People & Culture
The best technology is built with a deep understanding of the people it serves.
As Chief Product Officer, Ann Ferracane brings decades of experience working on consumer and enterprise products at some of the world's most influential technology companies, including Google, LinkedIn, and Lyft. Throughout her career, she has led teams focused on solving complex marketplace problems, architecting systems, and – most importantly – contributing to meaningful customer experiences.
Ann initially joined Chptr as its first advisor, compelled by its core mission to connect communities through local storytelling. As CPO, Ann is now tasked with defining how technology can truly support that mission, and, to do so, she is partnering closely with the people that play a deeply supportive community role: funeral professionals.
While, on the surface, serving funeral home directors may appear to be different from Ann’s previous fast-moving technology environments, her philosophy remains that the fundamentals of building great products remain the same. Every business exists to serve a customer, and every product must create real value.
Funeral homes play a unique role in their communities. They are guiding families through some of life's most difficult moments, often while managing countless operational responsibilities behind the scenes. That understanding has shaped how Ann thinks about product development at Chptr and the role technology should play in supporting funeral professionals.
Funeral professionals guide families through life's hardest moments. The technology supporting them shouldn't take center stage. It should work quietly in the background, making their work easier and honoring the families they serve.
"Funeral professionals guide families through life's hardest moments. The technology supporting them shouldn't take center stage—it should work quietly in the background, making their work easier and honoring the families they serve."
- Ann Ferracane, Chief Product Officer
What’s one insight about the funeral industry that fundamentally changed how you think about building products in this space?
Chptr is helping to honor someone's life by ensuring the announcement of their passing reaches their local community. Creating technology in this industry, however, does change how we think about product and tech team culture. Mistakes can impact a family during one of the hardest moments they'll ever experience.
As a product leader, that reality has made me think much more critically about how we introduce changes, how we maintain quality, and how we scale responsibly. We're still a startup and we need to move quickly, but we've also built our systems around the idea that quality matters deeply. We've also focused on creating technology that supports a human-in-the-loop approach.
Technology can help us innovate and scale, but human oversight remains an essential part of delivering the quality families and funeral homes deserve.
Given you are currently focused on tech in a traditionally offline, relationship-driven industry, what patterns or gaps did you notice early on that others might have overlooked?
One observable pattern is that businesses that rightfully prioritize direct, in-real-life customer engagement may not have the time or resources to focus on how their brand can show up in unique, locally-focused marketing channels.
At Chptr, I have observed that funeral professionals may also manage marketing, content, distribution, and a growing number of digital responsibilities on top of the incredibly important work they already do. Given that the value funeral homes provide comes from the time they spend supporting families, it is motivating to help build products that make this easier.
The primary gap I have observed is that many technology providers attempting to serve traditionally offline industries are designing software that requires their customer to be sitting in front of a computer for an extended period of time. This feels counterintuitive. Traditionally offline and relationship-driven industries are rightfully focused on providing meaningful services to customers in-person. This is the essence of their offering. Thus, technology offered to them should enable them to spend more time with the customer and less time on screen.
We don't want to give funeral homes another system that requires more time and attention. We want to architect technology that makes things easier, reduces complexity, and allows funeral directors to focus on the people they serve: families in the community.
Where do you see the biggest opportunity for technology like Chptr to create leverage for funeral homes, whether operationally, financially, or in how they engage with families?
I believe one of the biggest opportunities is helping funeral homes strengthen how they show up in their local communities without creating additional work for their teams.
Today, local businesses are expected to maintain websites, social media channels, marketing campaigns, and other forms of outreach. Creating high-quality content that resonates with the community, and distributing it consistently takes significant time, effort, and expertise.
We love building technology at Chptr that simplifies this for funeral homes, as it would any local business serving a high-touch customer. We handle many of the complicated marketing pieces, from informative content creation and distribution to media delivery at scale, while making the experience straightforward for funeral homes.
By reducing that burden, funeral homes can maintain a strong local presence by showing up consistently on local channels with content that is relevant for their community. This enables them to spend more of their time supporting families and building meaningful community relationships.
How has working in an industry like this, where trust is everything and mistakes are not an option, changed how you think about product development?
It's reinforced the importance of understanding every person who experiences the product.
We often talk about serving funeral homes, but there are actually multiple audiences involved. There are the funeral homes themselves, the families they serve, and the people who engage with obituary content through television, radio, and digital channels.
Each of those groups experience our product differently, and each warrant deep consideration. When we think about product development at Chptr, we think about how all of those perspectives come together.
Trust is earned through consistency and quality. Any technology supporting this profession should work reliably, thoughtfully, and in a way that reflects the significance of the moments we're helping support.
Given your background leading teams and scaling products, what lessons from your time across companies like Google, LinkedIn, and Lyft have most influenced how you're building and leading at Chptr?
One of the greatest advantages of working at high-growth technology companies is that you get to see what scale looks like, and what it requires. You get the opportunity to encounter problems you would not have encountered if the company was not growing. It gives you a long-term perspective on how products, systems, organizations, and leadership need to evolve as they grow.
If you are lucky enough to join a company before it takes off, it also gives you a real perspective on how much manual effort, patience, and optimism it takes in the beginning – especially with so few resources. Both perspectives are useful.
The unifying theme is very simple, however: you need a very deep focus on the customer. No matter how sophisticated the technology becomes, success ultimately depends on whether you're solving an actual problem for your customer, or providing them with an outsized opportunity.
Last, but not least – and equally as critical – I've learned that the people you hire matter enormously. At this stage, we're looking for builders: people who want ownership, enjoy solving problems, people that speak up and want to help shape the future of the company. Those are the people that truly serve customers well – and it is simply because they care about the work they do each day.
Final Thoughts
Ann's approach to product development is rooted in a core belief: technology should make meaningful work easier and faster.
Her experience building products at some of the world's leading technology companies brings valuable perspective to Chptr, but her focus remains firmly on the people at the center of funeral service. Every product decision begins with understanding the needs of funeral homes, the families they serve, and the communities they support.
At Chptr, that philosophy continues to guide how we build. Technology works best when it fades into the background, allowing human connection to remain at the center of the experience.
