Need to Know

David Yakobovitch is the Global Product Lead at Google. Our host, Luis Martinez-Moure, had a conversation with David about his experience operating and investing at the same time. David spent the last decade working at early and late stage startups, and is currently a General Partner at Data Power Ventures. At the same time, David continues to work on internal products for users at Google which utilizes the largest suite of internal tooling in the world. The Commons brings together the power of continuous learning, mentorship and community to help top talent develop hyper-specific skills and powerful networks to be successful on-the-job. Learn more and level up with us ⁠here⁠

Dave Perry is the author of Game of Sales, a #1 Best Selling Book on Amazon, designed to help you navigate career transitions and a life in sales and business development. He sat down with our host, Luis Martinez-Moure, to talk about his behind-the-scenes experience at Adobe, Amazon, Google, and IBM. Dave shares insights on what it takes to build a career in business development, including tools, strategies, and techniques required for successful and scalable growth in tech. The Commons brings together the power of continuous learning, mentorship and community to help top talent develop hyper-specific skills and powerful networks to be successful on-the-job. Learn more and level up with us here

Matt Hammel sits down with our host, Luis Martinez-Moure, to talk about his journey as a Co-Founder of Airops. AirOps makes technical work easier for less or non-technical people using AI. We talk about Matt's experience pivoting from consulting to tech, scaling a BizOps team from Series A through Series C, and the many challenges (and successes) experienced along the way. The Commons brings together the power of continuous learning, mentorship and community to help top talent develop hyper-specific skills and powerful networks to be successful on-the-job. Learn more and level up with us ⁠here⁠

Rajat Sharma sits down with our host, Luis Martinez-Moure, to talk about Rajat's journey as the Founder of Ingreendients. Ingreendients is an anti-greenwashing brand that detoxes personal care routines from head to toe by pioneering high-performing beauty products made from 100% plants. Rajat talks about the impacts of COVID on supply chains, testing for product-market fit, and how they took an unconventional approach (slowing sales velocity) in the early days of their CPG net-carbon neutral company.

Join host & mentor Luis as he sits down with Rachel Nazhand - VP of Business Operations at Zelis, a platform bridging the gaps of financial systems in the healthcare space. As a tenured operator, Rachel shares her take on handling failure, and gives candid advice on the importance of experimentation, identifying your areas of impact through passion and more! There's so much to unpack here. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Join Luis as he sits down with an old friend Sid Agarwal, CFO at Incredible Health - a platform connecting health care professionals to hospitals. Together Sid and Luis explore the challenges and complexities of marketplaces and what characteristics and approaches make for great functional leaders. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Join us for a special edition of Need to Know where we meet with a panel of incredible Mentors here at the Commons (fka as Skillful): Max, GM at DoorDash for Dashpass, Himani Sr. Manager of Crypto Operations at Wealthsimple and Brody, VP of Operations at Flashfood. Together, our mentors explore a handful of topics - from better understanding your passions, and translating them into the work you do and the roles that you are seeking to how to stand out to a hiring manager during an interview. This isn't an episode to be missed. We can't wait for you to meet three awesome voices of our community.

Join Luis as he sits down with Dasha Sivkov, VP of Product Marketing at WealthSimple, Canada's fintech unicorn. Dasha brings us into her day-to-day in Product Marketing and shares takeaways and stories from her career journey. We hope you enjoy the episode!

Kris sits down with Salmaa Elshanshory, VP of Market Expansion at Medly, a full-service, digital pharmacy that offers free same-day prescription delivery for all types of medications. Salmaa shares how she broke into tech from a background in public policy, why the best companies celebrate failure and how she thinks about career opportunities.

Join Kris as he sits down with Gary Yang, Head of Product & Operations at Placeholder, an online marketplace that connects those with unused space with fast-growing companies. Gary candidly shares his insights on BizOps and Product, what it takes to succeed in the ever growing world of start-ups and his journey from management consulting into tech.

Kris chats with Sheldon McCormick, Co-Founder and COO at Properly - a company helping its users to buy and sell their homes and reshaping the real estate industry. Sheldon shares how and why he decided to step away from consulting, and what later led him to co-found a project of his own. He candidly shares what he feels prepared him to be a founder, how he perceives risk and the intricacies of building a company and team. There's lots to unpack here - don't miss this one!

Kris chats with Camila Gargantini, a Senior Product Operations Manager at Oyster. Camila talks about the growing importance of the Product Ops function, how and why she broke into the world of tech and shares tactics for success as a Product Manager. This episode doesn't end here. Camila is also a prolific writer - we strongly recommend you give her a follow and check out what she has to say here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camila-gargantini/.

Kris chats with Sasha Pang, Product Manager at Facebook. Sasha dives right in with us and shares what it takes to lead with empathy and the lasting impact that can have in the cross-functional world of product. Hang on until the very end of this episode - Sasha also shares her unique experience and perspectives on what it takes to transition to a new role. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Kris chats with Hadar Dor, Product Lead at Shopfiy. Hadar shares his insights on how to build your career as a generalist (or not) and narrowing in on the right role for you. We also dive into Hadar's perspectives on what it means to influence without authority, and the importance of this skill inside and outside of the product world. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Luis chats with Sri Batchu, Head of Growth at Instacart - the online grocery delivery service we've all come to know and love (especially) over the past year. Sri shares the challenges he has faced throughout career transitions, how he jumped into a remote leadership role at the height of the pandemic and how he continues to foster and grow his network. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Join Kris as he chats with Pete Huang, currently leading BizOps at WorkOS - A San Francisco based startup that is building Stripe for enterprise ready features. Pete and Kris dive into multiple topics together - from the importance of the role of sales at startups, all the way to how Pete has decided which startups to jump into. This is a recording from a Skillful Fireside Chat where our community came together to connect and listen to Pete's story. https://www.joinskillful.com/join-waitlist sign-ups just opened up for our Fall cohort!

Join Luis as he chats with Marcus Bertilson, VP of go-to-market at Thumbtack - an online platform that matches customers with the best local professionals. Thumbtack is backed by investors like the Qatar Investment Authority, Blackstone, Sequoia Capital and CapitalG, and is currently valued at $3.2 billion. Listen to Marcus give advice on how to find the right metric(s) for success, the benefits of cross-functional teams and what that means for operators working in tech today!

Join Luis as he speaks with Ahmad Bani - COO at Wisp, a telehealth company focused on providing accessible and affordable primary care prescription medication and natural remedies to its customers. Ahmad shares with us how he keeps calm when facing storms at work and the importance of being a generalist that can strike a balance by thriving in chaos while also building (some) structure.

Andre Charoo, founder and GP at Maple VC, a San Francisco based seed stage fund, talks candidly about his journey that led him into venture capital. We find out how Andre realized he didn't want to be a founder, and how that led him to jump into the start-up world as the 25th hire at Uber and later the 15th employee at Hired. Join our host Luis, as Andre shares with us what it really means to know and play to your strengths and build a strong network, no matter where you find yourself.

Christian Keil, an internet lover turned operator, shares some intimate insights into his own journey of becoming the ultimate generalist. Currently he is the Chief of staff at Astranis, a company reinventing internet satellites by making them at a fraction of the size and cost. Join our host Kris, as Christian shares with us how he became an "almost" entrepreneur at the age of 14, to what made him walk away from his own project as a founder and how he broke into the San Francisco world of start-ups and tech!

After deciding corporate law wasn't for him, Thomas Hamilton forged his own path into the world of start-ups. He co-founded and is now COO at Automate Medical, a tech company that builds open-source developer tools to help bridge the many gaps they see in the medical software market. Join our host Kris, as Thomas shares with us his key learnings and insights from across the board, touching on his experience in making a major career transition as well as what it takes to be an operator at a fast-paced tech start-up!