Meet the R&D team that’s revolutionizing innovation management software

Back in summer 2022, Productable’s founder and CEO Rachel Kuhr Conn was standing at a crossroads. She and a small team had pieced together a custom innovation management tool for the U.S. Air Force using a low-code platform – but the technology had its limits. Rachel knew that a more scalable system would be required to power continuous innovation across the DoD and beyond.

That’s when she met Dan Pupius, a former staff engineer at Google who shared her fascination with the art and science of organizational effectiveness. When Dan spoke about designing systems for repeatable success in the workplace, Rachel’s innovation researcher brain lit up. She couldn’t think of a better collaborator to co-create the new standard for innovation management software.

Inspired to help organizations achieve innovation outcomes faster, Dan joined Productable in December 2022. Since then, he’s been working hand in hand with Rachel to build a world-class team of designers and developers. Already, the team has hit the ground running. Within eight weeks, they launched an updated version of Productable’s software on a brand-new, proprietary tech stack – and they’re just getting started.

Meet some of the newest members of our R&D department:

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‍Dan Pupius, Chief Technology Officer

Prior to joining Productable, Dan co-founded a team communication software startup called Range, served as Head of Engineering at Medium, and spent over six years as a Staff Software engineer at Google, where he was a part of the Gmail team. He has an MA in Industrial Design and a BSc in Artificial Intelligence.

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‍Jean Hsu, Vice President of Engineering

A passionate engineering leader, Jean has built product and engineering teams at Google, Pulse, and Medium, and co-founded Co Leadership – a leadership development company for engineers and other tech leaders. She is a co-actively trained coach and has worked closely with engineers, tech leads, managers, VPs of Engineering, and CTOs to help them achieve their personal and professional goals.

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‍Bhavika Shah, Director of Product

Bhavika is a skilled product leader with 8+ years of experience in product strategy roles, including a five-year stint in product management at Pluralsight. Prior to Pluralsight, Bhavika held client-facing roles at Smarterer and General Electric. A process improvement enthusiast, Bhavika has completed Six Sigma training and Greenbelt Certification and is excited to apply her professional background in agile product management to the organizational innovation space.

‍Taylor Palmer, Product Design Lead

A seasoned product designer and UX leader, Taylor has held leadership roles at Range, Neighbor, and Lucid, where he worked his way up from UX Designer to Director of UX. He is also the co-creator of UX Tools, a hub of practical lessons, resources, and news for a community of over 45,000 UX/UI professionals.

We’ve also assembled a talented group of individual contributors:

Sean McBride, a software engineer with 15+ years of experience at a range of tech companies, including Google and Intercom

Andrew Bezzub, a former Microsoft developer with 15+ years of experience

Steph Yeung, a software engineer with experience at Medium and the Walt Disney Company

Lindsey Otsuki, a software engineer and former JavaScript instructor with experience at startups across the Bay Area

Morgan Good, a product and brand designer with 10+ years of experience at startups across California and Utah

These new teammates have been working closely with Productable's User Interface Designer, Joshua Alvarez, and Senior Product Manager, Larry Hackney, who has leveraged his expertise in user research, feature prioritization, and cross-functional leadership over the past year to set the company up for success.

Rachel couldn’t be more excited about where Productable is headed. She shared, “This is a world-class R&D team whose skills are perfectly suited to the innovation management space. Already, they’re delivering top-notch software at unprecedented speed, setting us up to be truly unstoppable.”


Outside of product, design, and engineering, we’ve also brought on board a VP of Strategy and Operations, Jen Dennard, to keep Productable running smoothly as we grow, as well as a Marketing Manager, Charlotte Reynders, to move our GTM initiatives forward.

As we rev up our R&D engine, we’re excited to keep building capabilities that help organizations scale ideas into real innovations even faster. Stay tuned for updates! To let us know what you would like to see on the Productable roadmap, please send your feedback to support@beproductable.com.