EMPOWERED

CHAPTER 36Leader Profile: April Underwood

Path to Leadership

April studied information systems and business and then began her career as a developer. After a few years writing code, she joined Travelocity as a software engineer, where she was immediately put on the front lines of their partnerships with the internet heavyweights of the time: Yahoo! and AOL.

Through her work as an engineer, April began making connections between technology choices and business strategy, and found that product management was a role in which she could help align the two.

Through persistence in stating her desire to become a product manager, and her proficiency as a translator between engineers and businesspeople—both within Travelocity and with its partners—April landed her first PM role in 2005.

I first met April in 2007, after she had finished her MBA, an internship at Apple, and was broadening her leadership experience at Google in a technical, partner‐facing organization.

After Google, April joined Twitter as a Product Manager on the Platform, and over the course of five years, saw the company grow from 150 to 4,000 employees. During that time, April's functional breadth expanded as she led not just PM teams, but also business development and product marketing teams. Her time at Twitter prepared her for more‐senior leadership roles as she developed the ability to lead teams beyond her own ...