Laura Yashar

About

Senior Program Manager and product/engineering operations leader with 10+ years leading complex B2B SaaS programs. Experienced designing scalable operating systems, governance frameworks, and executive reporting structures to improve roadmap delivery, alignment, and execution velocity across distributed teams. Proven track record of end-to-end program lifecycle leadership (definition through launch), GTM and compliance-aware execution, and building automations and AI-enabled tools that drive measurable business outcomes.

Experience

• Senior Program Manager, Product & Engineering Operations · Gladly.ai06-01-2025 – 02-01-2026

  ● Served as Gladly’s first Program Manager, establishing the company’s program management function and designing a product and engineering operating system tracking 50+ AI and platform initiatives across 100+ stakeholders to create execution visibility across Product, Engineering, and GTM teams ● Designed an execution visibility framework enabling Product, Engineering, and GTM teams to track feature launches, bug fixes, and roadmap delivery improving cross-team coordination and prioritization ● Built and beta-launched VendorBot, an AI-powered vendor and contract management platform governing 100+ vendor contracts and reducing evaluation time by over 95% through automation and LLM tooling ● Established executive reporting systems tracking program delivery, roadmap execution, operational KPIs, and platform health enabling leadership prioritization and early identification of delivery risks ● Launched a weekly executive delivery digest consolidating program updates, roadmap status, and cross-team dependencies enabling faster prioritization and response to delivery risks ● Drove 95% adoption across 80 engineers and PMs within 60 days through structured onboarding, enablement, and operational accountability frameworks

• Senior Product Manager · Policygenius07-01-2024 – 06-01-2025

  ● Delivered GTM onboarding features enabling insurance carrier integrations while ensuring regulatory compliance across partner ecosystems ● Coordinated roadmap execution and release planning with a six-person distributed Engineering team by implementing sprint cadences and automated workflows improving delivery velocity and stakeholder transparency ● Partnered with Product, Engineering, Legal, and Sales leadership to prioritize integrations based on technical feasibility, compliance requirements, and revenue impact

• Associate Director of Project Management Organization (PMO) · Policygenius06-01-2022 – 07-01-2024

  ● Founded and scaled the company’s first enterprise PMO establishing governance frameworks and delivery oversight for 40–50 strategic cross-functional initiatives across Product, Engineering, and GTM teams ● Built and mentored a team of four program managers accelerating initiative startup timelines from two months to two weeks and increasing organizational execution capacity ● Led enterprise rollout of OpenAir across 40+ distributed teams integrating Jira, Mavenlink, and NetSuite to resolve invoicing and timesheet inconsistencies and improve operational reporting accuracy

• Senior Program Manager, Operational Efficiency · Policygenius11-01-2020 – 06-01-2022

  ● Built cross-functional Operations Automations as a net-new company function launching 50+ automations for 300+ employees via Iterable and Zapier that eliminated thousands of manual hours and scaled operations by 2x ● Led 50-state Licensing & Compliance transformation governing 5,000 professional licenses, building scalable guardrails and automated validation workflows that eliminated violations and reduced processing time by 50%

• Manager, Customer Success Operations · Policygenius02-01-2019 – 11-01-2020

  ● Managed a team of 18 customer success associates establishing scalable performance management frameworks and operational processes improving team productivity ● Built onboarding and enablement programs for customer-facing teams partnering with HR to launch interactive training tutorials reducing new hire ramp time from 90 to 30 days

• Program Manager, Telemedicine · Call9 Medical03-01-2018 – 01-01-2019

  ● Scaled palliative care telemedicine operations increasing visit volume by 300% through workflow redesign and operational process improvements

• Program Manager, Community Health · Montefiore Hospital, School Health Program11-01-2015 – 03-01-2018

  ● Scaled palliative care telemedicine operations increasing visit volume by 300% through workflow redesign and operational process improvements

• Community Health Organizer · Montefiore Hospital, School Health Program01-01-2010 – 06-01-2012

  ● Hired and managed a team of 16 customer-facing community organizers, built playbooks and scaled workflows

• Health Program Associate · Pro Mujer06-01-2013 – 08-01-2015

  ● Systematized and streamlined clinical and operational workflows in four microfinance centers in Peru

Education

• Columbia UniversityMaster in Public Health, Health Policy and Management, Health Policy and Management (Master in Public Health)
• University of Maryland, College ParkBachelor of Arts, Public Health, Public Health

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