Stefanie Lau

Breaking Intertia

Founder & Principal, 2024-present

Operations and people strategy advisor and builder or thought partner for hire.

• Partnerships & Operations Consultant for Key.ai, a seed stage community platform (current)
• Operations & People Strategy Advisor for a Series A climate tech startup in London, UK (2024)

The New York Times

Director, Operations and Chief of Staff, News Product, 2023-2024

New York, NY (hybrid)

• Built and scaled a 145-person digital product organization for News Product on web, iOS and Android
• Led 6-month planning process and roadmap creation, including zero-to-one product features alongside optimizations and platform upkeep
• Created and managed a high-performing program management function of 6 direct reports
• Set up operations for fluid collaboration between executive team and 6+ product teams
• Drafted product strategies and tracked WoW, QoQ, YoY performance vs budget across all company levels

Director, Program Management, News Product, 2021-2023

New York, NY (hybrid)

• Led change management for several reorgs to organize people to product strategy
• Orchestrated key actors, timelines, communications strategy, and key messages with EQ
• Developed operational playbooks for cross-functional collaboration and delivery

Senior Program Manager, News Product, 2020-2021

New York, NY (hybrid)

• Pioneered ML-powered personalization on the NYT homepage, leading cross-functional teams to develop and launch recommendation algorithms
• Delivered high-priority digital features in cross-functional teams
• Managed experiments to drive user return, design systems, and product accessibility
• Created performance dashboards for the newsroom

Jigsaw (Google/Alphabet)

Consulting Program Manager, Partner Engagement & Product Onboarding, 2018-2020

New York, NY (onsite)

• Led user research operations and partnerships for Trainer, an AI VR police training product
• Managed content and storyboard development for VR scenarios with engineering and design
• Scaled support for AI/ML LLM, VR, and digital security products including Shield, Perspective, Outline VPN, Assembler, and Trainer
• Managed relationships with 20+ corporate, governmental, news, & NGO partners

Minds Matter San Francisco

Chief Community Officer, formerly SVP of Instructional Programs, 2014-2018

San Francisco, CA (onsite)

• Built and ran a 17-person Community function, organized into 6 teams
• Responsible for recruiting and retention of ~325 members and hundreds of external partners
• Grew organization ~25% YoY from 2016-2018
• Increased org retention to 95% in 2018 (from 65% in 2016)

Glint (acquired by LinkedIn and Microsoft)

Product Manager, 2017-2018

Redwood City, CA (onsite)

• Led internationalization of Glint's Engagement product in 48 languages
• Built a self-service, scalable strings translation tool for custom translations
• Implemented "Survey Coach" to provide in-app, expert advice to survey creators

Google

Program Manager and Product Operations, Google Wifi, 2014-2016

Mountain View, CA (onsite)

• Built industry-standard customer support operation for first-gen Wi-Fi product, OnHub
• Achieved 95% CSAT vs. Google's ~75% and ISP industry's 63%
• Created operations on a shoestring budget with limited resources

Communications People Manager, Organizational Effectiveness Team, 2013-2014

Mountain View, CA (onsite)

• Worked with VPs and directors to craft communication strategies for high-priority initiatives
• Consulted with ~20 different teams on messaging policies, programs, and employment brand
• People managed two communications specialists

People Program Manager (promoted from Specialist II, Specialist I, Coordinator), 2006-2013

Mountain View, CA (onsite)

• Winner of internal biennial award for Impact out of 2K+ eligible (2012)
• Product manager and change management lead for new ATS with 2K+ daily active users
• Founded training program for 2.5K new hires over 3 years, developed 15+ courses
• Co-founded BOLD Internship Program, leading DEI internship program in technology