Nicole Miñoza.
Product & Product Marketing Executive

Nicole Miñoza

I turn undervalued features into revenue, retention, and reach. I own both the product and the story that sells it.

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Portrait of Nicole Miñoza
PRODUCT & PRODUCT MARKETING LEADERSHIP
CONVERSION +186%

Free-to-paid lift in Adobe Express, Adobe's freemium design app, from redesigned font recommendations (2025)

ADOPTION 1.2M+

Use of newly licensed Monotype and Microsoft fonts within weeks of launch (May 2025)

RETENTION −66%

Lower monthly churn among Creative Cloud all-app subscribers who adopted Adobe Fonts (Causal analysis, March 2025)

SCALE 12M+

Monthly active users (MAU) of Adobe Fonts, grew 3× faster than Creative Cloud year over year (YoY) (Dec 2025)

01

The work

At Adobe, I took a service everyone used and no one measured, and proved it drove conversion, retention, and platform growth. That service was typography.

I led product strategy and marketing for a 75-person organization: executive buy-in seven years running, adoption across 12 flagship apps secured by persuading teams I didn't manage, and a roadmap I pivoted to the AI era.

02

Signature work

Five calls I'd defend in any room.

01

Led the brand and business-model transformation of an acquired product into a core subscription benefit

Recognized the removal of activation limits as a rebrand moment, took the case to brand leadership, chose the name, directed the new site, and ran go-to-market on a tight timeline for Adobe MAX, Adobe's flagship creativity conference, with zero losses among the type foundries that license fonts to Adobe.

2018 · Group Product Marketing Manager

+40% MAU, year one
02

Defined Adobe's typography strategy for the AI era

Made fonts and text core to Adobe's AI tools, not an afterthought. Shipped generative text edit in Firefly Boards, Adobe's AI-powered infinite canvas, at Adobe MAX 2025; advanced a machine-learning typography service to public beta; made the case for exposing font discovery to AI assistants.

2025–2026 · Director, Product Management

Adobe MAX Debuted 2025
03

Proved typography drives revenue

Redesigned Adobe Express font recommendations into one of its top premium drivers. Users who applied a recommended font exported at 73.7% versus 37.3% overall.

Read the case study

2025 · Director, Product Management

+186% Free→paid lift
04

Consolidated two text engines into one platform, then scaled it across 12 apps

Migrated every flagship app onto one shared text codebase (the software that draws type inside each app), secured by persuading teams I didn't manage. Built for the web, it ran 40× faster and finally fixed broken layout for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Hebrew users.

2021–2026 · Group Manager → Director

15M Text-engine MAU
05

Launched Adobe's largest content-licensing partnership in five years

Spotted the opportunity in user drop-off data to win the Monotype and Microsoft deal, then drove fast adoption by attaching the launch to Adobe MAX London. With fonts like Helvetica, Gotham, Avenir, DIN, and Proxima Nova available to Adobe's flagship apps, failed searches fell 91% and 21.1M missing-font events were eliminated.

2025 · Director, Product Management

1.2M Users in weeks
03

How I lead

The principles behind the numbers.

01

I lead through influence, not authority.

Persuaded every head of product to commit their app to one shared text platform rather than build their own.

“She doesn't just manage a workstream, she builds trust across the teams and keeps everyone moving in the same direction.”

Yuki Ishioka, Director, International Product Strategy, Adobe
02

I build the team the strategy needs.

Led 6 product managers and set direction for a ~75-person org across product, design, and engineering.

“She orchestrated a team of product managers while continually growing multiple areas of our business.”

Tim Brown, Head of Typography, Adobe (former direct report)
03

I develop talent through change.

Inherited two teams: rebuilt a product group and redeployed a support team into marketing and product roles.

“An adept leader, shepherding her team through reorgs and leadership changes. She leads by example and develops her people.”

Meghan Arnold, Senior Community Events Manager, Adobe (former direct report)
04

How I think

The examples are fonts; the playbooks carry to any product.

Playbook 01Influence

Adoption without a mandate

You don't mandate a platform onto teams you don't manage. You make integrating it their win, and you measure the number they respect.

Result One font platform now powers 12 flagship apps and 15M MAU, built entirely by persuading teams I didn't manage.
  1. Make the integration the app team's win, not yours.
  2. Start where you're wanted: flagship anchors first, then the smaller apps.
  3. Standardize that component so each new app costs less to ship.
  4. Measure usage, not installs: report unique users actually using the feature.
Playbook 02Measurement

Proof before you ship

A number is only as strong as where it came from. Provenance, not precision, is what lets a result survive an executive room.

  1. Define success metrics with the data team before launch. Adoption, failed-search rate, missing-font events.
  2. Build the dashboards pre-launch so impact is read, not reconstructed.
  3. Tie each metric back to the original business-case claim: drop-off pattern → search failure → adoption.
Result+186% free-to-paid conversion the day Adobe Express shipped, instrumented from day one.
Playbook 03Positioning

Two buyers, one capability

Same capability, two true positions. Never average two audiences into one generic message.

  1. Individual designers → led with creative freedom (Bring Your Own Fonts).
  2. Enterprise teams → led with governance and control (Custom Fonts).
  3. Both shipped under their own name; neither averaged into the other.
Decision ruleOne capability can carry two messages; it must never carry an average of them.
Read the full playbooks
05

Now

Independent product, marketing, and brand work, building and shipping AI products firsthand, plus executive nonprofit leadership.
March 2026 to present.

Building

Shipped Ramón, an AI styling app, end-to-end

Wrote the product requirements from real user needs, shaped the onboarding narrative and user-experience copy, and made the technical trade-offs from server-side security to model selection. I treated the prompt itself as the product. Built to learn the medium; in daily use.

  • Curation is the product. House Style is a curated library of more than 40 opinionated AI prompts for marketing, brand, and product leaders. Each one casts a specific expert role, takes variables, and forces a sharper answer than the obvious one. The name is a brand term for a voice rulebook, which is the whole idea. I positioned it and built it in React by directing Claude Code.
Branding

Brand is behavior, not image

How Institutions Behave is an interactive thesis that argues exactly that, benchmarking nine landmark cultural-institution rebrands. Researched, designed, and built solo.

In practice
  • Identity, end-to-end. Cuppa Lumpia is a complete brand for a Filipino lumpia maker on Bainbridge Island, a logo system, brand guidelines, and a landing site, live at cuppalumpia.com. Strategy through production, designed and built solo.
Board

Board of Directors, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

Since December 2025

Co-chair of BIMA Bash! 2026, the museum's flagship fundraiser. The campaign raised $1.175M, 31% over its $895K goal.

Advisory
  • Global Advisor, How Women Lead · since 2026. Counseling senior women leaders on brand, marketing, and communications.
06

Career

Every role inside Adobe's Digital Media business.

Jun 2023 – Feb 2026 Seattle, WA Adobe Fonts & Typography

Adobe

Director, Product Management

First Product Director for the business. Led 6 product managers and set direction for a ~75-person org spanning product, design, and engineering; deployed the foundry royalty budget. Charter: scale typography across Creative Cloud, Express, and Acrobat while pivoting the roadmap to generative AI.

  • Reframed font discovery from a quality feature into a conversion lever, won funding for it as a standalone bet, and drove the launch with Adobe Express as the first proving-ground partner.
  • Made fonts and text core to Adobe's AI tools rather than an afterthought, and secured Photoshop and Express commitments to adopt generative text editing after the first release proved out.
  • Shipped a usage-based royalty model, saving $1M in year-one foundry royalties with zero user backlash.
  • Grew the Adobe Fonts product to 12M+ MAU, 3× the rate of Creative Cloud.
  • Ran the Adobe Fonts website as a funnel and product lab, lifting free-account signups +36% year over year.
Mar 2019 – Jun 2023 Seattle, WA Adobe Fonts & Typography

Adobe

Group Product & Product Marketing Manager

Pitched for and won expanded leadership over both product strategy and product marketing for the fonts business; led a team of 8. Presented strategy to the senior vice president annually.

  • Won executive approval for the usage-based royalty model and specified the usage logging across every app.
  • Shipped the Adobe Fonts product across Adobe.com and 12 Creative Cloud apps.
  • Rebuilt 3 teams and grew the people on them, promoting a support manager to PM, a support person to community manager, and a content hire into the producer behind one of Adobe's top livestream series.
Mar 2016 – Mar 2019 Seattle, WA Adobe Typekit & Adobe Type

Adobe

Group Product Marketing Manager

Led marketing, customer experience, and go-to-market for the fonts business; team grew to 8 after absorbing support and enterprise sales.

  • Made the call to treat the activation-limit removal as a rebrand, not a product update: chose the Adobe Fonts name, won brand leadership's approval, and ran the launch on a tight Adobe MAX timeline.
  • Built the original retention proof: the 2019 causal analysis showed all-app subscribers who used Adobe Fonts churned 42% less the next month. It became the business case behind every later platform investment.
  • Created the marketing behind Adobe's gender-inclusive emoji advocacy (Forbes, MIT Technology Review, Wired, Slate, and more).
Jan 2012 – Mar 2016 San Jose, CA Adobe Typekit & Adobe Type

Adobe

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Sole senior marketer for the full typography portfolio after the Typekit acquisition; ran the full go-to-market engine: public relations (PR), partnerships, and the Adobe MAX presence.

  • Designed the go-to-market and press strategy for Source Han Sans, the first open-source typeface spanning Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scripts, addressing 1.5 billion users; won the naming case in a five-company negotiation.
  • Created, funded, and led the Adobe Originals 25th Anniversary campaign, anchored by the open-source launch of Source Serif.
  • Designed Typekit's community-led marketing (designer showcases and features) and produced the launch microsites, several of which still live a decade later.
Jul 2002 – Jan 2012 San Jose, CA Adobe Type

Adobe

Quality Engineer → Lead Quality Engineer → Senior Program Manager

Joined as roughly employee #6,000. Started in font testing and shipped releases for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat, then advanced to quality engineering lead in the type design group and into program management through Adobe's hyper-growth years. A decade inside the type org before marketing it provided the technical credibility that later underwrote authority in deeply technical rooms.

07

Credibility

Coverage in CNET, Forbes, Fast Company & Wired, plus 20+ bylined posts and launch sites still live a decade later ▸
Earned media Source Han Sans · The Originals 25th Anniversary · Gender-inclusive emoji ▸

Source Han Sans

2014

The Next Web · CNET

“The design is relatively modern in style, but it has simple strokes and is monolinear so it makes text clear and readable on small devices.”

Nicole Miñoza, quoted in The Next Web on the launch of Source Han SansThe open-source typeface serving 1.5 billion people
Campaign · 2016–2021

The campaign behind Adobe's gender-inclusive emoji

Created the marketing strategy and funded the PR behind designer Paul D. Hunt's gender-inclusive emoji work. The campaign landed coverage in Forbes, MIT Technology Review, Wired, Slate, and more; now archived in a Computer History Museum exhibition.

Coverage: Forbes · Mashable · Computer History Museum

Full coverage archive ▸
Campaign · 2014

The Adobe Originals 25th Anniversary

Created, funded, and led a year-long integrated campaign bringing Adobe Type's legacy into the Typekit brand: a 10-part editorial series with the original 1989 Originals team, the launch of Source Serif (Adobe's 100th typeface, released open source), a limited-edition poster, and a 172-page commemorative book produced for Adobe MAX. Covered by CNET.

Coverage: CNET · Series hub · The book

Selected writing From 20+ posts for the Typekit / Adobe Fonts blog ▸

I was the editorial voice of the business: launch narratives, expert storytelling, and making deeply technical work legible to mainstream press. Selected from 20+ posts.

More from the archive ▸
Launch microsites Acumin · Source Han Serif · Minion 3, all still live ▸

Immersive go-to-market sites I produced for flagship typeface releases, all still live a decade later: Acumin (2015) · Source Han Serif (2017) · Minion 3 (2018)

Education

  • MBA, Marketing · Santa Clara University
  • BA, Political Science · UCLA

Executive development

  • AI-Driven Leadership · Stanford Online Certificate (2026)
  • Strategic Data Storytelling · University of Chicago (2025)
  • Hispanic Executive Leadership · McKinsey (2024)
  • Leadership Circles · Adobe (2023)
  • Women Unlimited LEAD · AscentPoint Leadership (2016–17)
Let's talk

Open to the
next chapter.

If you're building something where craft and judgment matter, I'd like to hear about it. Open to senior director and vice president roles across product and product marketing, plus board seats and select advisory and consulting work.

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