About

Ayca Aksu is an empathy-driven Product Leader with over 16 years of experience in creating amazing experiences that help people improve how they live, learn and work through technology. With a background in Engineering, Interaction Design, and Product Management, Ayca has conceptualized and launched dozens of apps and services across web, mobile, connected TV, and voice platforms. As a Principal Product Manager at Crunchyroll, Ayca leads the TV Everywhere product, building and executing the roadmap for subscriber-authenticated video-on-demand and streaming products for Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, DIY Network, and Cooking Channel. Her key contributions include launching iOS, Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV apps for Genius Kitchen, launching completely redesigned native Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV apps with autoplay, single sign-on, and text-to-speech functionality, and relaunching all 5 TV Everywhere websites as single-page applications with improved templates, video playback, and search experiences. Prior to Crunchyroll, Ayca was a Senior Product Manager at Discovery, where she created and delivered interactive and entertainment products for consumers across mobile, tablet, connected TVs, and voice-based devices. Her key contributions include developing product strategy and optimizing the product launch of Discovery+ in Brazil, collaborating with 75+ cross-functional team members spanning 7 departments to launch Food Network Kitchen, and leading product discovery and product-market-fit efforts for two Direct-to-Consumer product concepts that later established the foundation for discovery+. Ayca holds a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction & Information Economics Management and Policy from the University of Michigan, a BS in Computer Engineering from Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi / Middle East Technical University, and a Mathematics and Science degree from Trabzon Yomra High School of Science. She is also an External Advisory Board Member at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she advises on matters related to research initiatives and curriculum development. Ayca's areas of expertise include Product Design & Usability, Go-to-Market Strategy, Road Mapping, Customer Engagement & Research, Data Analysis, Agile Product Delivery, Cross-functional Team Leadership, and Mentoring Future Product Leaders. Her tech stack includes product management, Android, web, mobile, research scientist, iOS, search, product design, and design.