2020 Speakers
Keynotes
April Dunford
Positioning Jujitsu - How to Win Against Powerful Competitors
Our products compete in markets that are frightfully crowded and competitive. In this session, I will show you how to use positioning to ensure your buyers intuitively understand why your product is different and extraordinary.
April Dunford is a consultant and author who helps companies make complicated products easy for customers to understand and love. She is a globally recognized expert in Positioning, having launched 16 products across her 25-year career as VP Marketing at a series of successful startups. She is the author of the best-selling book Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get it, Buy it, Love it
www.aprildunford.com
www.aprildunford.com
Rich Mironov
What Do Product Leaders Do? (and How Do I Become One?)"
Career paths for product folks are murky: job responsibilities are unbounded, and most of us got our first product management jobs accidentally or through internal transfers. Opportunities for advancement can be just as unclear. We'll break this down into:
Career paths for product folks are murky: job responsibilities are unbounded, and most of us got our first product management jobs accidentally or through internal transfers. Opportunities for advancement can be just as unclear. We'll break this down into:
- What do product leader do, as distinct from (individual contributor) product managers?
- Ways to signal interest and demonstrate product leader skills
- “Should I want that?”
Rich Mironov is a 35-year veteran of Silicon Valley product management including 6 startups. He is a smokejumper product executive – parachuting into software companies to run product teams on an interim basis – when he's not coaching product leaders or helping design product organizations. He founded Product Camp, has been blogging about software product management since 2002 and his “Art of Product Management” was one of the first books on the subject.
www.mironov.com
www.mironov.com
Session Speakers
Payal Arora
Tech Design for the Next Billion
We are immersed in a graveyard of apps. We seem to be producing more of the same. As these products have gone global, we appear to mistake scalability for adoptability. Part of this failure rests on predictive fictions on what motivates users outside the West. Those long at the margins of our imagination have now become the norm – the next billion users - and are pushing ahead with novel demands on interfacing, design preferences, and aspirational consumption, demanding in turn that we rethink what we deem as efficient, effective, and thereby good design for the next billion. Payal Arora is a digital anthropologist and author of several award-winning books including the ‘Next Billion Users’ with Harvard Press. She is a Professor in Technology, Values, and Global Media Cultures at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Founder of a digital storytelling organization, Catalyst Lab. Forbes named her the “next billion champion” and the right kind of person to reform tech. She is Indian, Irish and American, and currently lives in Amsterdam. 
Hara Mangipudi Product Management for Startups - Is it an Art or Applied Science? Software has emerged as the key value driver for every product and business in the digital world. Therefore, software product management is a critical leadership competence for the success of any software intensive product and business. While it is a well known practice in various well established product companies, most Software Product Management(SPM) aspects are still adhoc within a startup. Startups are challenged to find the product-market fit early on, there are less room for errors, hence a Lean Product Management framework would be extremely essential for startups. Lean SPM is an adaptation of the SPM framework and syllabus that covers the topics relevant for an early stage product in a startup. 
Brian Nejmeh
Digital Disruption Hits Product Management: A Taxonomy of Product Management Tools Brian Nejmeh is the President of INSTEP, Inc., a software technology advisory firm where he is an advisor, investor and board member to start-up and advanced stage software companies. Brian’s focus over the past 25 years has been on building and scaling enterprise software companies leveraging his core competencies in software product development, product management and technology leadership. Brian began his career as a software engineer at Bell Labs. He has held executive leadership or advisory positions at start-up, expansion stage and both privately and publicly held middle and large market enterprise software companies. Brian has published two books and over 40 technical articles in journals such as IEEE Software and Communications of the ACM. His widely-cited work on feature vectors and increments (IEEE Software), is used for incremental product planning in agile SaaS companies. Brian is also the co-creator of the SaaS Framework Model (SFM), a leading industry framework used to guide companies in their SaaS journey in the key areas of business model, sales/marketing, product, architecture, operations, process/people. Brian is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Product Management Program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. 
Mark Adkins
Mission Driven Innovation – How Product Innovators are Responding to COVID-19 Panel Lead Our panel of product innovators from around the world will discuss how individuals, enterprises and governments are responding with innovation to the COVID-19 pandemic. From new oxygen systems in Uganda to PPE equipment in Pittsburgh, healthcare innovators are rapidly developing remarkable new solutions. Bio: Mark Adkins is the CEO of LeanMed, a medical device company dedicated to bringing essential treatment to underserved regions through innovative technologies. He is also Vice Chair of the Product Development & Management Association and an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Medical Innovation. 
Brady Marchione
Women in PM Panel Lead Bio: Brady manages a product management team at FedEx focused on bringing e-commerce products to market, enabling agile supply chains in a digital world. She has ten years of experience in marketing and product management and has had experience launching two e-commerce products at FedEx for small & medium as well as Fortune 500 companies. 
Jamie Sterling Women in PM Panelist Bio: As VP of Product, STEM, at Carnegie Learning, Jamie strives to build products that change the game in K-12 education, while empowering and supporting both students and educators. Under Jamie’s leadership, the CL Product team has recently won the EdTech Breakthrough Award for “Best Use of AI in Education” for the new LiveLab product and the “Best Artificial Intelligence Solution” in the 2019 and 2020 EdTech Awards for our flagship software solution, MATHia® Prior to joining Carnegie Learning in 2017, Jamie was an early pioneer in education technology and digital and mobile marketing. Fun fact: Jamie was the first education marketer to advertise on Facebook’s “new ad platform.” 
Karin Gregory
Women in PM Panelist With 20 years of experience, Karin is a proven product strategist and impactful technology leader who builds teams and solutions that delight consumers and support business strategy. Karin graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a BS in Information and Decision Systems. Following that, she worked as a software developer and data analyst for several years before attending MIT Sloan for her MBA. For the past 10+ years, Karin has served as a product manager for web-based and mobile applications for companies ranging from startups to large enterprises. Karin now serves as an Account Director for the Robots and Pencils, a digital innovation firm. 
Jesse Hopps
New Product Development & Go-To-Market – How to Launch Products, Faster and Exceed Sales Targets The world of technical product management has changed. Where it used to take 3 to 5 years to innovate and launch new products, nowadays NPD cycles must be 6-24 months. Advancements in materials, mechanics, 3D design & printing, rapid prototyping and embedded connectivity let niche players enter the market quickly and capture market share from established players. To win in today’s world, you must be agile, fail fast, and validate your solution with customers in months, not years. But most organizations struggle to get innovative new products to market quickly, and usually fall short on achieving their revenue targets. 
Fran Livingston
New Product Development & Go-To-Market – How to Launch Products, Faster and Exceed Sales Targets--Panelist What you’ll learn:
If your CEO is demanding more ROI from R&D, this is a session you don’t want to miss. Learn from Fran’s 30+ years of experience rising through the ranks from engineer to SVP & GM and overseeing hundreds of new product introductions to avoid costly ‘rookie’ mistakes. In this interactive panel discussion, you’ll have the opportunity to ‘pick the brain’ of experts and get a free Playbook & Toolkit with practical ‘best practice’ resources to optimize NPD & GTM. |
Hans-Bernd Kittlaus Increasing Diversity in Software Product Planning and Development Approaches Product managers are used to the requirements-driven approach to product planning which continues to be relevant. But in addition, we also need to master the data-analysis-driven approach based on experimentation, and the data-input-driven approach for components utilizing machine learning, and combine all three. In this talk we’ll discuss the characteristics of the three approaches from a PM perspective, and how they can be combined. Hans-Bernd Kittlaus is the chairman of ISPMA e.V. (www.ispma.org). He is also the owner and general manager of InnoTivum Consulting (www.innotivum.com) which he founded in 2001. Before, he was Director of SIZ GmbH (Computing Center of the German Savings Banks Organization, Germany) and Head of Software Product Management and Development units of IBM. His main focus area is software product management. 
Al Nejmeh Digital Disruption Hits Product Management: A Taxonomy of Product Management Tools This session will provide a newly created product management tools taxonomy for the five product movements of the SaaS Product Manager (strategy, planning, development, marketing, operations). The taxonomy provides a framework for evaluating a company’s current use of product management tools and for creating a roadmap for the acquisition of tools to improve the product management function. Al Nejmeh is a current product manager for the Ambient Intelligence platform at a Fortune 10 Healthcare company. Al's strong passion for product management tools has led to a curated and classified list of nearly 300+ PM tools in the five product management movements framework. Al has received both his Pragmatic Level VI and Scrum Alliance Product Owner certifications. 
Nathan Mancine
Product Management vs. Product Marketing: Exactly the Same, Yet Totally Different. Imagine that your job is to champion projects that bring life-changing products to the market. Would you describe yourself as a product manager or a product marketer? Both answers are technically correct, but if you want to work in product, you should know that there are clear differences between product management vs. product marketing. Bio: Nathan Mancine is practicing Product Management Professional and Cross Functional Leader with 20 years experience managing and growing flagship products, identifying and defining new products, developing strategic markets, assessing and managing strategic partnerships, and developing and building teams in multiple industry-leading, advanced technology organizations. He is currently the Director of Product Marketing at Hospital IQ and is responsible for go to market activities for their platform of AI based predictive solutions for hospital operations management. Prior to joining Hospital IQ, he led both planning and execution of multiple product releases for a first-to-market diagnostic imaging injection system at Bayer Healthcare. 
Brandon Ekberg
You Complete Me: The Changing Role of PMs & UX Designers in the Product LifeCycle--Panel Lead The career trajectory of product managers and user experience designers is increasingly converging. The methods, tools and processes used by both disciplines increasingly complement each other. Both disciplines establish intimate relationships with customers through the product lifecycle, first to identify problems that are worth solving, identify unmet needs, determine product-market fit and define the scope of MVPs and market probes. Throughout the process both disciplines must engage many different disciplines throughout the organization and use data to develop narratives that compel investment and organizational support. The products that PM’s and UX designers develop become vehicles for transforming organizations to be positioned to receive emerging technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, edge computing and intelligent materials among many others. They both work with shifting product-dominant organizations to adopt the tenants of service design and service-dominant product service systems. As the collaboration between product managers and UX designers increases and they begin sharing methods, processes and tools, their collaboration also extends further through the product lifecycle. In this talk seasoned product manager Brandon Ekberg will facilitate a conversation on the relationship of product management and UX design with a panel of practitioners and educators. Bio: Brandon is currently the Director of Product Management for TwinThread LLC. In that role he is focused on setting the product direction and establishing the processes need to support the rapid growth of the company. Prior to joining TwinThread in April 2020, Brandon was the Senior VP, Operations for Innovative Systems Inc. In that role he had global responsibility for Professional Services, Hosted Operations, and Customer Support. Prior to Innovative Systems, Brandon held a variety of positions at Eaton, Rockwell Automation’s Rockwell Software, Cimflex Teknowledge and J&L Steel. Brandon holds a BS and an ME in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University. LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/bjekberg 
Debashish Sasmil
Navigating An Early Stage Product Management Career The panel discussion aims to help people who want to pursue a career in Product Management by bringing together the experiences and learnings of early-stage Product Managers working across diverse industries. The speakers will highlight the critical strategies they implemented to find, attain, and nurture a PM career while delving on significant learnings. They will also share workplace experiences, especially adapting to workplace culture and radical extraneous changes and how it affected their career pathway while bursting certain myths about early-stage product managers. Bio: Debashish Sasmal is a product manager at UPMC Enterprises, the innovation and commercialization wing of UPMC Health Systems. He works closely with clinical stakeholders and healthcare leaders to develop product and go-to-market strategies, enabling them to make critical time-bound decisions by providing data-driven, strategic, and business insights. He is a recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon’s Masters in Product Management program. He has nine years of experience in building technology solutions and data engineering capabilities. 
Meghan Skiff
You Build It, Now Sell It: How To Go To Market The product is so awesome, it’s going to sell itself, right? Not so much. As you approach your product launch, you’ll need to have a plan to get it into the hands and hearts of your customers. In this session, we’ll discuss: - The elements of a successful product launch - How to create and scale messaging that sells the value of your product - How to identify and inspire your buyer to take action - Common mistakes that companies of all sizes make when going to market - Tips for planning and executing your product launch ...And more! Bio: Meghan Skiff is the Founder of Mixy Marketing, where she works with organizations to generate revenue through inbound marketing and sales. With more than 15 years of experience in marketing, Meghan has practiced inbound marketing since it’s early days over a decade ago. Through inbound marketing and sales, Meghan has assisted startups and more established organizations grow their online presence and feed revenue growth. Meghan began her career in market research, where she learned how to use numbers to tell a story. She then went on to explore roles in marketing communications and marketing management, where she utilized marketing strategy to build and execute successful campaigns and programs. Meghan holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate of Public and International Affairs (MPIA), Katz Graduate School of Business (MBA) and Washington & Jefferson College (BA). 
Steve Johnson
Certifications and Education in PM What does it take to get into product management? And what does it take to prove that you have the skills necessary to move to the next level? There are many sources of training and varying certification programs in product management and marketing. In this session, we’ll discuss the value of formal training and certification to help you decide what you need to excel in a product management role Bio: Steve Johnson is an author, speaker, and product success coach. He uses modern methods to move products from idea to market in 13 weeks. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product team. Steve has been a long-time advocate for product management, serving as an executive and advisor to a number of technical product organizations and industry associations. In 2020, Steve was awarded one of the first ten 51331 coins for contributing to the best practices of product management. Steve was a long-time instructor and vice president at Pragmatic Institute and the co-creator of the popular QuartzOpen framework and certification program. |
