Product Management is considered a new profession, but as it advances, there is a need for more and more expertise. For people who are new to product management, there is a wide array of resources available. As product executives advance in their careers, the types of responsibilities they face change and it becomes more difficult for them to find ways to expand their knowledge base as learning opportunities are not readily available at this stage.
The biggest opportunity for learning is by experience, but who can afford “trial and error” at a higher level? When it comes to junior and mid-level product managers, there is always a senior around who can (and hopefully) will share knowledge and shepherd the newcomers. But who guides the executives? It became obvious to us that they can learn from one another; all they need is the opportunity.
For this reason, we established the Product Executive Summit, an event which brings together executives (the requirement to participate in these meetings is to be in a senior, leading position in product management). During these meetings, participants exchange ideas and discuss their challenges (which are different from those of product managers, but not less complex).
After organizing Product Executive Summits throughout the year in different cities around Europe, once a year we bring together all the participants for the yearly Product Executive Summit in Zurich. The Zurich summit is held one day before the Product Management Festival, so executives can participate in both events.
This year the summit took place at Google’s headquarters, with keynote speaker Sven Grajetzki, the Chief Product Officer for Restaurant Partner Solutions of Delivery Hero, discussing stakeholder management. empower teams with ownership of all products/tech components and processes that are needed to win and don’t be afraid to change the organization to align perspectives and goals around a common narrative or mission.
During the summit another announcement took place. Given the lack of support behind the profession of product management, which represents a challenge especially for executives, INSEAD, together with Product Management Festival launched the Product Management Executive Programme, a 5-day executive-level programme that provides accelerated leadership talent development from award-winning INSEAD faculty and advanced PM-specific sessions from PM executives from top technology companies.
Part of the programme will involve real cases from leading digital companies. Attendees will learn from leading tech companies how they organize, lead, and run PM from an executive’s standpoint. PM execs also have to focus more on topics such as influencing and shaping organizations, leading without authority, communicating at the board level, and more. A standard PM education is insufficient at this point and so we have partnered with INSEAD’s Noah Askin, who has experience teaching these topics at the executive level.
The Product Executive Summit continued with a series of group workshops on the most common challenges for executives, a very hands-on part of the event where everybody got to bring their issues to the table and receive advice from some of the most experienced product minds out there. Imagine being in the room!
Product Executive Summit is an invitation-only event dedicated to executives and aiming to bring them together for the best results for them and their teams. If you are an executive in product or if you know one, please get in touch at [email protected]