Bio

I’m an audio technologist, entrepreneur, and expert in product strategy. My company, Xander, is developing augmented listening products to help people with hearing loss. For over twenty years, working within the audio industry, I developed award-winning products that analyze and enhance speech and music. Xander brings together my passion for audio tech and my product strategy skills. My lifelong passion for audio crystallized when I joined iZotope, a leading audio-technology company. A core part of the leadership team at iZotope, I led business development and product strategy. Because of my expertise in audio tech, I became product lead for RX, a software tool described as “Photoshop for sound.” Under my leadership, RX won several awards within the industry, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development. Helping shape the product that reduces noise and enhances speech provides a strong foundation for my vision/work with Xander. After six years at iZotope, I became VP of Product Strategy and Innovation at Cakewalk, a subsidiary of Gibson. This role drove me to learn and apply lean startup and design thinking methodologies, while launching two new initiatives in VR and multi-platform music production via desktop, mobile and cloud. Now, at Fidelity Labs, I am the Head of Product for a team of 20 developing a FinTech platform for sustainable and responsible investing. Before embarking on my career, I earned an MS from the MIT Media Lab working on acoustics and audio signal processing. My research focused on the “cocktail party effect”—the human brain's ability to focus on one sound while filtering out other competing noises. I worked to develop algorithms to enable computers to isolate and understand sounds, mimicking the human ear. That research provides the underpinning for my product concepts at Xander. Hearing aids and cochlear implants are not enough when noises, sounds, and other people talking compete for attention. Xander’s mission is to eliminate the functional, emotional, and social obstacles caused by hearing loss.