VizoryVizory
— About

I'm Kirsten Mann.

Thirty years across product, customer experience, and AI. Now I work with leaders applying these together — at exec level, at board level, and inside the teams making it real.

Most product leaders haven't done all three. Most CX leaders haven't built products at scale. Most AI advisors don't have either of those underneath. Being fluent across all three is the foundation of how I work.

— What I bring

Three things, done together.

— 01

Product.

Senior product leadership at scale, across SaaS, AI, EdTech, and B2B platforms.

Aconex (acquired by Oracle for $1.6B), Oracle, Prospection, MYOB. Series A, B and C raises, international expansion, post-merger integration. From founder mode to enterprise scale.

  • 100% year-on-year revenue growth at Aconex into the Oracle acquisition
  • Doubled ARR per subscription at Prospection in Australia, +80% Japan revenue
  • Co-managed $32M annual product budget at Aconex; co-managed $100M at Oracle across 5 global centres
  • MYOB high-performing product lines through the post-GST surge that exceeded commercial targets
— 02

Customer experience.

Creating new and transforming old. The work that decides whether a product gets used or just gets built.

Aconex (helping drive it from a single product to the world's largest platform for the building and construction industry — with multiple product lines, an award-winning onboarding site, and millions cut in support and training costs by shifting to online channels); Oracle (end-to-end customer experience integrated into product strategy); Sensis (multidisciplinary UX leadership and product management capability); MYOB (creating new product lines and an online sales/support channel from scratch).

Across all of these roles, the work has required embedding customer-centric methodologies and hypothesis-driven experimentation into product processes — it's how I work.

— 03

AI.

Six years working with AI, well before it became a buzzword. Sceptical about hype, clear about what AI can and can't reliably do.

At Prospection I led product through Series A, B and C raises and international expansion while the company created algorithms which used hundreds of millions of de-identified patient records to determine the most effective medications for different patient cohorts. Then I founded Vizory, an AI product for board directors, and built it end to end with co-founder Toby Vidler.

  • Five-plus years embedding advanced AI capabilities into Prospection's pharma platform, pre-GPT
  • Founded and built Vizory, an AI product — security architecture, hypothesis-driven testing, real director adoption
  • Co-host of the AI in the Boardroom video series, drawing on real-world boardroom adoption
  • Speaking and masterclasses on Product, GTM, AI and customer experience for boards and portfolios within Private Equity and Venture Capital firms
— Building cultures

Teams that lift, not teams that survive.

Thirty years building products has been thirty years building teams. The two are inseparable — you don't ship great product with people who are scared, blocked, or unclear about what good looks like.

I was instrumental in driving and lifting cultures at MYOB, Aconex, Oracle and Prospection. Cultures that attracted and drove the recruitment of talent as they became renowned and recognised in industry.

That work produced my first keynote — Love Like a Leader, at Leading the Product — and it opened a door. Since then I've delivered keynotes across Australia and in Sweden, the UK and the US — different talks for different rooms, not the same set on repeat — and today I'm a sought-after speaker whose sessions consistently earn top marks. My most recent, The Board-to-Build Disconnect at Agile Manchester 2026, rated 4.87 for the speaker and 4.68 overall — well above the conference averages of 4.24 and 4.06.

The instinct is operational. The formal grounding is a Masters of Leadership (Organisational Design) from Monash University (2017–2019) — equipping executive leaders with frameworks and skills to create organisations that are productive, profitable and resilient.

The Prospection product team — mosaic of headshots from my farewell

Some of the work I'm proudest of — and a team that still talks to each other.

— On boards

Different in a boardroom.

Most board directors haven't built products. Most product leaders haven't sat on boards. I'm GAICD-qualified and currently serve as a non-executive director and advisor across multiple boards — including Education Perfect (EdTech) and AskYourTeam (employee engagement SaaS) — and have served on audit, risk, and remuneration committees.

I use the tools I build. The frustrations I built Vizory to solve are frustrations I still experience as a director — which means the design decisions were grounded in lived experience, not imagined pain.

Kirsten Mann in a boardroom session — visible amongst the wider group

Boards need a different kind of thinking — and that only comes from a different path. Most directors come from finance or legal. Mine ran through tech, product, and customer experience.

— In good company

The company I keep.

Good advisory work rests on a network of people who've actually done it — founders, product leaders, and the investors backing them. I'm always learning from the people I work alongside; here are a few of them.

Kirsten Mann on a panel with Randy Silver, co-host of The Product Experience podcast Randy Silver — co-host of The Product Experience. On "what boards actually think of product leaders".
Eric, Kirsten and Dan at Main Sequence's Quantum to Cosmos portfolio day Eric, Kirsten & Dan — representing Prospection at Main Sequence's Quantum to Cosmos portfolio day.
The Wade Institute VC Catalyst 2025 cohort VC Catalyst — the Wade Institute cohort, 2025.
— The Vizory chapter

Building Vizory was the synthesis.

In 2025 I founded Vizory — an AI product for board directors — with co-founder Toby Vidler. We designed it, built it, tested it with real directors and real board packs, and ran a structured early adopter programme. From the outset we had strong hypothesis testing in place — not just for the product, but also for go-to-market.

As those hypotheses evolved, it became clear that board pack analysis delivers the greatest value when it's part of a broader governance offering, alongside advisory and AI capabilities that help boards understand not just what's changed, but what to do next.

Keeping the name was deliberate. To anyone who knew the product, the founder of Vizory now advising boards on exactly this reads as continuity, not contradiction — I built the thing, I know the problem cold, and now I advise on it. That's a stronger place to start from than an advisory brand with nothing built behind it.

And Vizory was never only a product name. Visibility and advisory — it was built to carry both meanings from the start, and it fits the practice as naturally as it fitted the product.

Product judgement, customer experience design, AI fluency — applied to one problem, end to end. It's the most direct example I have of how I work.

See the case study
— What I care about

I'd rather have the harder conversation earlier than the easier one later.

Better governance starts with sharper thinking. Better products start with clarity about the problem. Better leadership starts with the willingness to be honest about what's working and what isn't.

That's the philosophy behind everything I do.

For what it's worth — I've been called one of life's enthusiasts. The work is serious. The way I do it doesn't have to be.

— Outside the work

Reading rooms is a portable skill.

Outside the boardroom, I instruct at bootscootin' events and I co-created and lead our Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras float — driving the submission process, managing the group and bringing together people from across Australia and around the world. Both are ways I get to support diversity and the communities I care about, and the skills transfer more than people expect.

Kirsten leading the Mardi Gras float with pink lip props Leading the float · Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Kirsten in an illuminated Mardi Gras costume Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras · in costume
Kirsten in a winged Mardi Gras costume Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras · winged
Kirsten at the TechDiversity Awards 2025 TechDiversity Awards · 2025
— See it in action
Kirsten instructing 10,000 dancers at Summer In Nashville

Instructing 10,000 dancers at Summer In Nashville · April 2026

Kirsten leading her Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras float

Co-creating & leading our Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras float

Work With MeThinking in ActionWriting & TalksAboutLet's Talk