The Product Manager with Startup Fire and a Surfer’s Soul

As Aira’s Product Manager, Jennipher Wilson brings over 15 years of deep software experience and an innate entrepreneurial spirit to the team.

Background

Jennipher’s origins are firmly planted in the Golden State.
“I’m born and raised in California,” she shares, having been “raised in San Diego, I tried to leave many times, but it is probably one of the best places on Earth to live.”
She did venture abroad to pursue her education, noting, “I lived in London for a little bit, where I got my master’s.”
Her passion for the coast and its culture is a defining element of her life.
“I am a huge, avid surfer. I love surfing,” she explains.
This love brought her back to her roots with a clear vision: “I’m back in San Diego, right by the coast, so that I can spend the rest, the second half of my life with my children and surfing.”
Her connection to Aira runs deep, starting long before her official hire. Jennipher is married to Vinu Somayaji, one of Aira’s engineering staff, and their relationship gave her an early perspective on Aira’s mission. Jokingly, she notes, “I always give Vinu free advice on our date nights, so I might as well get paid for it.”
She also shares a professional link with Troy Otillio, CEO of Aira: “I actually worked with Troy at Intuit. He hired me for his team and project.” Ultimately, she was “very familiar with Troy, Aira, and being in the company as I’d been watching it for years. I was really excited to come on board and help expand the offering.”

A Career in Product Management

Jennipher describes her career as primarily being built in the fast-paced world of innovation: “I’ve been a product manager in software for over 15 years, so a long time.”
She adds, “most of my career has been in startups. Intuit was the only non-startup that I worked at.”
Even at Intuit, she worked on a unique project where Troy “put together a team to run, like, a startup inside of Intuit. He hired a bunch of startup-minded people to run it.”
Her experience spans diverse industries: “I also worked at Classy. It was a fundraising platform for nonprofits that got bought by GoFundMe.”
She launched a personal venture: “I started my own company doing, a mobile app for parents to be able to sync all your videos and photos.”
She helped a Y Combinator company called Sourceify, which was “an e-commerce platform to connect people that are trying to make products with factories in China.”
After years of software, Jennipher took a detour into entrepreneurship: “I started my own e-commerce company after that. I started my own brand for women, for surfers.”
This phase taught her a valuable new skill: “I’d learned so much about marketing, so that’s kind of a thing about me is I’ve done product market management and software strategy for years, but I secretly love marketing now and love to do more of that.”
Ultimately, the pull of her core expertise brought her back, realizing, “I think I want to go back to product management, I think I’m ready.”

Inside Aira

Having been an “insider” prior to joining, Jennipher wasn’t completely shocked by Aira’s positive culture.
“I wasn’t surprised that much, because I’m so familiar through Vinu, with the culture, and the staff, and everyone,” she notes.
However, the lived experience is her favorite part. “I just love how kind everyone is, and I love working with everyone,” she says, contrasting it with previous roles: “I just love it here. The kindness here, and the respect, and it’s genuine.”
She appreciates that Aira’s purpose goes beyond profit: “Every company and startup, they’re all just about bottom line. So when you actually get to be here and see that, no, it is actually about trying to help a community, an underserved community, and do the right thing.”
This core mission fosters trust, as she adds, “I never feel like I can’t trust anyone, or there’s alternative motives, so that’s been wonderful. And it’s probably my favorite part about working here, is working with everybody and the people.”
From a community perspective, she’s noticed the different paths to visual assistance adoption: the blind and low vision community is “just excited that we are offering them something and doing something for them,” while the Deaf and hard of hearing community is “a little more skeptical. You know, we’ve heard this before, we’ve heard this pitch before, how is this different?”
Looking ahead, she is optimistic about Aira’s role in the age of AI.
“What they need is humans to tell them when their AI is wrong,” she explains.
Aira’s unique strength is its trained VI staff: “We have this great VI staff that is amazing at navigation, at all these different use cases. So if we could be a part of that, and not only will help the blind community, but it can help everybody, I think that’s a really unique position for us to be in.”

Ice Cream Flavor

Jennipher chose a flavor that perfectly encapsulates her multifaceted life and career: “I would say Neapolitan.”
Her rationale is centered on her varied interests: “I have interest and love for different things. I love the mountains, I love the ocean, I love traveling, I love European cities where you can just walk everywhere, so I’m never bored. I like to adventure. I love all different things. I love marketing, I love product strategy, I like accessibility. I like to wear many hats and help in many ways, so I guess that would make me Neapolitan, because you can’t just put me in a box.”
If you’d like to explore career opportunities with Aira, check out our careers page.