Kara Gillis

Kara Gillis

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Vice President of Product Management
San Francisco, California, United States

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Résumé

Jobs verified_user 0% verified
  • Cortex
    Vice President of Product Management
    Cortex
    Sep 2025 - Current (1 year 2 months)
    Directly leading a team of PMs and Designers across core platform, AI agents, and developer experience.

    Partnering with CEO/CTO on GTM strategy, category expansion, and enterprise customer adoption for Series C stage backed by Sequoia Capital, Scale Venture Partners, and IVP.
    https://www.cortex.io/post/announcing-series-c

    Roadmap initiatives span core new feature development, backend infrastructure and platform services, proprietary machine learning models, AI agent development, third party data integrations (ingestion-only and bidirectional), and APIs.
  • Clickle
    Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder
    Clickle
    Sep 2025 - Current (1 year 2 months)
    Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer of a consumer sports-tech venture engineering wearable Bluetooth hardware and mobile software for court sports (pickleball).

    Designed low-latency, single-tap Bluetooth wristband architecture and reusable device pairing protocols to deliver real-time, hands-free score tracking and match automation.

    Built and launched the companion iOS/Android mobile application featuring automated match scoring logic, courtside audio announcements, and player performance analytics.

    Drove product strategy and hardware delivery from zero-to-one, leading to direct-to-consumer manufacturing runs and current customer waitlist.
  • Splunk
    Sr. Director, Product Mgmt, Observability (AppDynamics, Integrations, & Eng Ops)
    Splunk
    Feb 2023 - Sep 2025 (2 years 8 months)
    Managed 20+ PMs Ieading Splunk AppDynamics, Splunk Integrated Observability Experiences (integrates Splunk Observability Cloud, Splunk Platform and AppDynamics), and Splunk Observability Engineering Effectiveness and Operations organizations (EE&O). Drove (1) vision, strategy, and execution of major product releases and customer adoption, including incorporating AI experiences throughout AppDynamics to accelerate troubleshooting experiences and enhance data platform and user experience integrations and (2) the strategy and plan for developer tooling, geographic cloud service provider expansion, compliance certification achievement (including FedRamp Moderate In Progress and other global certifications), service reliability improvements for
  • Splunk
    Sr. Director, Head of AIOps and IT Ops Products
    Splunk
    Apr 2022 - Feb 2023 (11 months)
    Led the Splunk IT Service Intelligence ($50=>90M ARR growth, 56%=>89% renewal rate improvement), Splunk On-Call ($10M ARR, 98% renewal rate), and Splunk Incident Intelligence (0=>1 product development) product teams.


    https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/it-service-intelligence.html
    https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/incident-intelligence.html
  • Splunk
    Director of Product Management, AIOps and IT Ops
    Splunk
    Aug 2019 - Apr 2022 (2 years 9 months)
    Led a product team focused on helping organizations use Splunk Cloud for IT use cases, Splunk ITSI, and integrating our core platform with Splunk's Observability Cloud. I own the roadmap, packaging, and pricing strategy for the IT Ops portfolio.
  • T
    Board Member
    Tenderloin Equitable Development Project
    Apr 2018 - Jul 2019 (1 year 4 months)
  • Splunk
    Director of Product Marketing
    Splunk
    Feb 2018 - Aug 2019 (1 year 7 months)
    Owned product marketing and sales enablement for infrastructure monitoring use cases. Analyst relations spokesperson. Owned Splunk conference track for infrastructure monitoring use case.
  • Splunk
    Sr. Manager, Tech Partnerships Product Marketing
    Splunk
    Jun 2016 - Feb 2018 (1 year 9 months)
    Led partner product marketing and go to market for the technology partner ecosystem for IT use cases.
  • Yardhop Events
    Co Founder
    Yardhop Events
    Oct 2015 - Jul 2016 (10 months)
    Simplifying event planning through a personalized experience marketplace.

    http://www.yardhoppin.com/
  • Deloitte
    Engagement Manager
    Deloitte
    Sep 2013 - Jun 2016 (2 years 10 months)
    Manager in Deloitte's Technology Strategy and Architecture practice, focusing on Marketing / Branding, Customer Experience, IT strategy and M&A. MBA Sponsored by Deloitte.
  • W
    Branding and Marketing Intern
    Wormhole IT
    Feb 2013 - Mar 2013 (2 months)
    Branding/marketing strategy for education technology company
  • Autodesk
    Product Marketing Management Intern - SMB Industry Strategy Marketing
    Autodesk
    May 2012 - Aug 2012 (4 months)
    Managed the product marketing for AutoCAD WS, a mobile app with 11 million users that enables viewing and editing of AutoCAD drawings.
  • G
    Venture Scholar
    G Capital Management
    Jan 2012 - May 2012 (5 months)
    Reviewing early stage internet, software and mobile startups for Series A funding.
  • S
    Marketing Strategy Intern
    SmartOnline Mobile
    Jan 2012 - May 2012 (5 months)
    Conducted an extensive competitor analysis, delivered a marketing plan for the Small and Medium Business segment and created a strategy and implementation plan for a mobile consulting business model.
  • Deloitte Consulting
    Senior Consultant and GovLab Fellow
    Deloitte Consulting
    Jul 2008 - Jul 2011 (3 years 1 month)
    Provided management consulting services to public sector clients.

    Deloitte’s GovLab works closely with senior Government executives and leading thinkers from across the globe. GovLab Fellows conduct research into some of the key issues and ideas that are shaping the Government and commercial worlds.

    Twitter: @GovLab
  • Health Economics Consulting Group Oxford Outcomes
    Research Assistant
    Health Economics Consulting Group Oxford Outcomes
    Apr 2008 - Jul 2008 (4 months)
    Provided health and economic consulting services to medical device, payer/provider, public sector clients.
  • The Lewin Group
    Federal Human Services Researcher
    The Lewin Group
    May 2007 - Aug 2007 (4 months)
    Researched refugee resettlement services and public assistance programs for public sector clients.
  • International Rescue Committee
    Summer Refugee Academy Volunteer Coordinator
    International Rescue Committee
    May 2006 - Aug 2006 (4 months)
    Managed over fifty volunteers for a math and literacy program for recently resettled refugee youth. Developed project management tools and templates for program maintenance. Assisted with afternoon activity curriculum development.
Education verified_user 0% verified
  • Duke University The Fuqua School of Business
    MBA, Business
    Duke University The Fuqua School of Business
    Jan 2011 - Jan 2013 (2 years 1 month)
  • The Johns Hopkins University
    Bachelor's Degree, International Studies, Spanish
    The Johns Hopkins University
    Sep 2004 - Jan 2008 (3 years 5 months)
Publications verified_user 0% verified
  • D
    Getting Unstuck: How to Work As One in Government
    Deloitte Consulting LLP Oct
    Getting big things done in government — launching new programs, implementing budget reductions or achieving difficult agency missions — requires effective collaboration. Members of an agency, command, office, bureau or division should commit to a single objective. Multiple layers of bureaucracy and multiple levels of government should work in concert among themselves and with private companies and nonprofits when needed.

    Before committing to a significant, transformational initiative, leaders should understand the culture of the agency or agencies involved. The As One approach provides a rigorous toolkit for leaders seeking to achieve this understanding, and to achieve the desired results by transforming individual action into co
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