Product Leader We Admire: Amy Karjala

We frequently like to profile Product Leaders we admire, to help inspire you and your team. This month, we are excited to introduce you to?Amy Karjala.?

?Amy Karjala has served as Director of Content and Product at?RevJen Group?for the past four years. Amy brings years of direct fundraising and development experience to RevJen's mission of building a thriving nonprofit sector.

?We had the great pleasure and opportunity to get to know Amy over the last four years across a number of fun and meaningful projects supporting the growth of nonprofits nationwide.

?Here is a little more about Amy:

?Favorite product book and/or podcast:

I love startup stories, so?How I Built This?and?Masters of Scale?are in my regular podcast rotation. But, I find product application from everywhere so my favorite is usually whatever I am reading or listening to right now.?

?Favorite professional mantra or guiding principle:

I tend towards anxiety, but I am learning to listen to it differently.?For me, anxiety is?fear?things will go really wrong coupled with?hope?that something will go really right.?So, I am working to ask myself, “what am I hoping will go really right?”?

?Best career advice you've ever received:

I think it is something I saw modeled by some of my earliest bosses:?Be a leader who notices the potential of others and gives them a shot.?Early on as a fundraiser, I was regularly invited into conversations and given opportunities to lead even when I had limited experience.?

?Favorite product launch you have been part of:

My answer is always “the next one.” Still, if I had to choose, it would probably be when RevJen launched its?Fuel Series?product for smaller, emerging social sector organizations. I believe these organizations are testing some of the best and most innovative solutions to problems facing our communities, but too many of them flounder because they don’t have a pathway to predictable, repeatable, and replaceable revenue.?That is a problem the RevJen team knows how to tackle. We had the opportunity to leverage an existing product to build something that helps these smaller, emerging social sector organizations build that revenue capacity. We had unique subject matter expertise on the team and partnered with Vecteris for some of the development, and together built product that can eliminate barriers for social sector leaders so they can do more of their good in the world.?