40 Under Forty Awards 2024
Elizabeth McDonnell | 39
Senior Group Product Manager, Lightspeed HQ
What is the biggest challenge currently facing your industry and how are you responding to it? The restaurant industry is facing a number of challenges, which together result in unsustainably high operating costs. Finding great staff is hard, and training and retaining them is expensive. I use my understanding of the problems restaurants face to design products that meet those goals and am responsible for ensuring those products have a strong investment case, great product market fit and ultimately are designed, built and released to our customers.
What is the best advice you have ever received? No one is going to hold your hand or tell you what to do. Figure it out.
What moment changed your life more than any other? While an undergraduate at Wellesley College, I opted to live in Providence with friends and commute rather than live on campus. I fell so in love with Rhode Island that I’ve never left.
What is your favorite Rhode Island food or drink? Pizza Marvin, of course.
What is your preferred source for national news? National Public Radio.