Hi I’m Diane! I joined Fort Light because I want to give back to the startup community.

I started my first company, Wattbot, right after college. We kept our burn rate low, but ultimately spent too long making the recommendation engine perfect before releasing it to the public.

After freelancing for other startups, I joined a 400-person technology company, Mozilla, to be their first qualitative researcher.

After 18 months, I left to start my second startup, Boon + Gable, which after 8 years (and two business model pivots) got acquired by Google.

I spent the last 6 years leading research teams on Google Search. I learned how to get my direct reports recognition, helped them influence decision making and was constantly resetting expectations and requesting feedback from a rotating cast of cross functional partners due to the sheer number of re-orgs.

I haven’t seen it all, but I have seen a lot and I’m so grateful to be able to help startup leaders build healthy teams which ultimately leads to stronger business outcomes.