Diana Langston
Studied at Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute (BECI)
Worked at Iterable
Available tomorrow at 4:00 PM UTC
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About Diana
I'm Diana Langston, founder of Kind But Tough and a product executive turned coach. I spent over twenty years building and scaling enterprise B2B/B2B2C SaaS, at Amazon, including Seller Central, Prime Video and Alexa, and at Box, Iterable, Apollo, and Marketo. I built products and teams from the ground up, led through hypergrowth, and shipped gen-AI features like Journey Assist, a first-to-market journey builder, before competitors had a roadmap. I'm also a first-generation American trained in cultural anthropology, which is probably why I've always been drawn to the people behind the product: what drives them, what they're capable of, and what they need to do their best work. Years ago, an anonymous 360 review from my team surfaced three words I didn't expect: kind but tough. They weren't describing a contradiction. They were describing how I led, and how we won together. That became the conviction behind everything I do now. True leadership isn't a choice between empathy and accountability. It's the integration of both. I'm a builder at heart, and I never left the edge of the work. I'm building again now, as a founder, and I stay close to where technology is moving, especially the shift to AI, because the leaders I coach are navigating it in real time and I refuse to coach from yesterday's playbook. I'm also an abstract painter. On the canvas or in the room with a leader, I'm chasing the same thing: the raw power and pattern underneath, and the courage to bring it forward. I coach product builders and leaders, as a Gallup CliftonStrengths and UC Berkeley certified executive coach.
Why do I coach?
Because I know what it costs to be underestimated in rooms that weren't built for you. I spent years in those rooms, and the pressure was always to harden, to trade the kindness for speed and call it discipline. I didn't. I held onto it, because caring about the people behind the product was never my weakness. It was my edge, and it's why I led the way I did and why my teams won. But it took me time to find my voice, to trust that my strengths were strengths, and to lead from who I actually am instead of who the room wanted me to be. I coach because I became the leader I didn't always have, the steady person in your corner who sees your real strength, tells you the truth, and helps you claim your place and your voice earlier than I claimed mine. The leaders I work with need someone who has been where they are, sees the patterns they can't, and is willing to tell them the truth and walk through it with them. That's the work, and it's mine to do.
Work Experience
Executive Leadership Coach, Product Advisor, Founder
Kind but Tough
July 2025 - Present
From zero to scale, I build the products, teams, and leaders that don't break. I partner with high-growth B2B SaaS and AI-first organizations to solve mission-critical inflection points where the standard playbook fails. 1. FRACTIONAL & FULL-TIME PRODUCT LEADERSHIP I architect the product organization, strategy, and high-velocity operating models required to scale. I specialize in de-risking 0-to-1 builds and installing the frameworks used to scale Iterable from $42M to $225M+ ARR. - PM Org Design: Scaled teams (0→10) with 100% retention; delivered 85% of all customer-facing product. - Elite Culture: Maintained team engagement scores 16% above company benchmark. - AI Transformation: Architecting prompt-based innovation and AI-first UX (e.g., Journey Assist, patent evaluation). - Revenue Growth: Launched $20M+ ARR revenue channels from zero. 2. EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP COACHING UC Berkeley Certified (BECI). I partner with R&D leaders (Principal to C-suite) and women-in-tech navigating the weight of scale. - The Scaling Leader: Managing double the scope without a playbook. - Career Inflection Points: Navigating role changes, high-stakes promotions, and transitions into people management or entrepreneurship. - The "Underestimated": Helping you lead from the truth of who you are in rooms not built for you. - Taizen Framework: Grounded leadership presence amidst organizational chaos. BACKED BY EXPERIENCE: My work is backed by 20+ years of building at Amazon, Box, Iterable, and Apollo. I bring the eye of a cultural anthropologist to see the human patterns dashboards miss, grounding every engagement in the hard-won instinct of an active builder. Kind but tough. That's how I build. That's how I coach. And how the best leaders lead.
Senior Director of Product Management, Head of Platform User Experience, Onboarding
Apollo.io
July 2025 - February 2026
REPORTED TO CPO WITH CEO STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT. Recruited for a high-velocity mission to modernize the platform’s core user experience and accelerate Time to Value (TTV) for Agentic Outbound capabilities across 550K+ companies and 2M+ GTM professionals. AI-FIRST UX TRANSFORMATION: Drove company-wide transformation through a solution-based and role-adaptive productivity hub, reimagining platform interaction through AI-first experiences. AI ONBOARDING STRATEGY: Architected AI-powered onboarding strategy to accelerate activation and reduce time-to-value across customer tiers. PLATFORMIZATION: Defined backend data architecture and platformization approach for scalable, personalized hub experiences. RAPID INNOVATION: Delivered AI Prompt & Plays library in under two weeks for the onstage launch of Agentic Outbound capabilities at the inaugural user conference. CORE COMPETENCIES: Agentic AI • Platform User Experience (UX) • Time-to-Value (TTV) Optimization • Product-Led Onboarding • Platformization • Role-Adaptive Design • Rapid Product Innovation • AI-First Strategy • Figma • Notion • Amplitude • Experimentation • Claude • ChatGPT • Figma • Notion • Amplitude • Experimentation • Prototyping Gen-AI, Product Management and +1 skill
Senior Director of Product, Head of Channels, Personalization, Orchestration, Data Platform
Iterable
November 2022 - July 2025
MANAGER OF MANAGERS overseeing a high-velocity 10-person team, including Group PMs, Managers, and Principal PMs. Functional Head of Product for Iterable’s core value engine during peak hypergrowth ($42M to $225M+ ARR), responsible for the delivery of 85+% of all customer-facing features. LEADERSHIP BENCH STRENGTH: Established a high-performing leadership tier by promoting internal talent into Director, Group PM, and Management-level roles. Maintained 100% team retention for 5 years with engagement scores 16% above company benchmark. EXPANSIVE PORTFOLIO GOVERNANCE: Owned the strategy and execution for 85% of the platform's customer-facing roadmap, spanning Personalization (Campaigns/Content), Orchestration (Journey Studio/Engine), Channels (Mobile/Web/OTT), Analytics, Data Platform, and Billing. REVENUE GM OWNERSHIP: Launched 6 new revenue-generating channel add-ons, including the SMS business from zero as product GM with a $20M+ ARR run rate by year two, expanded to 30+ countries in six months. AGENTIC AI & INNOVATION: Shipped the industry's first prompt-based, Agentic AI Journey Builder (Journey Assist) and LLM-based Smart Segmentation. Exceeded adoption targets by 12% within 60 days and secured patent-pending status for intelligent orchestration. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP & SCALE: Architected the operational frameworks to scale teams globally, establishing the Lisbon product team expansion. Created the Product Operating Principles to guide decision making and uplevel system-level thinking across the org. CORE COMPETENCIES: Enterprise Scaling • Revenue Operations • Monetization & Billing Systems • Data Platform Strategy • Mobile & SDK Expansion • Cross-Functional Orchestration • Metrics-Driven Decision Making • Product-Market Fit • Retention Engineering • Customer Experience Optimization • User Research (UXR) • Personalization & Content Discovery • Figma • Heap • Segment • Experimentation • Claude • ChatGPT • Prototyping Product Planning, Product Strategies and +7 skills
Director of Product Management, Head of Channels and Messaging
Iterable
May 2020 - November 2022
RECRUITED AS A HIGH-OUTPUT PLAYER-COACH to build the "Channels" and "Messaging" departments from the ground up, hiring + managing a team of 5–6 Senior ICs. Architected the fundamental transition from mid-market to an enterprise-grade powerhouse. ENTERPRISE POWERHOUSE TRANSFORMATION: Partnered with the C-suite to operationalize the strategic movement from mid-market to Enterprise-grade; scaled platform capabilities for Fortune 500 requirements to fuel $42M→$225M+ ARR growth. MARKET CONSOLIDATION & VELOCITY: Accelerated Channel and SDK expansion to position Iterable as the consolidation platform of choice. Installed the operating model that drove a 566% annual increase in feature delivery velocity. INSTITUTIONALIZED PERFORMANCE: Authored the Product Job Rubric, establishing the first company-wide standard for PM evaluation and promotion. STRATEGIC UX MODERNIZATION: Led the "Aurora" UX overhaul and launched the New Journey Studio; transformed the #1 closed-lost reason into a competitive edge and earned Gartner Peer Insights recognition. OPERATIONAL RIGOR: Pioneered a narrative-driven + quant/qual culture; installed standardized processes for product concepts, discovery briefs, and annual planning. Product Strategies, B2B2C and +3 skills
Principal PM Manager
Box
March 2019 - May 2020
RECRUITED TO MODERNIZE the Box WebApp experience for 3.5M weekly active users (WAU). Defined the vision, roadmap, and global launch of core personalization and content discovery products for a platform serving 68% of the Fortune 500. PERSONALIZATION AT SCALE: Led the end-to-end lifecycle for Box Collections, achieving a 75% week-over-week retention rate. Successfully transitioned the product from beta to a core platform pillar, significantly increasing user engagement and content discoverability. SCALABLE ARCHITECTURE TRANSITION: Directed the strategic transition from Angular to React across the WebApp. Unified cross-functional engineering teams to implement scalable design patterns, delivering regular performance updates to the C-suite to secure alignment and buy-in. INSTITUTIONALIZING CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY: Transformed the design culture by embedding user research, behavior observation, and iterative prototyping into the core development cycle. This shift drove deeper customer engagement and established a more collaborative, insight-driven R&D org. LEADERSHIP & MENTORSHIP: Acted as a senior mentor for PMs and Designers, establishing high-quality delivery standards and boosting team efficiency across the broader Product organization. Core Competencies: Personalization, Customer Retention, UX Research, Content Discovery, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Scalable Product Processes, B2B Strategy, B2B2C Strategy, Product Leadership, Go-to-Market Strategy, Customer Experience Optimization, Metrics-Driven Decision Making, Product-Market Fit, Digital Transformation, Enterprise SaaS. Product Strategies, Agile Methodologies and +2 skills
Senior Product Manager, Alexa, Prime Video, Amazon Seller Central
Amazon
August 2015 - March 2019
RECRUITED TO LEAD strategic initiatives across three core global domains. Oversaw cross-functional teams of up to 18 engineers across front-end, back-end, and ML disciplines to drive strategy and execution for hundreds of millions of users. ALEXA HOME EXPERIENCE & PERSONALIZATION: Architected the "Assistant in Your Pocket" zero-to-launch vision for the Alexa Home Page and Personalized Feed. Led the core entry experience as part of a global end-to-end app rebuild of Alexa On-the-Go, unifying 20+ disparate domains (Music, Devices, Communication) into a single, behavior-driven interface. Achieved a 30% average content engagement rate (80% peak) across millions of iOS and Android users. SELLER CENTRAL GLOBAL PLATFORM (B2B): Delivered $10.6M in annual operational savings by architecting self-service features that eliminated 1.2M support contacts. Designed a scalable search architecture supporting 90 language/marketplace pairs and automated high-volume contact drivers through "Seller University" integration. PRIME VIDEO ENGAGEMENT (OTT & STREAMING): Drove a 700% increase in push channel reach by building a scalable notification engine with 300+ behavior-driven templates. Increased Thursday Night Football incremental streams by 6% through real-time, personalized catalog notifications. AMAZONIAN RIGOR: Mastered "Working Backwards" mechanisms, authoring business-critical PR/FAQs and 6-page narratives to secure C-suite alignment for zero-to-one initiatives. Installed recurring operational mechanisms (WBRs) that standardized data-driven decision-making across the R&D organization. CORE COMPETENCIES: Working Backwards (PR/FAQ) • B2B & B2C Strategy • Voice AI & ML • OTT & Streaming • Seller Central Operations • Marketplace Ecosystems • Data-Driven Innovation • Product Lifecycle Management • Personalization • Operational Efficiency • Scalable Systems • Metrics-Driven Decision Making Product Strategies, B2C and +3 skills
Education
Haas School of Business (Berkeley)
Certificate of Business Excellence, Executive Leadership
Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute (BECI)
Certified Executive Coach, Executive Coaching
Gallup
Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, Strengths Coach
San Jose State University
Bachelor, Anthropology