Work From The Inside Out 92: Learning New Things, Living My Values with Holly Hester Reilly
‘They’ say that most people will have at least two careers over the course of their lifetime. Holly Hester-Reilly is no exception. She retired from her first career as a competitive figure skater at 17 years of age.
Holly pursued her dream to conduct drug development research by studying chemical engineering. Earning her master’s degree and on the path to a Ph.D., she was published in scientific journals, began teaching chemistry labs at a local college, and coached figure skating to make ends meet. Aiming to earn a Ph.D. she failed her qualifying exams, not once, but twice. She knew her discipline well but suffered from panic attacks that interfered with her focus.
She aimed for environmental engineering roles from there landing a job with the City of New York which lasted two years. It was not a culture fit for her. In her spare time, nights, and weekends, she worked for a tech startup and landed a full-time role with a company as their fourth employee, leveraging her background in chemical engineering.
Today, Holly is the founder and CEO of H2R Product Science, a product management coaching and consulting firm that teaches the science of high growth and product development.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Holly’s career story:
- Holly is a former Columbia University Research Scientist and has led over a dozen digital product initiatives at startups, high growth companies, and enterprises like MediaMath, Shutterstock, the Lean Startup Company, Unilever, Capital One, and WeightWatchers.
- She is also the host of the Product Science podcast.
- Holly teaches public and private workshops and has spoken about building high growth products at the Lean Startup Summit Europe, Product Tank NYC, Parsons School of Design, and the Products School.
Learn more and connect with Holly Hester Reilly here:
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