Leader Spotlight: Remaining bold but validated, with Emily Keiper
Emily Keiper is Director of Product Management & Product Research at ClearCaptions LLC, an organization that provides industry-leading telephone captioning services to help hard-of-hearing seniors regain independence and live a more meaningful life. Her path into product began in the medical device manufacturing space, where she quickly advanced to Executive Director while also leading marketing and product development globally. Since then, Emily has shaped product strategy and helped build out processes and product teams in diagnostics, biological evaluation, and pharmacy automation — consistently operating at the intersection of innovation, user empathy, and market alignment.
In our conversation, Emily talks about “remaining bold but validated” — making strong, impactful decisions based on data and insights. She highlights the value of managing resistance thoughtfully, recognizing that the best ideas often return when the timing or context finally aligns. Emily also emphasizes how organizations should make internal feedback a pillar of their culture.
Moving from marketing to product
You started your formal career in sales and marketing. How did that lead you to transition to product management?
I received my degree in advertising, and while I enjoyed it, for some reason, I felt like it wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted to do more. I did a quick stint in sales fresh out of college, and although I liked the relationship-building aspect, I also liked understanding what I was selling and being able to train others on the services I was providing.
I moved into a multifaceted marketing role with a different company, which was a very lucky first step into a marketing career. I wore every hat you could think of. I managed marketing content, was their creative go-to, managed the website, trained and assisted distribution teams, ran their scholarship program, and was their head of customer support. I was able to set various career paths for myself.
This led to global marketing and national accounts management for a medical device manufacturer and, soon enough, I built out their marketing team and processes. I rebranded their business. I worked very closely with engineers, regulatory, quality, and more, and started to see that I liked getting behind the products and influencing them based on what I knew about our customers and the markets we served. After discussions with my incredible boss, I was tasked to build out their product organization. That's where my product role took off — it was a truly organic shift.
I knew my markets and users, so I was able to build the product and adapt it for them. I eventually became Executive Director, along with Head of Marketing and Product for that company, but took a leap into a larger organization. I dropped everything to get further ingrained in product alone. I knew I wanted to continue leading in the product space, but I needed more knowledge to be able to build and grow teams effectively.
Fast forward to now, I've held multiple director and leadership roles in the product space. It's been a really fun, really wild journey. I’ve been fortunate enough to get my hands on a bit of everything — from medical devices to robotics to telephony — and truly learn from so many intelligent people, which has helped me shape a pretty versatile product mindset.
Do you feel that the diversity of your background is helpful in mentorship, especially when you’re pushing a PM to go from being an executioner to a strategic advocate?
I think so. My roles at each organization have all been so different. Not one has been the same, and all of these views and introductions into new spaces help me work with any product manager. I see their strengths, and I match them with a role or career path that they, as well as the business, could benefit from. I see where they may have a weakness, and I help them to bypass or build it up!
Also, it’s cool because I don’t come from a product management background initially. I learned a lot of this on the fly, and I find it fascinating when people start to take a liking to product or naturally start evolving strengths in a different area. I love being able to help guide them to whatever function they fluctuate and shift towards, even if they're not a product person by trade, and even if it’s not a product role. There’s nothing better than seeing someone thrive in the right space!
Saying no and navigating resistance
Customer advocacy is a big part of what you coach people on and encourage. Is there often tension between pushing for customer advocacy and balancing other internal stakeholder priorities?
For sure. In product, you will always see other priorities start to take over, especially when something is urgent. As human beings, we want to solve something that’s broken immediately. It’s just a natural response. As a product manager, you're not only focusing on the customer, you're also focusing on the business and all the things that impact it. So, when you start to see this happen, you have to help level-set. What are we trading, if anything, and what moves do we have to make to help this urgent need but also get high-priorities out the door?
The reason I push for customer advocacy so much is that product managers are human as well. We want to fix things urgently when they are on fire. It’s easy to let something slip because of this. You have to become somewhat of a customer defense attorney. The C-suite is telling you they need a couple of things, but if you prioritize these items, what will the customer get? What won’t they get, and how does that impact the business? You also have to go to bat for your internal customers and meet them with an open mind.
Further, if you can tell a story gracefully each time you’re met with a blocker, you can win people over just by reminding them of the “why.” Remind them of the initial intent, goals, costs, impacts, and most of the time, they will rally around it.
When you're working with PMs, especially those who are newer in the role, how do you talk to them about navigating resistance?
Resistance is something I had the hardest time with from the jump, and still do at times today. You could say I’m a full-on people pleaser. Product is so collaborative and cross-functional, and we are so dependent on everyone that if our relationships aren’t solid, projects could be impacted. It’s a tightrope. You don’t want to be a yes man, but you don’t want to be a no man. You don't want to push something too hard, but you don’t want to leave something off the table that will help customers or the business. It’s not easy.
One thing I like to remember is that everything always starts with an idea. Not all ideas are good ones for that specific use case. Many times, if we are met with resistance or we hear “no,” our minds go negative, and we feel hurt. When that happens, I coach people to park it. Park it for later. Over time, you may see openings or opportunities to bring it forward again, or you may realize it doesn’t work and move on from it.
Executives and leaders at any company have many priorities. They set goals for the company and for their teams for the year, and if a new idea pops up that is an outlier, it can be kicked to the curb. Nothing was ever created without an initial idea, and where resistance might be met at first, you might also create a small ripple of possibility. Over time, that ripple could gain momentum and eventually take the shape of a wave where everyone rallies around it.
So, the one thing I would say to PMs is to take a risk and pitch. Know from the jump that you will eventually be met with resistance in this role, and it will soften the fall when it happens, then continue. Even if your idea isn't something that they want to act on today, one piece of it might stick in their minds. They might come back to you, and you can reframe or repitch it at a more appropriate time. And if it just doesn’t work, understand why and move forward with something else. At least you tried!
How do you see the balance between being boldly decisive and making errors, or being cautious but not breaking anything?
It depends on the industry you're in. I love the saying “fail fast.” I tend to lean more toward making bold decisions. If we make a mistake, we learn from it, iterate from it, and move on, but you can’t do that when you're in the medical device world and your decision impacts someone's health. It's hard to be bold in that vein, so I’ve been in industries where you can fail fast or you can’t fail at all. I love when people make bold decisions, especially based on data.
I especially love it when my own employees take this approach. They had something in their mind and felt in their gut that it was something we needed to pursue. They took it back, collected evidence to prove it, and gained feedback and approval from the stakeholders around them. Then, they came to the table to pitch it, and the approval was easy. It's an idea they’ve already gotten validation and evidence on, as well as company buy-in. I love that — being bold but validated!
Helping others understand what you’re working on
PMs often struggle with reaching the right capacity in their work. On the one hand, they want to prove themselves and take on a lot, but at the same time, they often feel like they’re not doing enough. How do you help people find that middle ground?
That’s something every single product manager I've ever met has struggled with, including myself. All PMs know that if you sit on things as a product manager, you start to lose trust with the company, which adds additional pressure. You can't do everything, so I tell my team a few things. One, never flat out say “no.” We want to be able to actively listen to feedback and ideas because there could be gold there.
Two, you most certainly are not needed at every meeting on your calendar. Gain clarity around that, and give yourself some time back in your day. Three, show the company how much we're moving on. What kind of improvements are being made, and what projects are we touching? If they don't see everything that you're working on, the output, or the results of your output, it's easy for them to think, "Well, they aren’t doing much,” or “They can fit this in." We use tools, like Aha!, for example, to show the number of projects in the queue. If you can put a visual to it and shoot a report out to the company, it helps everyone understand what you’re working on.
Again, it’s very important not to turn into a “no” person. There are ways that you can communicate effectively and tell people why you're unable to meet their needs, or if not now, when. I like to coach people on that element, too.
The cross-functional relationship component makes those hard conversations easier. How do you build that element of communication and openness across the organization?
Active listening is key for cross-functional relationships. Don’t just sit across from them, nodding your head. Ask for more time to respond when you need it. Build your strategies around others' feelings, opinions, and thoughts, and try to incorporate them. Keep an open mind always. These are things you think would be easy to implement but aren’t, especially when priorities are flying.
One thing anyone can do out of the gate is ask for feedback and ideas from the entire organization. Set up a portal and process to ensure they are all seen and evaluated. You are surrounded at all times by a variety of intelligence, so why would you ever let that go to waste? Without a portal or repository for this feedback, it’s bound to get lost in the shuffle. With a portal, everyone gets heard, and golden nugget ideas are found to help customers. When they are executed, you celebrate them and give thanks. It’s helping customers and the business, and it builds a great culture where people can use their voice.
Starting with your ‘why’
You mentioned building a narrative or story for the ideas you’re pushing for. How do you talk to PMs about putting that together to advocate for their ideas?
When I was evaluating start-ups and small businesses for manufacturing, I heard pitches regularly. There was one in particular that was a product for kids. The imagery, the urgency, and tone of the presentation felt very important and needed, but after the pitch, I sat there thinking, “Why in the world don’t I get what they’re pitching me?” My boss at the time looked at me after they left and said, “Emily, what was their ‘why’? What was the reason they created that product?”
I had no idea. I said as much, and he said, “Good, me neither,” and we didn’t proceed with that company. From that point on, I always tried to start with a “why” for everything. I like to coach others to write an outline to get ideas on paper. Also, always set up your presentation for your specific audience. I still struggle with it after years of practice, and it actually happened two months ago. I set up a presentation, added way too many people, and it bombed. My current boss gave me grace and helped me understand that I was adding way too much detail and going too big strategically. I needed to start smaller and condense my audience.
How do you approach a decision where the data's pushing you one way and your gut instinct is telling you another?
Really, it comes down to not relying on just one set of data or feedback. You should expand your research and use various methods for the best results. Say you have a button on your platform that gets clicked all the time. You can see it in the data and the numbers, and you're excited about it because that’s what you want users to do. But something isn’t right because you then see that the screen the button leads to is only being visited for one second. The goal of the button is working; it’s getting them to the content, but you want them to click a button, view the content, and stay there.
You come to realize that that button's deceiving. They clicked on that button because they thought they were going to get something else out of it. So your clicks skyrocketed, but your content wasn’t what they were looking for specifically. It's key to use data, but don't just use one form of it. Implement various methods of validation.
Maybe run a quantitative survey for your users and then, based on the survey results and data, spin up a focus group to ask more clarifying questions. It's like carving out different methods to get different results, so that you can fill some of those gaps and not be biased by what the numbers are telling you.
Lastly, what advice would you end with for product managers to keep in mind as the craft continues to evolve?
I think it's really important, especially for product managers who are first coming in, to know that, no matter what we do in this role, it is impossible to make every single person happy at one time. It's the nature of the beast with a role where you collaborate so broadly. External customers are front and center, but we’re like defense attorneys for them. Ultimately, not everyone is going to love what you put out there. Not everyone is going to agree with the priorities you're selecting or align with your vision.
An executive once said to me, "Hey, Em. You just have to stop trying to make everybody happy. It's not going to happen. It's not going to work. And if you want to move the bar forward, somebody's going to be mad about it somewhere, and you need to accept that." That changed the game for me. They weren’t saying to be a jerk or proceed and forget about everyone else. They were helping me to get unstuck and consider the “why” again, not the “who am I going to unimpress with this move.”
When the internal dialogue in your head is shouting, “Don’t you dare put that feature there,” but the data and validation from customers are staring you in the face, remember you’re a defence attorney for your customers. They are who you’re fighting for, and that fight will ultimately benefit your business.