Kiyana Dubard, MA
Strategic Communicator |Systems Thinker |Document Specialist |People Leader
I analyze how people interact with systems and translate those insights into product strategy, user research, and clear communication.
I'm a strategic communicator and systems thinker who's always been interested in how people understand things — especially when those things are complex, unclear, or just not designed with them in mind.
Currently, I'm an Operations Area Manager at Amazon, where I lead fulfillment operations for a team of 60-100 people. I manage the systems, the metrics, the processes — but more than anything, I manage the people navigating all of it in real time.
Before that, I spent 4.5 years at Canon Business Process Services managing operations, client relationships, and the kind of quiet, unglamorous work that keeps organizations running.
I'm also finishing my Master's in Professional Communication at the University of San Francisco, with a concentration in Technical Communication. I graduated from Towson University with my Bachelor's of Science in Mass Communications, specializing in Public Relations.
A DMV native with a wanderlust spirit, I moved across the country in Fall 2023 to the Bay Area and have since made it my home. I've lived in Maryland, Virginia, and California — and I'm open to wherever the next chapter takes me.
My Story
How I Got Here
I've been a communicator longer than I've had the language to call myself one.
One of the highlights of my childhood was the day my grandmother got me my first library card. I wasn't even ten yet, but I remember the weight of it — this small thing that meant I could disappear into any world I wanted, whenever I wanted. Books were my first obsession. I read everything. I read things I probably shouldn't have understood yet. My favorite book at one point was Crime & Punishment — not because I was trying to be impressive, but because I was genuinely fascinated by how a story could make you sit inside someone else's logic, even when that logic was falling apart.
After I turned eleven, I realized it wasn't just reading I loved — it was writing. I kept rewriting the endings of stories I thought deserved better ones. I'd change the arcs, fix the dialogue, give characters the closure the author refused to give them. By senior year of high school, my classmates voted me "Most Likely to Write a Book." They saw something I was still figuring out how to name.
That love of language, storytelling, and making things make sense is what led me to Mass Communications at Towson, then to a Public Relations specialization, then to a Master's in Professional Communication with a focus in Technical Communication. The thread was always there — I just didn't know what industry it would land in.
It landed in operations. Not because operations was the dream, but because Amazon offered stability when the PR industry was offering $38K in cities where rent was $2,000. I took the job that let me live. And then something unexpected happened — I got good at it. I found that managing 100 people in a high-pressure environment taught me more about communication than any classroom ever could. When your team is 100 people and the process doesn't make sense to them, you find out fast. When the instructions weren't written for the person reading them, you see the failure in real time. That's where my interest in communication systems sharpened — not in a classroom, but on a warehouse floor at 4 AM watching someone struggle with a document that was never designed with them in mind.
My graduate work gave me the language and the frameworks to study what I'd already been observing. I learned to analyze instructional systems, build communication strategies grounded in research, and approach content with the question I'd been asking since I was eleven years old rewriting someone else's story: does this actually make sense for the person on the receiving end?
(Left: The Towson University Head of Mass Communications Department presenting my award for Senior Night event; Right; All the attendees, including myself, who were awarded MCOM scholarships/awards.)
What I think about...
My work lives at the intersection of operations, communication, and people.
I think about:
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How organizations talk to their own employees — and whether anyone's actually listening
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How systems are built versus how people actually use them
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Why some messages land and others get ignored
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What happens when you design communication for people instead of at them
I tend to connect ideas across disciplines in ways people don't always expect. I've linked technical communication theory to biblical texts. I've applied user research principles to warehouse training materials. I've used PR strategy to build employee engagement programming. The throughline is always the same: I want to understand how things work, why they don't, and how they can be better.
(Left: One of my employees for 'Dress Like Your Manager' day; Right: Womens' History Month handout participants)
I am a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (Spring 2023) and was originally initiated into the Lambda Beta Chapter at Towson University.
I serve as the chapter president for Amazon's Black Employee Network at my site. I've been a dancer, an event producer, a PRSSA chapter president, a mentor, and — on more than one occasion — the person in the room who asks the question everyone else was thinking.
I believe in showing up fully, connecting genuinely, and doing work that matters to the people it's supposed to serve.