Kayla Meinzer — Director of Product

15+

years shipping outcomes at scale

3→15+

product team scaling at 3 companies

$5M–$65M+

ARR companies led product at

Part I

Who Kayla Is

Kayla is a director-level product leader with 15+ years building and scaling product organizations at fintech, healthcare, mortgage, and SaaS companies. She has led product strategy, roadmap execution, and cross-functional delivery at companies ranging from Series A startups to established platforms processing $65M+ monthly in customer transactions.

She is currently Sr. Product Manager at Toyota Connected leading voice-assisted navigation and multimedia capabilities for North America and global markets, and Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at SageScreen, an AI-native candidate screening platform. She has a track record of taking ambiguous problems and turning them into coherent product strategies that move business outcomes.

Her leadership is grounded in a simple belief: equally informed teams seldom disagree. She gets clarity through research, translates that clarity into strategy, and empowers teams to execute without constant escalation. She makes hard trade-off decisions transparently, listens to constraints (customer, technical, financial), and commits to difficult pivots when the data says so.

Part II

How She Leads

Kayla operates as a strategic leader who balances near-term business outcomes with long-term platform value. She excels at the messy work of navigating ambiguity, aligning competing priorities, and empowering teams to move fast. Her approach is grounded in four operating principles.

Strategic Clarity Drives Alignment

She articulates a product strategy that isn't a compromise—it's a choice. She synthesizes customer research, competitive intelligence, and financial constraints into priorities that get teams unstuck. Strong opinions, loosely held, informed by data.

Build and Develop Leaders

She scales product organizations by hiring strategically and giving emerging leaders real responsibility. She develops people through stretch assignments, not just mentoring. Her teams produce both great product and next-generation product leaders.

Navigate Cross-Functional Complexity

She gets to the truth by listening to engineering constraints, sales feedback, and customer needs, then articulates a coherent path forward. She manages up effectively and knows when to hold the line on product direction vs. when to be genuinely open to being wrong.

Measure What Matters

She ties product decisions to business outcomes: revenue, retention, churn reduction, market expansion. She balances short-term wins against long-term platform health. She's unafraid to kill features that aren't moving the needle and double down on what works.

Part III

What She's Shipped

Scaled HRA platform team from startup to operational excellence; built greenfield platform to replace legacy, then migrated entire customer base with zero service degradation 17% ARR lift + 50% YoY enrollment growth

Led product redesign focused on enrollment funnel friction; reduced user drop-off through A/B testing and iterative UI/UX refinement 50% YoY enrollment increase + 12% churn reduction

Shipped appraisal review product with dynamic rules verification, reducing underwriter manual review time while improving compliance outcomes 60% first-pass improvement + 15% per-transaction margin gain

Delivered automated underwriting workflows and risk assessment tools; drove API partnerships with top-tier LOS/POS providers Increased deal velocity 25% + improved customer adoption

Built 0-to-1 product strategy for AI-powered procurement platform; established go-to-market strategy and customer education approach for startup scale 90%+ automation of supply-chain transactions + enterprise traction

Defined social media strategy and implemented marketing automation; grew organic customer awareness and inbound lead volume 275% traffic growth in first year

Part IV

How She Builds

Core Competencies

Product Strategy & Vision OKRs & Outcome Measurement Roadmap Execution Cross-Functional Leadership Product Discovery Organizational Scaling Agile Frameworks & Ceremonies Go-to-Market Strategy Customer Research & Voice Analytics-Driven Prioritization Regulatory & Compliance (SOX, Fair Lending, UCDP) Team Development & Coaching

Certifications

CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) PSM (Professional Scrum Master) ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) PMC Level II (Pragmatic Marketing)

Education

Bachelor of Arts in Advertising and Marketing — Savannah College of Art and Design.

Part V

Where She's Been

Industries

FinTech (HRA, Lending, Mortgage) Healthcare Mortgage Origination & Servicing Automotive Infotainment AI-Driven Recruiting Digital Platforms B2B SaaS Supply Chain & Logistics

Timeline

Jun 2025–
Now

Sr. Product Manager, Voice-Assisted Navigation & Multimedia

Toyota Connected (Flower Mound, TX)

Led product vision for voice and multimedia capabilities across North America and global markets. Delivered 100% of roadmap on schedule and budget. Scaled team engagement through product mindset coaching. Drove opportunity mapping initiative that surfaced $X pipeline of innovation opportunities. Achieved X% feature adoption in 90 days (above target Y%).

Nov 2025–
Now

Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

SageScreen (Flower Mound, TX)

Built product strategy and vision for AI-native candidate screening platform from inception. Defined go-to-market approach and customer education strategy. Led product discovery, roadmap planning, and prioritization balancing early-stage experiments against platform scaling. Achieved $X pipeline and Y enterprise customers in first 90 days.

Feb–Jun
2025

Fractional Head of Product

Cato Supply (Dallas, TX)

Led 0-to-1 product strategy for AI-powered procurement platform. Built product vision and roadmap aligned to business objectives. Coached founders and stakeholders on outcome-driven product thinking. Facilitated customer journey mapping workshops to surface strategic opportunities. Achieved 90%+ automation of supply-chain transactions and demonstrated product-market fit with enterprise customers.

Apr 2022–
Feb 2025

Director, Product Management

Take Command Health (Dallas, TX)

Led product team (5 PMs + 3 designers + Scrum Masters) driving strategy for HRA platform processing $65M+ monthly in customer transactions. Built greenfield platform to replace legacy system; migrated entire customer base with zero service degradation. Established Agile Center of Excellence and SDLC frameworks. Drove 50% YoY enrollment growth through iterative UI/UX testing and product optimization. Improved platform adoption and unit economics, resulting in 17% ARR growth.

Apr 2021–
Apr 2022

Principal, Product Management

CoreLogic (Irving, TX)

Owned roadmap for credit and borrower solutions across LOS and POS integrations. Delivered automated underwriting workflows and risk assessment tools, improving underwriting speed and loan eligibility analysis. Drove revenue growth through strategic API partnerships with top-tier providers. Led voice-of-customer initiatives including focus groups and user interviews to enhance product-market fit.

May 2018–
Jan 2020

Senior Product Manager

First American Mortgage Solutions (Palm Coast, FL)

Led product team managing Windows desktop and cloud-based appraisal platform serving 14,000+ daily users. Launched appraisal review product with dynamic rules verification, improving first-time pass rates 60% and reducing underwriter manual review burden. Directed LOS/POS integrations. Led customer research to refine user journeys and increase adoption. Established social media strategy that grew organic traffic 275% in first year.