Hiring Manager Interview: Jonathan Su (CPTO)

Date: 2026-02-27 (Thu)
Format: Zoom, ~30 min
Outcome: Moving to next round (panel interviews)

Pre-Interview

• Zoom issues at start -- Cloudflare error, couldn't rejoin for ~7-8 min. Emailed recruiter. Jonathan was also late, didn't notice.
• Slightly flustered at start, stumbled on intro story. Recovered quickly.

What Jonathan Shared About the Role

Four pillars beyond the JD:

1. Tracking and leading initiatives -- especially cross-functional with many moving parts. Verbatim: emphasized "not dropping the ball" and "being able to move forward"
2. Collaboration and coordination in B2B SaaS -- natural trade-offs and tensions around building new features vs. supporting differing customer requirements
3. Cadence of updates, reporting, presentations -- heavy storytelling. Framing narratives for the board and senior leadership
4. AI as core 2026 strategy -- aggressive outlook on AI in product and internally. Next generation of Procurify as an AI-native platform

Questions He Asked

1. Communication style working with product and engineering teams

Andrea's answer:
- Structured 1:1 conversations with leadership and key cross-functional people to establish trust and relationships
- Cross-functional meetings for broader audience -- status updates, alignment
- For non-technical audiences: metaphorical, simplified narratives that are intuitive
- For technical teams: acknowledge complexity but drive back to business value and company goals
- Also mentioned PM background: product owner capacity, user stories, requirements gathering
- Jonathan clarified: "this is not technically a product role, but working very closely with the product team"

Missed opportunity: Forgot to mention written communication and knowledge base building work

2. Product taste -- favorite products

Andrea's answer:
- carrd.co -- simple, straightforward, friction-free, customizable. "It just works. It meets expectations."
- Connected well later when Jonathan mentioned liking Granola for the same reason ("it just works")

3. Process improvement -- enterprise sales tension, CX feedback loops

Andrea's answer:
- Enterprise feature requests are often non-productizable (solve short-to-medium term needs, once solved they're done, no recurring need) -- great opportunity for AI to handle these
- CX improvement: AI-supported workflows where frontline CS staff can pull and close production PRs for minor bugs. Removes deprioritized small items from backlog
- Both answers framed around AI leverage

4. Business acumen / comfort with numbers

Andrea's answer:
- No formal MBA, but was an entrepreneur with a good understanding of navigating a P&L
- Framed B2C vs B2B as not fundamentally different: "Every business has the need to capture the attention of customers, find ways to serve them meaningfully, and then get paid"
- Jonathan seemed satisfied; was probing around comfort with the reporting/presentations/numbers aspect of the role
- Reinforced with Lalamove experience: worked the dashboards, knew the numbers intimately, presented them to leadership

5. Lalamove arc (woven into multiple answers)

Andrea's answer:
- Described career progression: Marketing Manager → Driver Operations → Strategic Lead
- As Strategic Lead, covered exactly what the Procurify role describes: tracking initiatives, collaboration/coordination across teams, updates, reporting, presentations, storytelling
- Emphasized that she was intimately familiar with business operations because she knew, worked, and presented the numbers -- not just telling stories about them
- This was the strongest parallel to the role and landed well

Questions Andrea Asked

Cultural vibe in scaling mode

• Jonathan: people are energized to move forward with new strategy
• Referenced that he was brought on 5 months ago specifically because of this change
• Textbook answer but confirmed our assumptions about transformation mode

AI adoption internally

• They're using AI coding tools
• Internal bot that answers product questions
• Notebook LM for product knowledge base
• Enterprise access to ChatGPT, Gemini (Google Workspace), Claude Code

Jonathan's personal view on AI

• Leans positive -- sees it as disruptor but great opportunity
• "From disruption there are always winners and losers... joining Procurify to be on the winner side"
• Personally uses Claude Code, Copilot, and Granola ("it just works")

Andrea shared her AI projects

• Mentioned Meal Planner app and portfolio site
• Talked about building own AI agent using Nanoclaw (sp?)
• Sent portfolio link in thank-you follow-up

Closing

• Andrea: "I see a great opportunity here, and just as you said, when there are winners and losers from a disruption, I also intend to be on the winning side." Jonathan laughed.
• Jonathan said he will set up next conversations -- panel interviews expected

Andrea's Impressions

• Conversation was somewhat unstructured from Jonathan's side -- not a bad thing, mirrors expectations of a company in transition
• He comes from an engineering background, seems to lack narrative skill -- Andrea would be a strong complement
• Good rapport: jokes flowed, natural conversation
• Strongest answers: migration story, Lalamove strategic lead experience, AI applications

Stories That Landed

• Ting migration -- core story, resonated well
• Lalamove -- strategic lead experience (need to capture this narrative)

Prep for Next Round

• Expect panel with cross-functional leaders: GTM, Product, Engineering, possibly CS/Sales
• Bank the written communication + knowledge base story for GTM/CS audiences
• Prepare Lalamove narrative in detail
• Emphasize "bridge between strategy and execution" framing