Plated was founded in NYC in 2012 and a Series B. It was acquired in 2017 by Albertsons, one of the largest US grocers, for $200 million. Role overview: ✅ Individual contributor accountable for leading two cross-functional squads, Early Life & Loyalty (Retention) and Acquisition, with folks across product design, engineering, analytics and data science, marketing, and creative. ✅ Lead customer journey mapping with a marketing partner to drive improvement ✅ Stand up and own an NPS program to drive improvement across the organization ✅ Regularly conduct customer interviews in-person and on the phone 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Reduced subscription cancellations 20% by creating an onboarding experience across the customer journey: marketing and transactional emails, site, iOS mobile app, first unboxing experience, and CX interactions 💰 Saved ~700 subscribers / $350k in revenue by designing a cancellation flow that educated customers on product value and offered solutions to their problems 💰 Increased mobile web CVR by 2% by partnering with and integrating Apple Pay, which also resulted in the mobile app being featured in Apple’s App Store re-launch 💰 Increased target customer persona cohort by 7% by redesigning acquisition funnel to appeal to a new customer persona, a key company-wide strategic initiative

• Director of Product · LiveAuctioneers09-01-2014 – 09-01-2016

  LiveAuctioneers is a global marketplace for antiques, fine art, collectibles, jewelry, furniture, fashion, and more, helping collectors bid in live auctions offered by thousands of auction houses around the world. LiveAuctioneers was founded in 2002 in NYC. Role overview: ✅ First product management hire ✅ Manage the collector/bidder experience across web, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app, and transactional emails ✅ Started and managed a customer advisory board and mobile app beta testing programs ✅ Lead two concurrent sprint teams with ~14 engineers: web and mobile apps, with engineers in-house and remote across the US ✅ Manage app stores (submittal, release notes, marketing, optimization, customer feedback) 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Spearheaded a full rebrand, redesign, and re-build on a modern tech stack across web, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app, and transactional emails, solving key customer (collector/bidder) pain points: trust (brand perception, ratings, reviews); site speed; mobile responsiveness and usability; search accuracy and item discoverability (SEO, on-site search/browse/discover and email search alerts); feature/experience parity across platforms; and overall UX across bidding, product detail pages, auction pages, favoriting, and account management 💰 Re-launched the website as a beta site on a separate domain, A/B testing against the legacy site to validate hypotheses and reduce rollout risk by optimizing performance, increasing bids 15%; increasing net sales 5%; and profiting $10k in auction house advertising within first month of A/B testing the beta version of the site 💰 Boosted app store ratings, downloads, and user engagement across iOS and Android.

• Senior Director of Product · YouBeauty + BeautySage05-01-2014 – 09-01-2014

  YouBeauty is a beauty and wellness destination for 3.5+ million women a month, with editorial content, 34 scientifically-validated quizzes with a personalized beauty dashboard and recommendation engine, a community, and integrated brand partner experiences. Its sister site BeautySage was a curated online store that only sold beauty and wellness products that were proven to work. Products were vetted through a process involving editorial curation, scientific testing of product claims, and customer reviews. YouBeauty was founded in 2011 in NYC and was then acquired by Zeta Interactive, and BeautySage has since been sunset. Role overview: ✅ Promoted to head of product after 3 months of being in the company ✅ Oversee two websites ✅ Manage and hire a product manager, UX designer, and digital designer ✅ Partner with the YouBeauty sales team to strategize, execute, and white label high-impact brand activations, like an interactive skincare tool that shows a user’s face before and after using a product; personalized product recommendations and advice; branded takeovers of content and quizzes; product samplings; social media campaigns; consumer insights; and native content ✅ Enable internal tooling capabilities for editors, merchants, and marketers ✅ Execute a “reskinning” brand refresh and frontend experience for BeautySage ✅ YouBeauty persona development ✅ Led a rebrand and redesign of YouBeauty, with the goals of better appealing to target reader audience and brand partners; driving quiz completions, and boosting brand engagement. 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Increased quiz completions by 15% across collection of 34 quizzes, enhancing audience insights and personalization 💰 Attracted 7 new brand partnerships: L’Oréal, Neutrogena, Stonyfield, SkinCeuticals, Derma e, AHAVA, and Hask 💰 Improved comScore, by creating a more engaging experience

• Director of Product · YouBeauty + BeautySage03-01-2013 – 05-01-2014

  YouBeauty is a beauty and wellness destination for 3.5+ million women a month, with editorial content, 34 scientifically-validated quizzes with a personalized beauty dashboard and recommendation engine, a community, and integrated brand partner experiences. Its sister site BeautySage was a curated online store that only sold beauty and wellness products that were proven to work. Products were vetted through a process involving editorial curation, scientific testing of product claims, and customer reviews. YouBeauty was founded in 2011 in NYC and was then acquired by Zeta Interactive, and BeautySage has since been sunset.

• Product Manager · YouBeauty + BeautySage12-01-2012 – 03-01-2013

  YouBeauty is a beauty and wellness destination for 3.5+ million women a month, with editorial content, 34 scientifically-validated quizzes with a personalized beauty dashboard and recommendation engine, a community, and integrated brand partner experiences. Its sister site BeautySage was a curated online store that only sold beauty and wellness products that were proven to work. Products were vetted through a process involving editorial curation, scientific testing of product claims, and customer reviews. YouBeauty was founded in 2011 in NYC and was then acquired by Zeta Interactive, and BeautySage has since been sunset.

• Head of Product · Betterfly04-01-2009 – 11-01-2012

  Betterfly was the largest marketplace for matching people who wanted to learn, look, and feel better with people who offer those services (i.e. personal trainers, music teachers, academic tutors, yoga instructors, massage therapists, makeup artists, etc.). It excluded companies. Users could search on our site or use our concierge service to view a service provider’s profile and book, pay, and review services. Service providers used the product to market, manage, and grow their businesses. The company was founded in 2009 in NYC and has since been acquired by TakeLessons. Role overview: ✅ Hired as the second employee to take Betterfly from vision to launch ✅ Help develop brand identity, experience design, and marketing materials ✅ Lead engineering efforts across offshore, in-house, and remote in the US team ✅ Built 0-1+ marketplace product, including customizable provider profiles, booking, payments, messaging, reviews, marketing tools, concierge, community forum ✅ Conceptualize and execute lean experiments to validate value proposition, business model, subscription model, upsells, pricing, etc ✅ Drive pre-launch lead generation and PR/marketing buzz ✅ Collaborate with founder, CEO, VCs, engineering, designers, sales 📈 Impact highlights: 💰 Proved product market fit, securing Series A from Groupon founders during my leadership 💰 Increased conversion of lead generation flow by more than 50% 💰 Increased consumer engagement on landing pages by more than 60%

Education

• Bowling Green State UniversityBachelor's of Science in Technology, Visual Communication Technology

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