I’m joined by Diana Stepner who is the Chief Product Officer at Chan-Zuckerberg initiative and has held product leadership roles at SimplePractice, Pearson, Kayak, Razorfish and Monster.com in the past. Diana also runs a cohort -based course on Maven called Product First Leadership - topic that talk about on this episode.

We talk about :

1) What's unique about product leadership role

2) Tactical advice for things a newly minted group product manager : how to organize the team, conduct 1:1s, handle the hard conversations and manage your personal career as a product leader

3) Anti-patterns of product leader

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:44] Diana's product journey

[00:04:16] Diana's role as CPO at Chan and Zuckerberg Initiative

[00:07:16] What's unique about product leadership?

[00:09:50] Archectypes of Product Managers

[00:12:56] Advice for getting started as a newly minted Group Product Manager

[00:16:53] How to structure 1:1s?

[00:21:06] How to create an environment that Product Managers on the team can thrive

[00:24:45] Starting career planning for Product Managers on the team

[00:28:28] Having the tough conversations with career progression

[00:31:32] Anti-Patterns of product leadership

[00:35:09] Managing personal growth as a product leader

[00:37:25] Rapid Fire

Where to find Naveen

- Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

- Website : https://numberlock.me

Where to find Diana

- Website : https://www.dianastepner.com/

- Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianas/

- Maven Course - https://maven.com/diana-stepner/product-leadership

👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/11

Sanchan was most recently VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft.

In this episode we talk about :

1️⃣ Story behind Instagram Shopping - Hypothesis, Pitch and Execution, Decision making frameworks

2️⃣ How Sanchan built the Product Org at Airbnb - scaling from 40 PMs to over 200

3️⃣ Airbnb COVID-19 war story and leadership lessons from the experience.

This episode is absolute :fire. @sanchan's one of the best story tellers I know.

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:18] Sanchan's Product Journey

[00:07:00] Story of Instagram Shopping

[00:11:09] PM Qualities to look for in Zero to One projects

[00:15:20] How do you track execution effectively?

[00:17:12] How do you impart clarity to your teams?

[00:22:04] Difference between Strategy and Innovation

[00:24:28] Managing stakeholders as Head of Product

[00:28:44] Anti-patterns to cross-functional alignment

[00:33:15] RAPID - Decision Making framework used at Coinbase

[00:35:12] How Sanchan scaled Product Org at Airbnb

[00:41:17] What to look for in hiring Product Leaders?

[00:45:32] COVID-19 Airbnb War story

[00:53:05] Rapid Fire Questions

Where to find Naveen

- Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

- Website : https://numberlock.me

Where to find Sanchan

- YouTube channel - https://youtube.com/@therealsanchan

- Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/therealsanchan/

- Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/therealsanchan

- TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@therealsanchan

References

- How decisions are made at Coinbase : https://www.coinbase.com/blog/how-we-make-decisions-at-coinbase

Cassidy was the Senior Director of Product at Pendo and Vimeo and has spent the last decade on product, particularly in B2B. More interestingly worked all remote (we’ll talk a little bit about it in the end) . Cassidy also teached for Mind the Product in her spare time, and occasionally coach PMs early in their career.

In this episode we talk about :

1. Myth behind building B2B products

2. How Cassidy built products at Pendo

3. Cassidy’s ReadMe doc and how she’s successfully managed her career and grown in the last decade all working remotely

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:30] Cassidy's Product Journey

[00:05:15] What makes B2B PMs different from B2C?

[00:16:39] How did Cassidy build Platform Product at Pendo?

[00:22:13] Sharing leadership style using README doc

[00:28:04] How to use the README document to management teams?

[00:33:31] Leading teams remotely

[00:39:04] Rapid Fire

👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/9