Founders’ Awards: Celebrate the Winners of 2025

At Amplitude, one of our core principles is creating an environment where leaders act like founders. That means going beyond excelling in your role to see the bigger picture, make hard calls, and drive the business forward with conviction and ownership. Acting like a founder requires vision, courage, and relentless execution, no matter how difficult the path.

The Founders’ Awards are our most prestigious recognition, honoring those who think and operate as true owners. They model our values, point to the future, and do the hard work required to turn that belief into meaningful impact.

Please join us in celebrating the winners of the 2025 Founders’ Awards:

• Erika Ryan-Desmond, Principal Recruiter
• Jacob Newman, Principal Product Manager
• Becca Abu Sharkh, Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering
• Carmen DeCouto, Group Product Marketing Manager
• Lucas Howard, Senior Product Manager

Carmen DeCouto, 2025 Founders' Award winner

About the winners

Erika Ryan-Desmond

Erika has taken on an extraordinary level of responsibility with massive impact. As the sole person in her role supporting EMEA across eight countries, she drives cross-functional work spanning GTM, Product, Engineering, and Leadership while navigating complex laws and compliance requirements without slowing the business. Over the past two years, she has been instrumental in EMEA expansion, partnering with the Finance, HR, and Legal teams to build strategy and scalable processes from scratch. She’s also used AI to streamline workflows, while delivering best-in-class results with her close rate and average time to close.

Jacob Newman

Jacob has been a driving force behind Amplitude’s AI transformation over the last 12 months. In early 2025, he led early explorations into AI-assisted chart building (Chart Chat) and AI-led root-cause analysis (Automated Insights). By the end of the year, these bets culminated in a powerful and intelligent platform agent (Global Agent), which is revolutionizing how people interface with data. His product craft, collaboration, and ownership continue to shine as we build the future of AI Analytics.

Becca Abu Sharkh

Becca was a cornerstone of Amplitude’s Sales organization in 2025, providing critical support and results for new opportunities and renewals. She was the technical lead on Amplitude’s largest revenue deal to date and drove major customer expansions across numerous segments, showcasing her ability to pair deep technical expertise with strong partner relationships. In 2025, she stepped up to cover key strategic accounts and helped launch the Strategic Solutions Engineering team, which mentors peers and defines best practices in the critical role of pairing technical knowledge with go-to-market execution and strategy.

Carmen DeCouto

Carmen is the launch engine behind some of Amplitude’s most high-impact launches—including AI Visibility, Session Replay Everywhere, Marketing Analytics 2.0, and AI Agents—driving awareness, demand, and adoption that consistently beat targets. Most notably, she stepped up to lead AI Visibility without a product partner, partnering closely with the lead engineer to own the full NPI process and executing a never-before-tried launch motion that sparked 14K public AI Visibility report submissions and strong enterprise pull. Across these launches, Carmen has repeatedly exceeded adoption and pipeline influence goals. Known internally as the “Captain” of launches, she leads cross-functional teams with calm, clarity, and end-to-end ownership.

Lucas Howard

Lucas led Amplitude’s most successful product launch ever, Guides and Surveys, which has turned from a bold vision into a true platform differentiator in just 10 months. He owns every detail, taking deep technical leadership and even learning mobile development to accelerate progress. By acting quickly on customer feedback, he helped close deals with key partnerships. In 2025, he also stepped up to lead Session Replay, guiding the team to impressive revenue results. Lucas is a culture carrier who raises the bar for how we build and win together.

Jacob Newman, 2025 Founders' Award winner

Meet the winners

Tell us about yourself and how you joined Amplitude!

Erika: I have been in recruitment for over 16 years and worked at companies like Salesforce and Slack, growing GTM functions across EMEA as both a leader and an individual contributor. I joined Amplitude in 2024 as a contractor to help with a recruitment spike in EMEA, and I was converted to a permanent role. I honestly haven’t looked back since.

Jacob: I spent most of my career at tiny startups, so joining a larger company wasn’t really on my radar until a friend convinced me to join her at Amplitude in 2023. I’m so glad she did. Getting to work on a product that’s purpose-built for PMs has been incredibly rewarding, and the team we’ve assembled to work on agentic analytics is incredibly smart and passionate. I’m based in San Francisco, where I spend my free time sitting in Alamo Square Park with my dog, Tofu.

Becca: Before Amplitude, I worked at data startups in San Francisco and was already an avid Amplitude user. I was recruited by a former SE colleague and fellow Founder Award winner, Bethany Mangan. As a lover of the product, I knew I had to join immediately. That was over three years ago, and I’ve been so happy with both my personal growth at the company and where we are headed.

Carmen: I was working in the data and analytics space and keeping a close eye on product analytics providers when I had the chance to interview with Amplitude and other leading players at the same time. I quickly knew the best place for me was here. The product—and especially the people—are why I’ve stayed for nearly five years. Based in Phoenix, I spend my free time getting creative in the kitchen with my partner, skiing with my kids, and exploring every trail in the state.

Lucas: I joined Amplitude via the Command AI acquisition in October 2024, and I live in San Francisco. Some of my hobbies include plants and bonsai, running, playing basketball, and tinkering with games/apps with our latest LLMs. I’ve stayed at Amplitude because of the phenomenal engineers I get to work with and the fun challenge of reinventing the company and driving growth for our shareholders.

Erika Ryan-Desmond, 2025 Founders' Award winner, who was holding down the fort in Dublin during the ceremony

What does acting like a founder mean to you?

Erika: Taking a “CEO of your region” approach in how I do my day-to-day job. Looking at everything from good internal relationships, clear communication around strategy and as a recruiter, and thinking about the business impact of every candidate I speak to and share with my stakeholders. I am very aware that the talent I bring through the door will be a key contributor to the growth and future success of Amplitude—not just in EMEA but globally.

Jacob: It’s assembling the right team. There are so few things any one person can accomplish on their own—founder or not. But a great team? They can do anything. Especially when you start from a foundation of trust, service, and genuine respect for what each person brings to the table. As a PM, I simply focus on creating that team environment because when smart people feel valued and are energized by the problems ahead, amazing things happen.

Becca: In a GTM role, acting like a founder means that I am relentless about customer value and execution. It’s stepping into the shoes of the customer to deeply understand how Amplitude can help and what success looks like together. My role in that means showing up prepared, consultative, and with a strong point of view. It’s challenging myself, the customer, and often the Amplitude team to be better and think bigger. But it’s also about taking everyone on the journey with you and building strong relationships (both inside and outside) so that we can all succeed together as one team.

Carmen: To me, acting like a founder means treating the company’s goals like they’re personal. It’s stepping into ambiguity without waiting for permission, owning the outcome end-to-end, and moving fast with a high bar. It’s pulling the right people in, making the hard calls when tradeoffs arise, and staying accountable for results—not just tasks. And honestly, it’s always coming back to what’s best for customers and the business, even when it isn’t technically “my job.”

Lucas: I never think about acting like a founder—I try to just keep in mind:

• Be a fantastic teammate: Software is such a people business. If you have a great relationship with your team, you’ll be happier and accomplish a lot more.
• Care about our customers: Work feels fulfilling when you help people solve problems. The product also improves as you build relationships with customers.
• Own things when it makes sense: If something really matters to me, I make sure a good solution is implemented on time. The trick is not to let “perfect be the enemy of good.”

Becca Abu Sharkh, 2025 Founders' Award winner

Thinking like a founder, what’s something you’re excited for in your or Amplitude’s future?

Erika: The AI-first approach. Aside from our product becoming more powerful, I am super excited to explore ways my team and I can use AI to improve efficiency and increase the quality of our outputs. This will keep us competitive in the market, but also provide the opportunity personally to deliver impact ahead of the market and how traditional recruitment has functioned previously.

Jacob: Without being cliché, we’re living through one of the most exciting technological inflection points in human history. At most companies, you can feel like you’re simply reacting to the change happening around you. But at Amplitude, we’re creating that change—defining the future of analytics that we want to live in. That’s incredibly empowering.

Becca: I don’t think there is anyone out there who can accurately predict which technological innovations will come from AI or where the industry is headed overall. I am no different. But what is different for me is my utter conviction that my team and Amplitude as a whole will have a huge part in driving any outcome. I am looking forward to strapping in and seeing where the ride takes us.

Carmen: I’m excited to evolve how we capture attention and build awareness in a market moving at AI speed. Founder mindset-wise, I want to push product marketing in this moment: new launch motions, sharper stories, and faster cycles as teams ship at the pace of AI. And I want to keep showing up as a true partner to product while making sure marketing and sales are meeting our audience where they are, which is constantly evolving.

Lucas: I’m excited to see how we can make the Amplitude platform come to life. There are obviously tons of cool things we can do with AI, but I love seeing solid executional wins. We still have a long way to go in making the full Amplitude platform work even more seamlessly together. Making that come to life will be such a chef’s kiss moment.

Lucas Howard, 2025 Founders' Award winner