Experience

Sixteen years of product leadership.

Each role traded a solved problem for a harder, less defined one: e-commerce, then scaled B2B product, then consumer support as a product, then AI as an operating model. The receipts are the same either way: $1M first-year revenue, $20M ARR, 800 to 4,000 customers, products serving 100M+ users, and 6 global product teams with 6 direct reports.

  • The Weather Channel logoThe Weather Channel
  • Weather Underground logoWeather Underground
  • Storm Radar logoStorm Radar
  • SoundCloud logoSoundCloud
  • honeycomb.io logohoneycomb.io
  • Apptegy logoApptegy
  • BBA Corp logoBBA Corp
  • Where the work happened

  • Katy Simmons on a Girls Who Code panel, microphone in hand, facing a room of seated students with their hands raised
    Girls Who Code: panel, questions, no slides.
  • Three colleagues standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a large painted wall mural with the word work across it
    The people part of the job, which is most of the job.
  1. May 2026 to Present

    honeycomb.io

    AI Transformation Lead

    Since May 2026

    Personally built a contract-to-ARR reconciliation system where 89% of contracts reconciled automatically end to end, turning a week-long monthly Finance process into exception review. Built the company's first systematic AI Transformation program, moving AI adoption from scattered experimentation toward an operating model spanning discovery, prioritization, governance, execution, and measurement.

    • Personally built the Finance reconciliation system: 89% of contracts reconciled automatically end to end, turning a week-long monthly close into exception review.
    • Built the company's first AI Transformation function: 36 discovery sessions, 23 experiments, and 4 active pilots.
    • Decomposed GTM into 100+ workflows and 400+ subtasks, then defined the readiness and autonomy framework used to decide where AI operates.
    How I did it +

    I joined to figure out where AI could create real leverage. The evidence changed the question. The constraint was rarely that AI could not do something. It was that the work did not yet have enough context, clarity, ownership, connected systems, or feedback for AI to do it reliably. So the job became understanding how work actually happens, what gets in the way, and what has to be true before AI can improve it.

    • 36 structured discovery sessions across GTM, Finance, Marketing, and Engineering in my first few months. I ask people to show me the work, not describe the idealized version of it.
    • 23 experiments identified, 4 active pilots by late July. I call them experiments when we are still trying to learn something, and solutions when we already understand the problem.
    • Built a GTM operating system: skills I wrote, MCP connections into the systems of record, persistent project context and agent memory, n8n and MCP write-back, and Slack notifications, plus working Marketing and Recruiting workflows.
    • Decomposed GTM into 100+ workflows and 400+ subtasks. "Automate sales" tells me nothing. Task level is where AI decisions become real.
    • Built a task-level assessment framework covering understanding, context, AI suitability, integration, notification, autonomy, risk, and value. Capability is not readiness.
    • Defined four autonomy levels: human only, human in the loop, human on the loop, fully autonomous. "Keep a human in the loop" is too vague to act on.
    • Personally built the Finance reconciliation system end to end: SQL, Python, JavaScript, prompts, Claude skills, schemas, mappings, MCP connections, deterministic ARR and iACV logic, evaluation sets, a human-review HTML UI, orchestration, an autogenerated exception spreadsheet, and Slack notifications. 89% of contracts reconciled automatically end to end; the remaining 11% were intentional human-review exceptions such as special discounts and custom POC work.
    • Reviewed the existing AI policy set and asked what kind of thing each document was: principle, norm, guidance, or actual operating rule. Employees need answers at the moment they need them, not a binder.
    • Presented the first synthesis to EStaff as "AI Transformation: the evidence changed the question," reframing the work as operational readiness rather than a list of use cases.
    • Defining the function while doing it: discovery, synthesis, experimentation, prototyping, system design, evaluation, facilitation, enablement, and shared methodology that other people can run without me in the room.
  2. Jan 2025 to May 2026

    The Weather Channel

    Senior Product Manager, AI Transformation (Contract)

    Jan 2025 to May 2026

    Re-architected support across The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, and Storm Radar around an AI-first customer experience. Designed the company's first AI-first support entry point, making the AI Agent the primary interface rather than layering a bot onto the existing Help Center.

    • Unified support for 3 consumer brands serving 100M+ monthly users into one product model.
    • Raised automated and self-service resolution to roughly 75%, deflecting an estimated 1M+ contacts a year.
    • Cut duplicated support workflows roughly 60% with shared taxonomy, routing, and one knowledge loop.
    How I did it +

    The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, and Storm Radar had consumers moving across brands, platforms, subscriptions, support channels, and help content. I stopped asking how to close tickets faster and started asking why the customer needed a ticket at all, and what that interaction should tell Product.

    • Launched an AI-first support entry model with the AI Agent as the primary consumer interface, escalating with context instead of handing humans a blank slate.
    • Designed a Copilot model for human agents, because AI should improve the work humans still have to do, not only the work it takes over.
    • Defined automation confidence thresholds so "the model produced an answer" never meant "send it to the customer." Answer, assist, escalate, or refuse.
    • Wrote AI Operating Procedures covering what the system may do, what source of truth it uses, when a human steps in, and who owns the outcome. That made trust operational.
    • Led the redesign of support into a Support Hub combining troubleshooting, product education, value discovery, and expertise, since a customer in support is already trying to understand the product.
    • Rebuilt the knowledge loop: product changes, knowledge changes, AI knows, customers get better answers, gaps surface. A stale AI support system is a very confident way to be wrong.
    • Established shared taxonomy, metadata, and automated classification so routing, analytics, and product feedback had something reliable to stand on.
    • Built the analytics foundation around containment, CSAT, BSAT, deflection, and content gaps, and refused to treat containment alone as proof of success.
    • Made support a sensor for Product: if the same issue generates hundreds of cases, the goal is not to get very efficient at answering it forever.
    • Got sharp about deterministic versus interpretive work. Exact subscription status does not need creativity. An angry customer with a messy explanation might.
  3. Jan 2024 to Jan 2026

    SoundCloud

    Director of Product, AI Transformation (Contract)

    Jan 2024 to Jan 2026

    Built AI systems operating at SoundCloud scale, including content detection processing ~700K tracks/day at 99.36% accuracy and 99.75% precision. Led AI automation across customer support, copyright, contracts, artist/distribution operations, Trust & Safety, and knowledge workflows.

    • Shipped AI-generated content detection at 99.36% accuracy and 99.75% precision across roughly 700K tracks per day.
    • Reworked support around AI-assisted resolution at roughly 80K tickets per month and cut weekly ticket volume 10%.
    • Built the company-wide AI operating model across Product, Engineering, Legal, Trust & Safety, Marketing, and Support.
    How I did it +

    I did not arrive with a theory of AI Transformation. I got there by solving enough AI problems to see that the model was rarely the hardest part. Everything around it decided whether it mattered: the knowledge, the workflow, the systems it could reach, who owned the decision, and whether anyone acted on the output.

    • Built and ran an AI-first operating model across Product, Engineering, Legal, Marketing, Trust & Safety, Community Operations, monetization, and internal operations.
    • Moved the company from scattered individual AI usage to centralized enterprise access and routing. Centralization was not the goal. Visibility, reuse, and cost control were.
    • Founded the AI Collective, an open forum for demos, questions, and early feedback, so AI Ops never became the approval desk for experimentation.
    • Owned support AI end to end and measured it on whether the customer's problem was resolved, not on containment. Success meant the ticket closed for real: no repeat contact, no escalation, CSAT holding, no bot loop.
    • Rebuilt support knowledge as infrastructure across a 691-article Help Center: architecture, search, quality, ownership, and the loop from failed answer to new content.
    • Evaluated bot conversations against what happened downstream: repeat tickets, escalation, CSAT, content gaps, and where people got stuck in loops. Connecting bot and ticket data in Looker contributed to roughly 20% better decision accuracy and roughly 2% retention impact.
    • Led MAIA, AI-generated content detection: 99.36% accuracy, 99.75% precision, roughly 700K tracks per day with 5 to 7 second latency, in service of transparency, platform integrity, and differentiated monetization.
    • Ran age assurance against UK and Australia regulation, evaluating Persona, Yoti, and VerifyMy against accuracy, privacy, friction, integration, and a first-year cost range of roughly $370K to $860K.
    • Shipped AI-supported copyright review, license summarization, and contract indexing so Legal spent its time on judgment instead of retrieval.
    • Applied AI to artist distribution and monetization review. Some of the best AI work is invisible: the artist just waits less.
    • Built the internal AI system on BigQuery as the data spine: Zendesk API data flowed in, product analytics were already there, Finance and Revenue data came through Looker, and Product Marketing content from Google Drive plus Engineering docs from GitHub moved into GCP buckets. An agent sat over that connected context for deep analysis.
  4. Jan 2019 to Jan 2024

    Apptegy

    Senior Product Manager

    Jan 2019 to Jan 2024

    Created Rooms during COVID and took it from 2 design partners to 436 customers in two years, with significant 0 to 1 work on Community Experience, Attendance Pro, and Staff Connect. Scaled the flagship SaaS platform from ~800 to ~4,000 customers, contributing to roughly $20M ARR, leading 6 teams with 6 direct reports.

    • Conceived and shipped Rooms during COVID, scaling it from 2 design partners to 436 customers in two years, roughly $5M in sales.
    • Scaled the flagship SaaS platform 5X, roughly 800 to 4,000 customers, contributing to roughly $20M ARR.
    • Led 6 global product teams with 6 direct reports across multiple product areas.
    How I did it +

    Helped take the company from startup to scale by designing durable product operating models. They kept working, and kept developing people, long after my tenure.

    • Conceived and shipped Rooms during COVID, when districts needed a way to keep families connected to individual classrooms. It went from 2 design partners to 436 customers in two years and later evolved into Messaging Essentials and Group Connect.
    • Did significant 0 to 1 work on Community Experience, Attendance Pro, and Staff Connect alongside Rooms.
    • Helped scale the flagship platform 5X, from roughly 800 to 4,000 customers.
    • Contributed to sustained growth reaching $20M ARR.
    • Established product strategy and operating models that became the foundation for long-term growth.
    • Led 6 global product teams with 6 direct reports, teams of 4 to 8, hiring and coaching product managers who still run product today.
    • Built multi-channel publishing workflows so customers could create content once and distribute it across web, mobile, social, and other channels while preserving local control.
    • Productized implementation and onboarding by turning recurring setup, migration, configuration, and training into repeatable systems.
  5. Apr 2015 to Jan 2019

    Arkansas Women's Outreach

    Co-Founder

    Apr 2015 to Jan 2019

    Nonprofit; women's health in the homeless community

    • Built the organization and its direct-distribution model from nothing.
    • Focused on women's health access in the homeless community.
    How I did it +

    Co-founded a nonprofit improving women's lives through direct access to period supplies and women's health resources.

    • Built the organization and its direct-distribution model from nothing.
    • Focused on women's health access in the homeless community.
  6. Nov 2008 to Dec 2018

    BBA Corp

    Senior Product Manager

    Nov 2008 to Dec 2018

    Built and launched an e-commerce business that generated roughly $1M in its first year. Led national mobile and e-commerce product launches for higher education, expanding the business into the collegiate bookstore market.

    • Built e-commerce that generated roughly $1M in first-year revenue, then scaled it into a multi-campus enterprise product.
    • Led the company's expansion into collegiate mobile across the national bookstore market.
    • Built Product teams and led development of the digital platform as the business expanded.
    How I did it +

    Launched and scaled an e-commerce platform generating $1M in first-year revenue, then turned it into a multi-campus enterprise solution. Built the product teams that ran it.

    • Established the company's mobile product presence, helping expand the business into the collegiate bookstore market and earn nationwide recognition.
    • $1M first-year e-commerce revenue; scaled into a multi-campus enterprise offering.
    • Built and developed high-performing product teams over a decade.

What people say

Recommendations from the people I worked with, in their own words.

She consistently cut through the noise, evaluating opportunities and pressure-testing their potential.
Maria Von Watzdorf, VP, Product at SoundCloudMaria Von WatzdorfVP, Product at SoundCloud

I had the pleasure of working with Katy for the last 1.5 years, during which she served as Director of Product Management, AI Transformation on my team at SoundCloud. Katy combines exceptional technical depth with sharp strategic thinking. At a time when new AI solutions were emerging almost daily, she consistently cut through the noise, evaluating opportunities, pressure-testing their potential, and determining exactly which innovations were the right fit for us.

Katy is relentlessly solution-oriented and one of the most determined problem-solvers I've ever worked with. She never hesitates to go the extra mile. She's proactive, analytical, and always one step ahead, not just doing what's asked, but actively surfacing issues, shaping thoughtful plans, and often being the first to drive execution. On top of all that, Katy is simply fantastic to work with: down-to-earth, approachable, trustworthy, and someone you can always rely on when things get complex. She knows how to get things done, and she does it with integrity, clarity, and a truly collaborative spirit.

She set the tone for the product team and laid the foundations for the majority of the products that are growing today in Apptegy.
Guillermo Araiza, Staff Product Manager at CrunchyrollGuillermo AraizaStaff Product Manager at Crunchyroll

"Standing on the shoulders of giants" captures the essence of Katy's contribution and the impact she left on Apptegy and me. Throughout my collaboration with Katy, she consistently proved herself as a well-rounded product manager, a thoughtful leader, and an outstanding colleague.

She set the tone for the product team and laid the foundations for the majority of the products that are growing today in Apptegy. Katy's contributions were a cornerstone for the company's success and product growth.

I have been consistently impressed by her remarkable perseverance and commitment to overcoming product challenges, proving, time and again, to be a true achiever at Apptegy. Katy was undoubtedly a pivotal contributor to finding product success for Rooms and business growth for Apptegy.

She has strong convictions and ideas, and backs both up through methodical research and validation.
Kathleen Conley, Product Manager at ApptegyKathleen ConleyProduct Manager at Apptegy

Katy and I worked together for two years in the same Product department at a fast-paced education technology startup. I had the privilege of learning product management best practices under her wing, growing from Product Analyst to Product Manager, thanks in large part to her tutelage. She is a strong mentor with a strong sense of self and has always made herself available as a resource for others still growing into their own career paths.

My time working with Katy has had a profound impact on my professional development. I came into the product world with no prior experience; Katy made herself as available as possible to help me grow, on top of managing her own duties. As these duties at times included managing four separate development teams, it should be no surprise that Katy has a high capacity for challenging work that requires equal focus on competing priorities.

Katy brings her full self with her wherever she goes, which is one of the most rewarding things about collaborating with her. She is just about as authentic as you can get. She has strong convictions and ideas, and backs both up through methodical research and validation. In my experience, any work Katy does as an individual is always in service of reaching common ground with her teammates so all can work toward meaningful, actionable solutions. Her attention to detail with regard to team processes is a noteworthy example of this. Katy's eye for efficiency, in communication, in workload management, in product roadmapping, helped propel our Product team to where it is today, both in improving cross-team collaboration and developing an overarching product strategy.

Working with Katy left me a more confident, competent product manager with a clear sense of myself, my responsibilities, and what makes me uniquely capable of handling them. At the very least, Katy is a valuable teammate because she can bring out the best in her coworkers. And that still does not begin to encapsulate the value accrued by her years of experience, passion, and work ethic.

She finds the joy in solving problems for our clients and is really encouraging, the whole way.
Nicki Hennington, UI/UX Director at ApptegyNicki HenningtonUI/UX Director at Apptegy

Katy is an excellent product manager. She and I have worked together directly for the last few years. She is incredibly technically minded and detail-oriented.

Working with her is always so easy. She finds the joy in solving problems for our clients and is really encouraging, the whole way. Katy truly cares about each person she works with and is very empathetic to the experience of us designers, as well as her developers. She fights to ensure everyone feels involved and motivated by the work we do each day.

I know I would not be the designer or the person I am today without her mentorship.

She will always take time to have a conversation with us to make the product more reasonable for clients and devs. She takes our opinion really seriously.
Nived Vingelat, Lead Backend Engineer at ApptegyNived VingelatLead Backend Engineer at Apptegy

She is an amazing PM. She will always take time to have a conversation with us to make the product more reasonable for clients and devs. She takes our opinion really seriously and will communicate it to the people who need to hear it.

She's also good at planning stuff ahead, so we never need to wait for the next thing to do. Also, she is funny, so no one gets frustrated around her. An amazing PM and human. I can only think good things about her.

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