This is the 129th article in Bears Doing Big Things, a bi-weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
From summer camps to startups, Meghan Simkover ’01 has carved a path to her role as Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google. After spending many years exploring her options from medicine to teaching and finally marketing, Simkover has established herself as an accomplished individual in her position at Google.
Simkover was born in Toronto but moved to the Bay Area when her parents got jobs as pediatricians at Stanford. She grew up in the Menlo Park area, attending Los Lomitas Elementary School and La Entrada Middle School before coming to M-A.
When Simkover was young, she explored many different sports but focused on gymnastics. “At summer camp before starting high school, I had an injury horseback riding, which meant that gymnastics was no longer a good sport for me. With that, my doctor suggested swimming,” she said.
Following the injury, Simkover decided to try water polo at M-A. “I was a decent swimmer, but had never been on a swim team or been super serious about water sports. My experience on the water polo and swim team at M-A were a really important part of my experience,” she said.
The team was also a source of community for Simkover. “A lot of my closest friends from M-A were also on the water polo and swim teams,” she said. “My science teacher was actually also the swimming coach and the water polo coach.”
M-A’s diversity also stood out to her. “I think it’s one of the things that makes M-A so special is that we have so many cultures from around the world represented in the student body,” she said.
Simkover loved the clubs at M-A, particularly a community service club and Junior Statesmen of America, a debate club. “[Junior Statesmen of America] was a great group of friends, and it was fun that there were so many activities that we could participate in together,” she said.
After M-A, Simkover decided to attend Harvard University and majored in Psychology. “It was a big jump. I did seriously consider California schools, but decided that it was time to try out the other side of the country and try something new. I had a really amazing undergraduate experience,” she said.
Simkover continued her passion for water polo at Harvard on their Division 1 team. She also volunteered at local elementary schools. “I started at Harvard not knowing what I wanted to do professionally. I started taking pre-medicine classes, thinking that I might want to be a doctor like my parents, but then realized that maybe that wasn’t a path for me,” she said. “I’ve always loved kids, and transitioned to thinking that instead of being a doctor, that I might be a teacher for elementary school students.”
After college, Simkover accepted a teaching position at Marymount Elementary School in Santa Barbara. “By senior year [at Harvard], I was feeling a bit homesick for California and was ready to be back in the warmer weather,” she said. “I jumped around for a few different things early on in my career.”
Following her teacher position, Simkover ran a summer camp in Santa Monica, and shortly after, she joined the nonprofit March of Dimes in San Francisco which focuses on decreasing maternal health risks and infant death. At the nonprofit, Simkover focused on raising money and planning events.
After about two years with the March of Dimes, Simkover was hired at another summer camp company called Steve and Kate’s Camp as a site director, where she led year-round marketing efforts. She also recruited and trained camp counselors. “It’s very full circle. My kids often attend their camp. They were acquired by a big childcare mentor company, and are doing super well, so I’ve stayed in touch with them,” she said.
Still exploring her options, Simkover joined QuinStreet. She had a Harvard classmate who worked there and had heard many great things about the community.
Simkover made lots of connections at QuinStreet but eventually, she wanted to try something new. “It was sort of like a late date startup, because they were getting ready to go public,” she said. “After they went public, I thought I have a lot of energy for my work and have time because I don’t have a family yet, so I should try going to an earlier-stage startup.”
Simkover was then hired at Ampush, a startup in its beginning stages. “I was about the 20th employee there and over the next about three years, [I] helped them build their business,” she said. “When I started, I was mainly hired for marketing, but it was so early that they needed someone to do a bit of everything.” Simkover did operations and worked in Human Resources, helping with hiring and growing the company.
After that, Simkover moved to CircleUp, a financial technology company that was also in its early phases. It’s a company that connects early-stage consumer brands to investors to grow these businesses. During her time at CircleUp, Simkover got married and moved to Woodside. “We were both commuting to jobs in San Francisco, but realized that our life was moving out of the city and down to the Peninsula,” she said.
Simkover interviewed at Google for five years before she got the job. “I had tried for different types of roles and got interviews, and then didn’t end up getting offers,” she said.
Simkover has spent the last 10 years at Google in the Marketing sector. She’s worked on many different projects, including marketing various products, exposure notifications during COVID-19 in collaboration with Apple, and Android marketing.
Simkover especially highlighted the community and culture at Google. “The people are just really incredible. I love my colleagues. I’ve made a lot of good friends through my time at Google, and it’s just a really like, collaborative, smart, fun group of people,” she said.
Simkover also underscored the emphasis on personal growth at Google. “There’s really unlimited opportunities for internal learning,” she said. “Google offers to help people develop career skills and try to make people’s lives better.”
Simkover’s advice to current M-A students: “I think it’s great to try out different things, and not necessarily feel like you need to choose your path when you’re still in high school. There’s just so much exploring to be done.”
Simkover’s advice to those interested in marketing: “You can bring these ideas of things from your actual experience, it just shows passion for the company and interest in working there and engaging with things. I think that that’s often something that hiring managers are looking for, or in the case of applying to colleges. I think that people really love to see that passion and that often can be a leg-up as you’re trying to get into these companies or trying to get into a particular school.”
