Title: Senior Product Marketing Manager
Company: HP
Location: Salt Lake City
Overtime: This newlywed loves hiking, skiing, and being outdoors in general.
Why You Need to Know Her: Andie Mace self-identifies as a geek. She grew up in a tech household in Fort Worth, TX. “We just loved gadgets,” she admitted.
Andie Mace’s work in product marketing for Poly began in July 2021. Less than a year later, the company was acquired by HP. Initially, her focus was webcams, but now Mace handles the USB videobar line that has models designed for everything from huddle rooms to large conference rooms.
But Mace is driven by more than just a love of technology. A purpose-driven individual, she is a strong believer in the power of collaboration that’s enabled by the Pro AV industry. As she explained, we all work—a lot—and technology helps people connect with each other. “I really believe it serves a purpose,” she said. “Connection is literally the foundation to our existence as humans.”
Devices like videobars help remote workers see and hear people clearly from around the world. The way she sees it, that helps people feel less lonely and do better work because they are working in connection with other people. “The phenomenon of remote/hybrid work is so special and magical,” Mace added. “We can do a much better job of doing things we enjoy in our personal lives while having jobs that fulfill us.”
If Mace sounds more like a social scientist and less like your typical product marketing manager, that tracks. After all, her professional journey began in a pre-med program as an anthropology major, at the University of Texas in Austin. That academic background in the scientific study of humanity continues to impact her career; Mace herself might argue that she is now in an anthropologically-adjacent career.
Without any technical training, after college she started in a marketing agency working for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs). From there, she moved to an ecommerce software company that also focused on SMBs. Software marketing introduced her to the world of technology. Later, Mace realized there was another path: physical products.
“Coming out of college, I didn’t know that was a thing,” she admitted. “That’s how I found my way into Poly.”
Mace is part of the core team that represents the customer, and she spends much of her time talking to customers and understanding their challenges. That’s probably why she still has a soft spot for SMBs, which need technology just like larger companies but often lack the specialized knowledge to properly implement it.
Products like videobars can help bridge that knowledge gap and make sure smaller organizations have access to collaboration technology. As she explained, Mace helps her team focus on the “small techie things that have a really significant impact and can make people’s lives better. I truly believe that’s what we’re doing with the technology.”
So, what is it about videobars that makes them so appealing for small and medium-sized rooms? “They’re just easy,” she explained. “That’s what it comes down to. A videobar does a great job and it’s so easy to deploy. Easy is really, really important.”
Mace calls herself part of the “in-between tech baby generation,” a group that had a flip phone as its first phone and straddled the digital technologies of the past and present. It is a stark contrast to what she calls the “true tech baby generation” that is entering the workforce. They have always been surrounded by smartphones and other technology, so they aren’t impressed by “speed and feeds.” Instead, they care about mental wellness in the workplace.
Looking ahead, our Pro AV anthropologist is curious to see how the industry is going to adapt a “big change” on the near horizon. Mace predicts the industry will have to change from wowing customers with specs, which worked well for quite a while, to wowing customers with how technologies can help them have a better health and work/life balance.
