Podcasts about product leadership

What does it take to go from practicing law to becoming the Chief Product Officer of a company disrupting the legal industry with AI? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, LegalOn Technologies CPO Vanessa Davis will be speaking on how she made the leap from attorney to product leader, and why putting the customer first drives every major decision she makes. She also gets into how LegalOn navigated a major stack overhaul to move fully to LLMs, what the entrance of tools like Claude into legal tech means for the industry, and why DAU over MAU is her north star metric.

Imagine redesigning your most important processes from a blank sheet of paper, with no legacy systems to hold you back. Alpa Lally, Chief Product Officer at Grant Thornton, shares how the company is transforming into a frontier firm by reimagining core processes instead of automating them. She unpacks how embedded analytics reshapes client conversations, why AI governance is what helps you move faster, and how to reinvent your career in the age of AI. Key Moments: From Structural Engineering to Product Leadership (01:36): Alpa explains how designing buildings taught her the vision, strategy, and foundation-up thinking she now applies to product. Becoming a Frontier Firm (06:27): Rethinking how work gets done for 13,000-plus professionals means recognizing that automating a broken process just does the wrong thing faster. Embedding ThoughtSpot Analytics (14:57): By putting insights in auditors' hands on day one, Grant Thornton shifts client conversations from data gathering to strategy. The AI Proof Gap: Governance Enables Speed (19:32): Alpa reframes governance as what lets you move faster, sharing that 78% of firms doubt they'd pass an AI governance audit. Is Product Management Dead? (24:33): The role is evolving, not dying, and AI raises the value of deciding which opportunities are actually worth pursuing. Key Quotes: “A frontier firm uses AI not just to improve how work gets done, but fundamentally rethinks how the work gets done. It's moving beyond productivity gains and creating entirely new ways to deliver value.” - Alpa Lally “The challenge is if you simply automate a broken process, you end up doing the wrong thing faster.” - Alpa Lally “What ThoughtSpot has done is [give us] our ability to embed them immediately into the flow [which] has opened up a whole level of different insights that we can offer, not to our practitioners only, but imagine an auditor showing up on day one to your client and having these insights already calculated, already delivered.” - Alpa Lally Mentions Grant Thornton's 2026 AI Impact Survey Report Wall Street is debating the AI buildout. Enterprises just answered: More than 80% say their GPUs run at half capacity or less Hers for the Taking by Tracey Newell Guest Bio Alpa Lally is the Chief Product Officer at Grant Thornton. Alpa is an experienced product management executive with several years in designing, developing, and launching consumer and business products for large to mid-sized to small organizations, fintechs, startups, and Fortune 500. She has led global cross-functional teams to drive high growth targets while staying laser-focused on solving customer and consumer problems. Alpa leverages data and analytics to drive successful business outcomes that deliver results and achieve corporate growth goals. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She's currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She's worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury's. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group's Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He's the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager's Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon's music stores in the US & UK.

What does it mean to build products that truly work for everyone — including the people most systems were never designed to include? Debbie Hsu, EVP of Product at Experian Consumer Services, joins Toni for a conversation that spans the full arc of her career — from software engineer at Oracle to leading product at one of the world's most significant consumer financial data companies — and gets into some of the most important questions facing product leaders today. Debbie leads the evolution of EVA, Experian's AI-powered virtual assistant, and brings a consumer-first lens to everything she builds. In this episode she shares how AI is changing team structures and role boundaries in product, why over-reliance on AI risks making every product look and sound the same, and what the socioeconomic stakes of AI access mean for product leaders who care about inclusion. She also shares three pieces of advice that I see as foundational to leading: Being humble is not the same as being invisible. Self-advocacy is not the same as bragging. And never let an official meeting be the first time people hear about your idea. What we cover: ⏹ The unplanned path from software engineer to EVP of Product — and what learning by doing really looks like ⏹ Why Debbie went back to business school to pivot into product management — and what actually landed her the job ⏹ How product leadership has evolved over 20 years: from Flash-based seat maps to AI-powered financial assistants ⏹ T-shaped builders and the blurring of roles in the AI era — what this means for product teams right now ⏹ The AI homogeneity risk: why over-reliance on AI makes products look and sound the same — and what differentiates the ones that don't ⏹ EVA: how Experian's AI assistant uses trusted credit data, expert compliance, and lender eligibility to go beyond generic AI responses ⏹ AI access as a socioeconomic equity issue — and why product leaders need to be part of this conversation ⏹ Financial inclusion and credit invisibility: what it means to build products for people the system overlooked ⏹ Being humble is not the same as being invisible ⏹ Self-advocacy is not bragging — and why visibility for meaningful work is a leadership skill ⏹ Never let an official meeting be the first time people hear your idea ⏹ Diverse voices in product: why every product leader has a responsibility to build inclusively Useful Links Connect with today's guest and sponsor, Debbie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-hsu/ and find out more about Experian at https://www.experian.com. This episode was sponsored by our guest, Debbie Hsu. Thank you Debbie & Experian for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

Laura has been looking forward to this one for a while. On this episode of That Tech Pod, we sit down with Justin Silverman, the Chief Operating Officer of Legal Solutions at Mitratech, to talk about what it really takes to build and scale enterprise software in the age of AI.Justin has led product organizations across legal technology, insurance technology, and enterprise SaaS, giving him a unique perspective on how different industries adopt technology, where product strategy succeeds or fails, and why organizational leadership becomes just as important as product innovation as companies grow. We discuss the surprising similarities and differences between building software for lawyers versus insurance professionals, the balance between product decisions and people decisions, and what changes when you're responsible for one of the largest legal software portfolios in the industry.The conversation also takes a practical look at AI beyond the marketing headlines. Justin shares how Mitratech is approaching AI both inside the business and for customers, where employees are still hesitant to embrace AI in their daily work, and whether AI has actually made product management easier or simply raised expectations for everyone involved. We also explore why legal spending continues to rise despite decades of technology-driven efficiency gains and the costly mistakes software companies make when chasing growth instead of solving real customer problems. If you're interested in product leadership, AI adoption, legal technology, or simply how large software organizations make strategic decisions, this episode offers an inside look from someone helping shape the future of enterprise legal software.Justin Silverman is Chief Operating Officer of Legal Solutions at Mitratech, leading Product Management, Engineering, and Operations across the Legal Solutions division, with responsibility for bringing AI-powered solutions to customers and driving AI adoption across Mitratech's own operations. In March 2021, he joined Mitratech from Vertafore, a software provider in the insurance industry, where he led product management for their insurance agency management system business. Prior to Vertafore, he was VP of Product Management and General Manager of LexisNexis CounselLink, an e-billing and matter management solution. Justin's experience spans growing B2B software businesses, solving complex customer problems, and driving performance across large, cross-functional teams. 

What happens when the pace of AI makes even the most recent college graduate's knowledge obsolete within six months? In this episode of the CPO Rising series, hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Salesforce EVP and GM of Agentforce Service Kishan Chetan speaks on what it really takes to drive AI adoption at scale, why adoption is fundamentally a social phenomenon, and how he thinks about product success through one simple lens: do customers buy it, use it, and love it? Leading a product line approaching $10 billion in revenue, Kishan brings a grounded, practical perspective on what the best product leaders are doing right now to stay ahead of a world that will not slow down for anyone.

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What if the strategy you just shipped is already obsolete? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Digitalzone CPO Sonjoy Ganguly, Syntheseed CPO Sam Somashekar speaks on what it means to lead product in an era where the pace of change has outrun the annual planning cycle, AI is generating strategies that all sound the same, and the pressure to experiment is pulling leaders further from the strategic thinking they were hired to do. Sam and Sanjay explore why the human element is more important than ever, how shared KPIs across functions unlock real alignment, and what product leaders need to stop doing right now.

Als Product Owner existieren viele Erwartungen an dich gleichzeitig: Stakeholder wollen schnelle Entscheidungen, das Team braucht Klarheit, das Product Backlog wächst weiter und im Kopf läuft die Arbeit oft noch lange nach Feierabend mit. In dieser Folge sprechen Oliver und Dominique darüber, wie Product Owner in genau diesem Alltag entspannt(er) bleiben können, ohne Verantwortung wegzuschieben oder Wichtiges zu ignorieren. Es geht um Fokus, Klarheit und mentale Stärke im Produktalltag. Oliver und Dominique teilen eigene Erfahrungen aus ihrer Zeit in der Product Owner-Verantwortung und sprechen darüber, warum Stress oft dann entsteht, wenn wir alles selbst lösen wollen, Dringlichkeit ungefiltert übernehmen oder den eigenen Fokus aus den Augen verlieren. Dabei wird es sehr praktisch: vom Morgenritual über Tages- und Wochenfokus bis hin zum bewussten Umgang mit einem vollen Product Backlog. Die beiden sprechen über Bullet Journals, Aufgabenlisten, Pausen, Spaziergänge, Meditation, Reviews am Tagesende und die Frage, wie Product Owner äußeren Druck besser einordnen können. Eine zentrale Idee der Folge: Entspannt bleiben heißt nicht, weniger verantwortlich zu sein. Es bedeutet, klarer zu erkennen, welche Verantwortung wirklich bei dir liegt, welche Aufgaben andere besser übernehmen können und welche Dringlichkeit tatsächlich berechtigt ist.

What if the biggest bottleneck in your product organization is no longer engineering capacity or even go to market speed, but change management? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Treasure AI CPO Rafa Flores speaks on how the role of product leadership has fundamentally changed, why the "ship perfect" mindset is now a liability, and what it actually looks like to build an AI native product culture that keeps human judgment at the center. From his journey immigrating from Honduras to leading product at a global agentic AI platform, Rafa brings a rare combination of personal conviction and technical fluency to one of the most honest conversations we have had about what great product leadership looks like right now.

Is your organization losing 7% of its annual revenue to complexity? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Freshworks Chief Product Officer Srini Raghavan will be speaking on how AI-native tools are transforming IT and customer service operations, and what it really takes to scale AI responsibly in the enterprise. Drawing on his experience leading product at Freshworks, RingCentral, and Five9, Srini shares the frameworks, real customer stories, and mindset shifts that separate product leaders who scale from those who stall.

Understand how to close the gap between AI experimentation and enterprise production. Shub Agarwal, Founder of the AI Trust Lab at USC and author of Successful AI Product Creation: A Nine-Step Framework, shares his AI product management framework for taking enterprise AI strategy from demo to production, drawing on two decades of product leadership at Amazon and Fortune 50 firms. He breaks down why experimentation must tie directly to business OKRs, the four mindset shifts leaders need to scale AI responsibly, and how the AI Trust Lab is building a benchmark evaluation framework for AI model trust and governance. Key Moments: Why 80% of AI Projects Never Reach Production (02:13): Shub traces the root cause of stalled AI programs to a missing system for moving from demo to deployment. Most teams have no repeatable path to production. Shub's Nine-Step Framework for Building AI Products (06:00): Most AI projects start with a cool model instead of a painful problem. Shub walks through the three phases of his framework: discovery, execution, and excellence. The Case Against "Fix Your Data First" (12:41): Conventional wisdom says clean your data before building AI. Shub challenges that, arguing modern LLMs offer far more flexibility with imperfect data. Four Mindset Shifts for Scaling Enterprise AI (16:35): Shub outlines the four shifts separating organizations that scale AI from those that stall, from measuring AI performance differently to embedding trust from day one. Inside Shub's AI Trust Lab at USC (23:54): Major foundation models are already being benchmarked on trust and safety. Shub explains the lab's mission to build a standardized evaluation framework for AI model governance. Why Enterprise AI Governance Needs Multiple Disciplines (28:36): AI models can be sycophantic, manipulative, or lack candor. Shub argues that building trustworthy AI demands an interdisciplinary approach. Key Quotes: “I think the fundamental problem that organizations are facing today… is not that they have a lack of experimentation in the demo aspect. The challenge is they don't know how to take those demos to production, and that is where I saw the gap.” - Shub Agarwal “I do think data is the fuel for AI… But I think today organizations are crippled by this ‘fix your data, and then we'll build AI', and they never build AI. They never build use cases that are adding value.” - Shub Agarwal “There's no FICO scores for models, so I decided to create one. I built this lab… bringing the computer scientists, the researchers, the applied AI researchers, the policy, and the communication people together to think of what is trust, define it, and ultimately measure and evaluate it.” - Shub Agarwal Mentions USC AI Trust Hub Successful AI Product Creation: A Nine-Step Framework by Shub Agarwal Four Steps to Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank Masters of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman Guest Bios  Shub Agarwal is an associate professor of professional practice at the University of Southern California, an industry executive, and an advisor to start-ups and academic institutions. He holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MS from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is the author of two books: Solve Catch-22 of Product Management and Successful AI Product Creation: A 9-Step Framework. He has made significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, holding several U.S. and global patents for his work, and is also a published author of several technical research papers. With around two decades of extensive experience in product management and leadership, his journey has been marked by a relentless pursuit of leveraging AI technologies to create impactful products that redefine industry standards. His industry experience includes leadership roles at Amazon, Silicon Valley start-ups, and other Fortune 50 firms. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

On this episode, I speak to the returning Petra Wille, product leadership coach, author of Strong Product People, and founder of the Product at Heart conference. Petra has spent years helping product leaders and organisations develop stronger product cultures, leadership practices, and team structures across a wide range of industries. We went deep into product leadership, especially in an age of AI where we're all being told to be builders again, and how her Product Leadership Wheel helps product leaders up their game. Episode highlights Leadership is a distinct discipline - Strong individual contributors do not automatically become strong leaders, and leadership requires deliberate development rather than promotion by default. Product leaders need directional clarity - One of the core responsibilities of leadership is helping teams understand where the organisation is going, why it matters, and how everyday decisions connect to broader strategy. Coaching is an underused leadership skill - Petra argues that many leaders underestimate the importance of coaching capabilities and fail to invest enough time in helping teams grow and improve. Culture is often invisible inside organisations - Teams frequently struggle to articulate their company culture because they are immersed in it every day, making reflection and intentional leadership even more important. AI is changing the demands placed on leaders - Product leaders are being forced to rethink team structures, workflows, decision-making, and product experiences as AI reshapes how organisations operate. Efficiency gains can create new problems - Faster delivery is not automatically better. Petra warns that organisations risk creating more technical debt, burnout, and shallow thinking if speed becomes the only goal. Leadership requires optimistic narratives - In periods of uncertainty, leaders play a critical role in creating credible and motivating visions of the future for their teams and organisations. Feedback gaps exist between leaders and teams - Many product leaders believe they are performing well, while individual contributors often see significant shortcomings, partly because organisations lack shared frameworks for discussing leadership quality. Reflection matters more than benchmarking - Petra emphasises that leadership frameworks should help people identify growth areas and learning opportunities rather than turn development into rigid performance comparisons. Leaders should focus on the "shipyard" - Rather than constantly jumping into delivery work, product leaders should concentrate on improving the systems, structures, and environments that enable teams to succeed. ... and much more. Contact Petra Website: https://www.petra-wille.com Product at Heart: https://www.productatheart.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petra-wille-b8b1329/

Superhuman Mail users respond to 72% more emails per hour and save an average of four hours every week — numbers backed by a case study from one of the Big Three strategy consulting firms. Rahul Vohra, CEO at Superhuman Mail, built the world's fastest email engine over three years without launching, held the line until the product was ready, and then productized product-market fit into a repeatable, measurable science. Following Superhuman's acquisition by Grammarly in 2025, Rahul is now steering the company toward a unified AI-native productivity suite spanning email, calendar, tasks, and agents.What you'll learn:The 5-step PMF Engine: how to survey, segment, analyze, implement, and track your way to product-market fit with a numerical scoreWhy you should ignore the not disappointed and most somewhat disappointed users — and which signals actually tell you who to build forHow to use the High Expectation Customer (HXC) framework to narrow your market without changing your productWhy PMF is a moving target and how to defend it against commoditization and copy-cat competitionHow Rahul operates as the editor of the product — using 20 verbatim quotes to push PMs and designers to sharper decisionsKey takeaways:If more than 40% of your users would be very disappointed without your product, you have an initial PMF — and you can measure your way thereChanging your market is faster than changing your product — segmentation alone can jump your PMF score 10 points overnightBuilding for your highest-expectation customer is not the same as building for your ICP — confuse the two, and you'll optimize for the wrong signalCredits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Rahul VohraSocial Links:Find out more about Product School hereFollow our Podcast on TikTok hereFollow Product School on LinkedIn here

GoFundMe has facilitated over $40 billion in help since 2010, powering a community of more than 200 million people across 20 countries. Arnie Katz is the Chief Product and Technology Officer there — and a three-time CPTO, having previously led product and engineering at StubHub and TheRealReal. In this episode, he brings the rare perspective of someone who has built and scaled marketplaces at every stage, across multiple industries.What you'll learn:The three failure modes every marketplace must solve — cold start, imbalance failure, and false positive growth — and how to fix each oneHow GoFundMe is using AI agents to reduce friction for fundraisers, resulting in an expected $125 million in additional funds raisedWhy AI is driving revenue growth at GoFundMe, not just developer productivity — and how they sequenced that deliberatelyThe real trade-offs of the CPTO model: what you gain in speed, and what you have to mitigate through hiringHow GoFundMe is building demand-side and matching mechanisms to grow donation volume beyond viral sharingKey takeaways:Marketplace liquidity isn't just about having enough supply — it's about designing the right matching and demand mechanisms at every stage of scaleAI unlocks revenue opportunities that were previously uneconomical to pursue, especially when the customer is already in a vulnerable, high-friction stateThe CPTO structure enables faster decision-making, but requires consciously strong functional leaders underneath to offset the natural lean toward one sideCredits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Arnie KatzSocial Links:Find out more about Product School hereFollow our Podcast on TikTok hereFollow Product School on LinkedIn here

What does it mean to be a true product rebel in the age of AI? Heather Samarin and Vidya Dinamani sit down with Raviv Levi, former Chief Product & Technology Officer at Sift, as they unpack how product leaders can stay focused on what really matters—amid constant noise, data overload, and accelerating change. From building alignment across competing teams to rethinking experimentation in an AI-first world, this conversation explores how faster prototyping, sharper problem focus, and stronger conviction are redefining product leadership.

Robinhood posted $4.5 billion in revenue in 2025, up 52% year-over-year, while growing its Gold subscriber base 58% to 4.2 million paid members. Abhishek Fatehpuria, VP of Product at Robinhood, joined the platform as an intern in 2016 and has built the brokerage business from a single-product equities app into a multi-product financial platform. This episode is a detailed look at how Robinhood structures product thinking at scale — without sacrificing the UX moat that made it win in the first place.What you'll learn:How Robinhood uses two leading indicators, net deposits and Gold subscriptions, to measure long-term customer commitment before revenue shows upWhy treating legal and compliance partners as product owners, not blockers, is the unlock for shipping fast in a regulated marketThe "barbell strategy" for UX: design for the newest user and the most advanced user simultaneously, and let the middle take care of itselfHow the early-stage ideation sprint has compressed from 4–5 weeks to 2–3 days with AI toolsWhy Robinhood Social is built on verified identity and real trades — and what that unlocks for the future of retail investor relationsKey takeaways:Paid subscriptions aren't just a revenue line — they're the connective tissue that drives multi-product adoption across a platformPride is a scalable quality standard: when teams enforce it themselves, quality and speed stop being in conflictAI embedded into workflows moves faster than AI bolted on as a standalone featureCredits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Abhishek FatehpuriaSocial Links:Find out more about Product School hereFollow our Podcast on TikTok hereFollow Product School on LinkedIn here

Las ofertas laborales de Product Engineer crecieron 53.6% en 2026. PostHog ($1.4B), Vercel ($9.3B) y Figma ($20B) ya dejaron de contratar developers tradicionales: lo que buscan son Product Engineers — o como Figma los llama, Product Builders. En este episodio, Oz y Tito Neira recorren qué es realmente un Product Engineer, por qué este perfil está unificando los roles de producto, diseño e ingeniería, y cómo la IA se volvió el acelerador imposible de ignorar.00:00 Intro y bienvenida00:43 ¿Qué es un Product Engineer?02:10 De ticket a producción sin ceremonias04:49 El problema de las dependencias en equipos06:30 ¿Puede un Product Owner ser Product Engineer?08:13 "Si tu trabajo no termina en Git, no existe"11:33 Dos tipos de developers14:40 Estadísticas del mercado laboral18:11 Empresas que lo hacen bien: PostHog, Vercel, Figma20:30 El developer que vive en la terminal23:26 Características del Product Engineer ideal27:05 Cuando la IA prioriza mejor que un humano29:41 ¿Es viable sin IA? La respuesta es no32:20 Recomendaciones para developers35:54 Superpoderes para el arquitecto de software39:09 Consejos para empresas42:24 Datos clave y reflexión final✩ CURSOS DISPONIBLES

What does it take to grow into product leadership in the age of AI, and help shape how product managers work in the future? This episode explores exactly that.We sit down with Dominik Ilichman, Senior Product Manager at Productboard, for an honest and inspiring conversation about career growth, AI-first product development, and the evolving partnership between product, design, and engineering.With a background in law, experience at Meta, and now a key role in shaping Productboard Spark, Dominik shares his unique journey into product management and what he's learning while building in one of the fastest-changing areas of tech.In this episode, you'll hear:How Dominik went from law to product managementHow AI tools like Spark, Cursor, and Claude Code are changing the way he worksWhy great product specs matter more than ever in the age of AIHow Productboard's triad model helps product, design, and engineering build better togetherWhat he looks for in today's product-minded engineersWhy continuous AI experimentation is essential for anyone in techWhether you're a product manager, engineer, or someone curious about building AI-powered products, this episode offers a thoughtful look at what the future of product work can look like.Interested in joining our team? We're hiring across multiple departments. Check out our careers page for the latest vacancies. We'd love to hear from you!

Businesses killed QA with bad org design, but with AI, is there potential for a near-term QA boom?Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as we discuss the systematic elimination of QA roles over the past decade and discuss why that decision is now backfiring.That's right, with AI-generated code accelerating at breakneck speed and nobody to properly check or test it, Brian and Om argue that we might be heading toward a cliff of technical debt that will make skilled QA professionals more valuable than ever.We discuss this potential future in five acts:1. The Expensive Lie: Let's Dev Do the QA (until we lay them off as well)2. The Coming QA Boom3. When and Will Businesses Move Software Risk Upstream4. Why Dev Didn't and AI Won't Replace QA5. The Case for Human-In-The-LoopWhether you're a QA professional worried about your career, a product manager who inherited testing responsibilities, or a leader considering QA cuts - this episode provides data-backed arguments for why the QA field may be on the verge of its biggest resurgence yet.#QualityAssurance #AI #AgileLeadershipStack Overflow Developer Survey 2023, Practitest State of Testing Report 2024, World Quality Report 2025 by Capgemini and Micro Focus, GitLab DevSecOps Report 2024, Google Code Review Quality Study 2023, McKinsey Technology Report 2025 (State of AI in 2025), Theo (t3.gg) video on the future of developer roles, Software Quality and Beer podcast by Bob Cruz and Matt Kubal (Checkpoint Technologies), Cooper Bench (AI coding benchmark study), W. Edwards Deming (quality management principles), Toyota Production System (quality ownership model), Eliyahu Goldratt (Theory of Constraints / systems feedback loops), Brook's Law, Melissa Perri, Playwright (test automation framework), Claude Code (Anthropic)LINKSYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596INTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, CEO at Product School, interviews Vanessa Lee, Vice President of Product at Shopify, the engine of global commerce powering over $1.1 trillion in sales. As the most senior product leader at Shopify reporting directly to the CEO, Vanessa oversees the product strategy for a platform with a $165B+ market cap and recent 30% year-over-year revenue growth. A two-time YC founder, Vanessa brings a builder's mindset to leadership, emphasizing the need for technical fluency and courage as a service when making high-stakes decisions.What you'll learn:AI-Native Playbook: How Shopify transitioned from traditional SaaS to agent-led commerce.Internal AI Evals: How to use LLM-based judges to grade and ensure product quality.Technical Product Leadership: Why staying involved in API details and technical cohesion is critical for senior roles.The Versioning Framework: The strategy Vanessa used to successfully push back and convince her CEO to version Shopify's API.Key Takeaways:Beyond the PRD: Shifting focus from rigid specs to training AI models for non-deterministic outcomes.Courage as a Service: How to leverage deep domain expertise to find your screw it moment and drive organizational change.The Founder Mindset: Maintaining autonomy and an experimental spirit within a 10,000-person global organization.Credits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Vanessa LeeSocial Links:Find out more about Product School hereFollow our Podcast on TikTok hereFollow Product School on LinkedIn here

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, CEO at Product School, sits down with Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google Search. Google Search serves billions of users and holds over 90% of the global market share, acting as the engine behind Alphabet's $400 billion in annual revenue.Robby is steering the most significant shift in Search history: the transition to AI. He oversees a massive portfolio, including the new AI Mode, which has already scaled to 75 million daily active users. Drawing from his time building Stories and Reels at Instagram, Robby breaks down how to build zero-to-one products inside a tech giant and why you need high conviction to push through early bad data.What you'll learn:Building Like a Startup: How to maintain crazy speed and focus on zero-to-one initiatives while protecting a massive core business.True Product-Market Fit: Why flat or J-curve retention in early cohorts is the only reliable indicator that a product is actually working.The Value of Colossal Disasters: The untold story of how early failures with Instagram Reels and Close Friends were necessary steps to global success.Agentic Search: How Google is moving beyond providing links to executing complex, multi-step tasks by deeply understanding personal context.Key takeaways:Start Small to Win Big: Even at Google's scale, massive AI products begin with just 500 trusted testers and a focus on solving specific user complaints.Look for the Golf Shot: When building AI, look for that rare moment when the whole system works perfectly to build the conviction needed to keep iterating.Leaders Must Co-Create: To move fast in a large org, leaders shouldn't just approve from the top; they need to form working groups and operate in the details.Credits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Robby SteinSocial Links: Follow our Podcast on Tik Tok here Follow Product School on LinkedIn here Join Product School's free events here Find out more about Product School here

In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Scott Bening, CEO of MBS2 Advisors. Scott shares his path from chemist to business leader, the innovation and scaling lessons behind Tide Pods, and how he now helps entrepreneurs and executives navigate leadership, growth, and transition. Follow Adam on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/askadamtorres/ for up to date information on book releases and tour schedule. Apply to be a guest on our podcast: https://missionmatters.lpages.co/podcastguest/ Visit our website: https://missionmatters.com/ More FREE content from Mission Matters here: https://linktr.ee/missionmattersmed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

100% of product professionals are using AI. Zero percent said they don't use it at all. Let that sink in—then consider this: more than a third have absolutely no governance in place. ProductBoard partnered with User Evidence to survey 379 product professionals across healthcare, finance, SaaS, and more. The findings reveal a massive gap between AI adoption and AI strategy. In this episode, Ross Webb sits down with Jaselin Drown, Content Marketing Manager at ProductBoard, to unpack what the data actually means for product teams—and why Product Ops professionals have a huge opportunity right now. Key findings discussed: → 96% of product teams use AI consistently → 94% of individuals use it daily or often → 89% use at least two AI models → Only 40% measure ROI in actual business metrics → When Product Ops owns tooling decisions, 69% have documented AI policies If you're in Product Ops or Product Leadership, this is required listening. Download the full report: [https://bit.ly/4jC4eLN] Guest: Jaselin Drown, Content Marketing Manager at ProductBoard Host: Ross Webb, Product Team Success Connect with Ross: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosswebb/

Legacy systems work. So why do companies waste millions rewriting them? In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Nisha Patel joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel for a debate on the dangerous obsession with rewriting legacy systems — from COBOL to green screens — that still power ATMs, government systems, and Fortune 500 billing engines. Watch or listen as we discuss the myth that "modern" equals "better" and reveal how most rewrites fail because they ignore customer value, edge cases, and real ROI as well as other topics, such as:How Chesterton's Fence applies to code (Brian still doesn't know)How Developers kill software with Resume-Driven Development (RDD)How Finance kills software with spreadsheet-driven development (SDD)Why chasing "parity" kills innovationRisk Mitigation, or, framing technical debt in business termsIf you've ever worked on or tried to replace legacy systems, this episode will either give you nightmares, or help how you approach legacy systems while helping you also stop burning budget on vanity projects.#LegacyCode #ProductManagement #AgileCoachingREFERENCESAA148 - An Introduction to Software Development FinancesLINKSYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596INTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, CEO & Founder at Product School, interviews Anique Drumright, General Manager and VP of Product at Rippling, the workforce management platform valued at $16.8 billion with over $570 million in ARR.Anique is a product veteran who has shaped high-growth teams at Uber, TripActions, and Loom. Now at Rippling, she helps lead a workforce of over 4,000 employees, including 100 former founders, to maintain the speed and ownership typically lost at scale. In this conversation, Anique breaks down how Rippling successfully operates as a compound startup and why product leaders must evolve into General Managers.What you'll learn:How to pivot from managing a backlog to owning a P&L as a GM.The Compound Startup framework for consolidating enterprise categories.How to build high-performing teams by hiring for "founder-level" curiosity.Strategies for proving ROI to enterprise customers to drive platform adoption.Key takeaways:Go and See: Why leaders must personally investigate customer issues to set the bar for quality.Singular Obsession: How to organize teams to maintain focus and velocity as you scale.Automating ROI: How Rippling uses product efficiency to justify headcount reduction for clients.Credits:Host: Carlos Gonzalez de VillaumbrosiaGuest: Anique DrumrightSocial Links: Follow our Podcast on Tik Tok here Follow Product School on LinkedIn here Join Product School's free events here Find out more about Product School here

Product Leadership Is a Jack-of-All-Trades!In this snippet, Adam Harmetz, Vice President of Product Management at Microsoft, shares what product leadership really looks like at scale.From finance and legal to HR, culture, and product planning, no two days look the same. It's a role that demands being boundless across disciplines, balancing deep thinking with the occasional emergency firefighting.At the senior level, Adam explains, the real advantage is being able to define your own job. With strong teams handling the day-to-day, the focus shifts to a few high-impact, differentiated problems each year, the ones that truly move the business forward.Listen to the full podcast- https://premade.outgrow.us/interview-with-Adam-Harmetz#Outgrow #Podcast #AdamHarmetz #Microsoft #ProductManagement #ProductLeadership #TechCareers #BuildingAtScale

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia speaks with Rachel Wolan, CPO at Webflow, the visual development platform valued at $4 billion that empowers over 3.5 million designers worldwide. Rachel discusses Webflow's bold strategy to evolve into an AI-native experience platform with the launch of AppGen, a tool bridging the critical gap between AI prototyping and true production for enterprises like The New York Times and Spotify.What you'll learn:The ICCPO Framework: Why modern leaders must remain patient zero and use their own tools to understand the systems they build.From SEO to AEO: Why Product Managers must now own Answer Engine Optimization as a primary distribution channel.AppGen Strategy: How to move beyond simple wrappers to generate full-stack, on-brand web apps directly from prompts.Key Takeaways

Surojit Chatterjee is CEO of Ema, an agent platform build AI employees. They have raised $61M in funding from Accel, Section 32, and others. Before Ema, he was the chief product officer at Coinbase. And before that, a VP at Google. Surojit's favorite book: Man's Search for Meaning (Author: Viktor Frankl)(00:01) Welcome(00:07) Defining the “AI Employee”(02:23) Lessons from Google: Building for Scale(06:59) Coinbase CPO: Hypergrowth & Product Leadership(09:24) Market Framing: Why “AI Employee” vs Copilot(14:29) Platform Building Blocks (Agents, Orchestrator, Fusion, Governance)(19:26) Trust, Security, and On-Prem Deployment(23:11) Model of Models: How Fusion Picks & Combines LLMs(29:10) What Infra Is Still Missing (Eval at Scale, Speed)(32:10) Rapid Fire Round--------Where to find Surojit Chatterjee: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/surojitchatterjee/--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Website: https://prateekj.com Research Column: https://www.infrastartups.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infiniteX: https://x.com/prateekj

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Larry Contrella, General Partner at JMI Equity, to unpack how JMI invests in software without financial engineering or roll-up strategies. Larry explains how the firm builds conviction through founder relationships, long-term partnership, and a product-and-brand-first view of durable growth. They discuss how JMI supports companies through scaling, why operating partners keep returning, and how underwriting looks different in mission-driven sectors like K–12 and nonprofit tech where customers are schools and communities, not Fortune 500s. Larry's background as a competitive runner at Penn ties the conversation together with a clear ethos: patience, discipline, and playing the long game.—SPONSORS:Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.comRightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runFidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.Sage Intacct is a cloud financial management platform that replaces spreadsheets, automates workflows, and keeps your books audit-ready as you scale. It unifies accounting, ERP, and real-time reporting for finance, retail, logistics, tech, and professional services. With payback in under six months and up to 250% ROI, and eight years as the customer-satisfaction leader, Sage Intacct helps you take control of your growth: https://bit.ly/3Kn4YHt—LINKS:Larry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-contrella-160a8a25/JMI Equity: https://www.jmi.com/CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Is taking a company public even worth it? | Fullstory's Chad Goldhttps://youtu.be/zSD8y9dr4VgSo You're Looking for a “Strategic” CFO? Bloomerang's Steve Isom on What That Really Meanshttps://youtu.be/cgHOtvG1Ces—TIMESTAMPS:00:00:00 Preview and Intro00:02:49 Sponsors — Mercury | RightRev | Tipalti00:06:41 Joining the JMI Conversation00:07:13 College Running and Team Dynamics00:08:13 New York Marathon Story and Career Intersection00:11:04 Competitive Drive and Patience With Founders00:12:54 Building Long-Term Partnerships and Underwriting Credibility00:15:27 Growth Equity as a Long Sales Cycle00:15:48 Sponsors — Aleph | Fidelity Private Shares | Sage Intacct00:18:44 Fund Planning, Deal Pacing, and Board Commitments00:20:59 Sourcing Philosophy and Developing Investors Over Time00:22:09 Hustle as the Only Sustainable Edge in Sourcing00:24:14 Early Sourcing Tactics and Information Arbitrage00:26:06 Reputation, Experience, and Breaking Into Competitive Deals00:29:42 Organic Growth Over Roll-Ups and M&A Discipline00:32:51 Brand, Product Leadership, and Paying for the Best Businesses00:33:29 Bloomerang and Brand-Led Growth in Nonprofit Software00:34:46 Why JMI Operators Keep Coming Back00:36:28 Collaborative Leadership and Giving Constructive Advice00:38:20 Using Data Without Slowing Decisions00:39:20 Transparency, Alignment, and Knowing Where You Stand00:40:31 Why JMI Invests in K–12 and EdTech00:42:07 Mission-Driven Businesses and Talent Advantage00:43:24 Monetization Models in Nonprofit SaaS00:45:40 Conviction Bets and Product-Market Fit Stories00:48:49 Rethinking TAM and Expanding Markets Over Time00:50:40 Lightning Round: Sourcing Stories and Lessons00:52:58 Traits of Great Founders and Changing Beliefs00:54:20 Closing Thoughts and Outro#RunTheNumbersPodcast #GrowthEquity #B2BSoftware #FounderRelationships #PrivateEquity This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

Stop wasting time building the wrong thing faster!In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager: Brian Orlando and Business Agility Coach to THE STARS: Om Patel respond to yet another listener question, discussing Product Risk Analysis in agile environments! Listen or watch as they challenge the common misconception that analyzing risks upfront is "waterfall" and reveal why ignoring product risks until you've burned three sprints is how teams end up building features nobody wants.Stick around while the hosts break down Marty Cagan's four critical product risks (Valuable, Usable, Feasible, and Business-Viable) but stick around for the conversation on why most teams focus on execution risks while the real product killers are hiding in plain sight!The topics covered are:- Difference between product risks and execution risks- Why traditional risk registers are theater- "Speed-to-death" prioritization for testing assumptions- Handling team skill gaps as feasibility risks- Aligning stakeholders who fixate on the wrong risks- Why business viability (pricing, unit economics) is the most ignored yet most dangerous riskThis episode is great for product managers, agile coaches, and team members who want to stop building things people don't want.#ProductManagement #Agile #RiskAnalysisREFERENCES"Marty Cagan - Inspired", "Melissa Perri - Escaping the Build Trap", "Teresa Torres - Continuous Discovery Habits", "David Marquet - Turn the Ship Around", "Product School blog", "Eric Reis - The Lean Startup"LINKSYouTubeWebsiteSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

Tim Berglund talks to Mike Agnich (Confluent) about his career in product leadership and startups. Mike's first job: refereeing youth basketball. His challenge: leading product across connectors, governance, stream processing, and partnerships at Confluent.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo

In this episode of Builders Wanted, we're joined by Sumeet Arora, Chief Product Officer at Teradata. Sumeet shares his insights on the importance of speed and innovation in the fields of data analytics and AI, emphasizing how Teradata delivers impactful business results by transforming complex data challenges into actionable solutions. The discussion dives into product leadership principles, the balance between speed and reliability, and the evolving landscape of analytics.-------------------Key Takeaways:Building strong systems and focusing on velocity enables organizations to innovate quickly without sacrificing quality.Trustworthy, well-modeled data and clear, measurable outcomes are essential for successful AI and analytics.The best product improvements come from listening to customers, obsessing over their problems, and being willing to rethink or remove features.-------------------“ I think it's equally important for people in my role to not just build a great product, but also build it fast. It has to be fast and excellent, both. And doing things faster in this era means that you have to also treat velocity as a product itself.  It's almost like setting up the right system and then great things come out.” – Sumeet Arora-------------------Episode Timestamps:‍*(02:06) - Defining the mission of a builder ‍*(03:12) - Velocity as a product ‍*(07:51) - The shift to invisible, frictionless analytics ‍*(23:04) - Lessons from product failures ‍*(34:28) - Quick hits-------------------Links:Connect with Sumeet on LinkedInConnect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios-------------------SponsorBuilders Wanted is brought to you by Twilio – the Customer Engagement Platform that helps builders turn real-time data into meaningful customer experiences. More than 320,000 businesses trust Twilio to transform signals into connections—and connections into revenue. Ready to build what's next? Learn more at twilio.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How can diverse career experiences shape a stronger product leader? In this podcast hosted by Rachel Owens, Favor Delivery Chief Product Officer Rachel Losh shares how her unconventional path—from academia and publishing to leading product at Texas's food delivery app—taught her the power of customer empathy, adaptability, and business acumen. Rachel reflects on navigating nonlinear growth, building cross-functional trust, and leading with impact in fast-moving industries.

Debating why pricing belongs in product management's hands, not sales or finance.Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om are rankling egos as they discuss a heated debates: who should own pricing decisions? Listen or watch as they argue that pricing is product strategy, not a sales tactic. 

The best product leaders don't start in product—they start in customer success.Nick Mehta, former Gainsight CEO, sits down with PathFactory's CPO & CCO, Venk Chandran, who built his product career from the ground up in CS. Venk reveals why working backwards from renewals changes everything, how CS teams can drive AI adoption with their customers, and why websites are dying in the age of AI agents. Plus: the art of asking better questions, the emotional differences between CS and product roles, and what we owe our customers in the era of AI.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:- Why starting your career in renewals teaches you to work backwards from value- How customer success is fundamentally a financial business (and why that matters)- Why AI agents are replacing websites as the primary B2B buying experience- How to help customers adopt AI when they're used to manual workflows- The difference between outbound and inbound product managers (and why you need both)- Why is delayed gratification in product harder than the instant wins of CS- How to retrain yourself (and your customers) to ask better questions of AI---Check out the Key Takeaways & Transcripts: https://www.gainsight.com/presents/series/unchurned/---Where to Find Venk:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/venkchandran/Where to Find Nick:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmehta/Where to Find Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/--- In this episode, we cover:0:00 - Preview & Introduction 1:10 - Venk's Journey From Radio Waves to Product Leadership 7:37 - How Venk Jumped From HR Tech → Sales → CS → Product (and Made It Work)10:32 - Learning at Salesforce: The Surprising Lesson Venk Learned From Renewals12:05 - Why CS Is a Financial Business First — The Real Definition of Customer Value15:19 - CS to CPO: 3 Game-Changing Skills That Make the Transition Possible17:05 - CS vs. Product: The Emotional Shift No One Talks About19:51 - PathFactory's Big Vision — Connecting Content Directly to Revenue (With AI!)22:28 - Why Websites Are Dying — And What's Replacing Them25:35 - Truth, Transparency & Trust: What We Owe Each Other in the AI Era26:51 - The AI Adoption Problem: Why CS Teams Struggle With Change Management31:35 - The Art of Asking Better Questions ---Referenced:Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/Perplexity - https://www.perplexity.ai/ChatGPT - https://chat.openai.com/

Trailblazing Women in Product Management with Pinky PanjwaniIn this episode, Nicole Tieche sits down with Pinky Panjwani, Director of Product Management for Striven at Miles Technologies, to talk about what it means to lead through learning. From crossing the chasm to building a team culture rooted in growth and simplicity, Pinky shares how persistence, patience, and a sharp sense for clarity have shaped her 22-year career. Ever wondered how to keep your team inspired while still chasing business outcomes? This one's for you. Key Topics Discussed in This Episode The accidental PM journey that turned into a 22-year product career. How Pinky went from software engineer to Director of Product Management — by “doing PM work before even knowing it was called PM.”  Turning learning into a leadership advantage. Why her team schedules “Sharpen the Saw” weeks to pause delivery and focus purely on growth.  Simplifying complexity. Why true product leadership isn't about adding more. It's about communicating less, better. Why Listen to This Episode?This energizing convo gives you:A fresh take on product-led growth — and how to make your product sell itself. Simple frameworks for fostering trust and learning across distributed teams. Real-world tips for communicating across stakeholders without losing clarity. A mindset shift on persistence over instant gratification in product work. Proof that great PMs don't just build products. They build patience, persistence, and people. Related Resources Check out these additional tools and resources to add to your PM belt: Productside Resource Library More Productside Stories Podcast Episodes Explore Productside Courses 

Product manager, entrepreneur, and author Ali Rakhimov joins Laurier Mandin to talk about how better communication can make even the most ambitious products take flight. From building payment kiosks for K–12 schools to leading multimillion-dollar initiatives at Macy's, Ali shares how simplicity, idioms, and “stupid” questions can cut through complexity and bring teams together. This conversation dives into how to keep innovation alive, avoid “boiling the ocean,” and use AI as a force for clarity, not chaos.Episode Highlights:00:02:00 — From the classroom to product leadership: How Ali's early years in K–12 shaped his management style.00:04:40 — Building, failing, and pivoting: The scrappy road trip that led to a startup exit.00:06:30 — The power of idioms: Why metaphors like “Elephant in the Room” and “Boil the Ocean” make teams communicate better.00:09:00 — Asking the “stupid” question: Turning imposter syndrome into clarity.00:12:10 — Focus vs. shiny-penny syndrome: How to simplify and ship without killing ambition.00:16:00 — AI hype and reality: What teams get wrong—and how culture determines success.00:21:00 — Learning curve to lifelong learning: From calculators to ChatGPT, adapting to new tools.00:27:40 — Making pigs fly: How Ali proved the impossible possible in K–12 fintech.Links:Find out more about Ali Rakhimov and buy "When Pigs Fly": Ali.inkSubscribe to Laurier Mandin's daily emails and buy "I Need That": LMandin.comLearn about Graphos Product, read the blog and get all podcasts with transcripts: GraphosProduct.com

How do top product leaders turn customer insights into game-changing innovations? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Medallia Chief Product Officer Simonetta Turek reveals how great product teams transform customer experience. Drawing from her extensive global leadership experience, Simonetta shares breakthrough insights on building innovative teams, navigating complex technological landscapes, and creating a mission-driven culture that drives breakthrough products.

Is product sense innate or learnable? We debate the million dollar question in product management.Brian and Om explore whether great product leaders are born or made, why organizations promote people with weak product intuition, and how to actually develop genuine product sense. We cover the promotion problem, delayed feedback loops, the role of mentorship, balancing data with intuition, and scaling product thinking across contexts.Key topics: nature vs. nurture in product thinking, why bad product leaders rise, learning challenges, mentorship environments, data vs. intuition, and transferring skills across domains.Whether you're developing your product intuition or building a product culture, this episode offers practical frameworks for intentional learning.#ProductManagement #ProductSense #Leadership #ProductStrategy #CareerDevelopmentLINKSYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596Website: http://arguingagile.comINTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Brian and Om explore the frustrating reality of constant repetition in leadership roles. They discuss why product managers, agile coaches, and team leads find themselves saying the same things over and over - and what to do about it. We explore:• Why repetition is actually part of a leader's core job• How to transform repetition into reinforcement• How the global attention crisis affects workplace communication • Creating single sources of truth and communication contracts • The hidden costs of poor organizational alignment • Practical strategies to reduce unnecessary repetition Whether you're dealing with stakeholders who don't listen, teams that forget decisions, or an organization drowning in information overload, this episode is packed with tips to improve your communication effectiveness. #LeadershipCommunication #ProductManagement #OrganizationalEffectivenessREFERENCESArguing Agile 225: The Team That Got You Here - Navigating Growth and Team EvolutionArguing Agile 211: Communication is Product's Only Job, Or Is It?Arguing Agile 201: Mastering Stakeholder Communication and ManagementArguing Agile 198: Better Communication - Mastering Crucial ConversationsLINKSYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596Website: http://arguingagile.comINTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

How do you turn regulatory constraints into a launchpad for innovation? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Questrade Financial Group Journey Leader Praneil Ladwa shares insights on transforming product management in the financial services industry. Discover how Questrade has reimagined its approach to innovation, customer experience, and organizational culture, offering a blueprint for product leaders navigating complex, regulated environments.

In this episode of The Kula Ring, Nicole Kangos, Director of Marketing at Snaptron, shares the story of how an engineering-led manufacturer undertook a major brand refresh, without big-agency budgets or losing sight of its core values. Nicole walks us through how she built trust with leadership, leveraged internal and external insights, and strategically positioned Snaptron to maintain its market leadership amid increasing competition. From winning executive buy-in to aligning the brand with the company's true innovation story, this episode offers a practical and inspiring look at what it really takes to modernize a manufacturing brand from the inside out.

Join Carmen Palmer, CEO of Women in Product, as she chats with Cassie Campbell, a fractional CPO coach and founder, about the insights from their powerful podcast series focused on product leadership coaching. This episode delves into the importance of coaching, distinguishing it from training, and its value for product leaders. They discuss key themes from the series, personal experiences, challenges, and the role of community, especially for Women in Product. Cassie also shares her journey and how coaching can uncover blind spots, foster growth, and enhance leadership quality. Whether you're a seasoned product leader or just starting, this episode offers valuable takeaways to navigate your career journey.00:00 Introduction and Host Transition00:36 Unpacking the Podcast's Focus on Leadership Coaching02:09 Themes from Top Coaches02:34 Customer Discovery and Outcome-Oriented Product Management04:19 The Importance of Context in Coaching10:53 Personal Takeaways and Blind Spots17:58 The Value of Executive Coaching25:23 Treating Learning and Development as a Product32:20 Navigating Financial Conversations in Product Leadership34:14 Behind the Scenes: Building the Podcast Series35:45 The Importance of Coaching in Product Leadership36:58 Key Takeaways from Podcast Production40:00 Addressing Team Challenges and Conflict47:55 The Role of AI in Product Management50:58 A Day in the Life of a Fractional CPO and Coach58:52 The Power of Community and Women in Product

What does it take to challenge the convention and rebuild from scratch? Heather Samarin and Vidya Dinamani find out as they sit down with Sara Xi, CPO at Rubicon Carbon. Sara shares her journey leading product, engineering, and design to reshape the voluntary carbon market. From scrapping legacy platforms to scaling lean teams, Sara talks risk, trust, and mission-driven leadership.Hear her insights on empowering teams, taking smart risks, and building products that make climate impact—and business sense. An inspiring listen for rebels building bold solutions. 

Want to know how top product leaders are navigating the AI revolution? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Microsoft Cloud for Industries General Manager Monica Ugwi will be speaking on the future of product management in the AI era. Monica shares her unique insights from working at tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, offering a deep dive into building empathetic, innovative products that truly count.

Join us on this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast as Oji and Ezinne, co-authors of "Building Rocketships: Product Management for High-Growth Companies”, discuss the pivotal role of Product Managers in the AI era. As they share insights from their experiences with innovation and product development, Oji and Ezinne explore how PMs must adapt to the rapidly evolving technological landscape to remain relevant.In this episode, they delve into the balance between customer focus and business needs, highlighting the significance of people, execution, leadership, and communication. Oji and Ezinne emphasize the need for PMs to lead conversations, advocate for solutions that address customer issues, and stay attuned to industry shifts.If you're eager to understand how to navigate the challenges and opportunities that AI presents to Product Management, don't miss out on these valuable insights!You'll hear us talk about:28:55 - Balancing Board Pressure and Long-Term VisionOji shares advice on managing the pressure from board members while maintaining the focus on long-term strategy and vision, a perennial challenge for product managers.40:12 - AI at the Core vs. the EdgeEzinne discusses the difference between companies that integrate AI at their core versus those that only sprinkle AI on top. Learn what it means to truly embed AI in your company's workflow and how to approach it strategically.49:38 - The Evolving Role of Product ManagersEzinne covers how the role of PMs is changing with AI's capabilities in areas like PRDs and data diagnostics, questioning whether AI will replace product managers or simply change the way they work.Episode resources:Oji on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ojiudezue/Ezinne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezinne/Building Rocketships: https://shop.damngravity.com/products/building-rocketships-udezue?variant=43588962779312Check our new course: https://productinstitute.com/p/mastering-product-strategy-overview

Ready to dive in to the future of product management? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Pendo CPO Trisha Price speaks on transforming product leadership in the AI era. She shares her unique insights on how product teams can drive business outcomes, leverage AI tools, and maintain a customer-focused culture while navigating rapid technological change.