What an honor to have Upasna Gautam on the podcast this week! This episode features the audio version of an Instagram Live chat between Jacqueline and Upasna on January 26, 2021.
Upasna is the Product Manager on the Digital News and Platforms team at CNN where she develops and optimizes the technological infrastructure that powers the domain and delivers breaking news to the world. Prior to her Product Management role at CNN, Upasna worked in organic search and data analytics for a decade, and has architected and managed the organic search strategies for many enterprise properties such as PCMag, Mashable, Ford Motor Company, Valvoline, Mars Corporation, Mars Pet Food, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, and Kimberly-Clark.
Holding a degree in Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics from Michigan State University, she started her career as a Clinical Research Scientist, but her love for data drew her into the field of SEO, then ultimately, Product Management. Upasna's unique experience in science, mathematics, and search has allowed her to bring a logical and analytical approach to increasing web visibility and authority while maintaining brand integrity to drive greater conversion for enterprise-level digital products. Upasna lives her passion for teaching through processing complex technological topics and distilling them down to their simplest forms so that they can be understood by anyone. She has presented her thought leadership on search optimization and product management at several tech conferences, including the Digital Summit series, Pubcon, SMX Advanced, Conductor C3, INBOUND, State of Search, and Advanced Search Summit. The highlight of her speaking career was in May 2019, when she delivered her TED talk, titled Optimizing for the Next Billion.
Upasna is also a Speaker Coach at Shine Bootcamp, a professional speaker accelerator for women and non-binary people. Upasna's mission is to galvanize women to cultivate confidence and seek the opportunities to amplify representation on the speaker rosters in the tech conference circuit. She hosts free workshops for women to teach them the tactics to define a topic, pitch events, and craft compelling proposals to get accepted to speak. Since launching her workshop series in mid-2020, she has already helped over 750 women attain success as a conference speaker. In addition to the nerdy goodness of her full-time position and conference speaking, Pas is a mindfulness and meditation teacher, avid hiker, yogi, and self-proclaimed gastronomist.
Be sure to connect with Upasna on Instagram @upasnagautam. She also has an incredible monthly resource called "Product Management Office Hours." And, if you would like a more personal and private opportunity to be mentored by Upasna, check out her 1:1 mentoring opportunity.
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