May 2014
Ben starts Foster Innovation soon after Opower's IPO.
January 2018
Rajesh joins Ben and they start capturing their best practices together.
March 2018
Ben joins GoCanvas as Chief Product Officer and Rajesh becomes Chief Product Advisor.
July 2019
September 2020
Ben and Rajesh write best-selling book, Build What Matters, on how to become product-driven.
2021-2023
Team continues to grow with new advisors and consultants. Sara becomes Managing Director.
June 2023
Launches Product Leadership Video Course, in partnership with Gigantic.
May 2024
Prodify celebrates 10 years of helping clients achieve their outcomes!
+
Years of PM Experience
Startup Exits
Companies Advised
Hours with Clients
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Head of Product
Role: Built a professional product organization at this hyper-growth behavioral health company including establishing their first in-house design team.
Key learnings: Healthtech product management, employer-sponsored benefits, marketplace dynamics, building machine learning products.
Head of Product
Role: Reimagined and rebuilt their consumer robo-advice product into a white-labeled B2B2C suite of products.
Key learnings: Fintech product management, product leadership post-acquisition (by BlackRock), Agile transformation, B2B2C, design systems, algorithm product management, behavioral economics.
Chief Product Officer
Role: In addition to a complete rebrand, I co-led a product pivot that grew to become the company’s core business offering and was the foundation for its eventual acquisition by OpenText.
Key learnings: Complete rebranding, managing competing business models, product pivot, Enterprise product management
Sara Bial Zalowitz
Senior Product Advisor / Coach
"Product Management enables teams to have strategic alignment and make decisions that prioritize the customer needs and business outcomes. When I began my career in Product, I knew I had found my passion. I love working with clients to help them grow their passion for product by seeing the impact that Vision-Led Product Management can have on their business."
Chief Product Officer
Role: Built and ran the Product Management team at Rent the Runway, inclusive of product design (UX/UI), and user testing. Drove the product strategy and innovation. Key member of the executive team.
Key Learnings: Team development and change management of creating and integrating a product discipline into the company; product, engineering and design organizational alignment
VP of Digital and Tech Innovation
Role: Led Digital and Technology Innovation with a mission to deliver innovations that ensure the enterprise and brands are differentiated, relevant, and competitive.
Key Learnings: Hospitality Industry, Design thinking, Process in a matrixed organization, Voice technology
VP of Product
Role: Owned product strategy and user experience; key contributor to the corporate strategy. Led a team of product managers, product designers (UX/UI), and user researchers.
Key Learnings: Marketplace dynamics; Organizational restructure enabling strategic squads of product, engineering, and design; Global organization team structures and processes.
David Jesse
Senior Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Executive
"Product management is at the heart of delivering innovation and great customer experiences for technology companies. It’s rewarding to help each client figure out the best product approach for their specific situation so they can be successful."
Head of Product, International
Role: Oversaw product management and localization for expansion into new geographic markets; enabled country improvements and partnerships across three-sided marketplace.
Key Learnings: Starting with first principles to understand customer problems before defining a solution; focusing on understanding and improving inputs in order to drive outcomes; balancing product and operational testing to validate ideas.
Chief Product Officer
Role: First company head of PM and design; grew team from four to 14 during period of 4x user and revenue growth; Fetch has a 4.8 rating and is consistently ranked in top 10 apps for Shopping in the App Store.
Key Learnings: Driving high retention via simple, frictionless experience and targeted incentives; applying behavioral design principles to reinforce product interactions.
VP of Product and Design
Role: First company head of PM and design, built combined functions from four people to 25 in one year; helped establish foundation leading to Groupon’s IPO.
Key Learnings: Scaling an organization, business and technology through hyper-growth; aligning team focus and ownership; importance of balancing speed and quality; personalization, funnel optimization and A/B testing
Keith Cowing
Senior Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Executive
"I love helping people be more productive and successful. I advise companies in B2B, ed tech, health tech, fin tech, and AI. This can mean better articulating the product vision, strategy, and roadmap, improving velocity and execution, clarifying roles and responsibilities, improving decision-making, training and up-leveling the team, or simply lending another pair of hard-working hands. "
Chief Product Officer
Role: Rebuilt and streamlined the software behind Vesta’s telehealth services. Oversaw key strategic shifts in product strategy and approach, helping fuel 50%+ growth in revenue and double digit improvements in gross margin. Led and revamped the product, engineering and design teams.
Key Learnings: Building technology to power a services organization. Rapidly improving a P&L and making strategic budget tradeoffs.
VP of Product
Role: Led the product team responsible for OncoCloud, Flatiron’s flagship software for oncologists, from early stages through the $2.1B acquisition by Roche. Scaled the product team from 6 to 25 as we grew revenue by 5X.
Key Learnings: Assessing, hiring, and growing top product talent. Designing product organizations, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and improving decision-making. Crafting a vision, strategy and roadmap that resonates internally and externally. Healthcare, oncology, data science.
Adjunct Professor
MBA program: Teach Product Management to 150 graduate students in NYC and Ithaca.
Executive education: Facilitate leadership summits for top product and engineering leaders, have trained 5K+ product managers globally.
Key Learnings: Simplifying and teaching product and leadership to audiences ranging from recent college graduates to Fortune 50 executives
Subha Shetty
Senior Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Executive
"As humanity's most transformative invention, AI and Generative AI demands both our partnership and vigilance as humans; we must learn to harness it rather than fear replacement, while simultaneously addressing the profound questions of governance and ethics that will ensure AI benefits everyone, not just a select few."
Vice President of Product Management
Role: AI-led digital transformation across retail store experiences, wholesale operations, product design, manufacturing and logistics for both consumers and associates. Spearheaded launch of AI robotics facility, improved last-mile delivery via 3rd parties, and consolidated supply chain UX overall. Elevated the product management and design functions through the transformation.
Key Learnings: Navigating complex, multi-business environments and stakeholders while applying consumer product principles at scale. Gained deep appreciation for operational excellence, cross-functional leadership, and cultural analogies from sports to drive high-performing teams.
Vice President and Head of Product, Design, and Analytics
Role: Led all product, design, and analytics initiatives for a B2B2C gifting platform serving both consumers and large retailers. Drove 2x growth, launched a new gift card and corporate gifting business, up-leveled team structure and workings.
Key Learnings: Transition from single to multi-prodict portfolio. Learned how to scale cross-functional teams and strategies through an acquisition and excelled at hiring creatively from external top companies.
Senior Manager, Product Management
Role: Launched Walmart Grocery, an online delivery service from scratch prior to Instacart and Amazon Fresh. Increased revenue from $0-250MM and secured a long-term corporate investment for its growth.
Key Learnings: Innovation and building 0-1 initiatives within a large company. Balanced growth with efficiency while navigating trade-offs in a high-stakes market expansion.
Laurie Cordova
Senior Product Advisor / Coach, Recruiter, and Fractional Product Executive
“There is nothing more rewarding to me than unlocking the potential of a great Product leader or team. No two product teams or companies are the same, and my role is to help customize the best approach to maximize the value my clients can deliver to their companies.”
VP, Product
Role: Led Product Management, Design and Innovation function; responsible for rebuild and key user experience improvements for core platform; oversaw Product due diligence for IPO
Key Learnings: Reducing feature and function waste of rapidly expanding product portfolio, the importance of including data science in planning and evaluation earlier than you’d think, and the high value and low risk option of introducing low/no code tools to productize services.
Chief Product Officer
Role: Led Product Management and Design; established a User Research function; Rebuilt customer portal designed to increase customer retention; Introduced Buy/Build/Partner model to team to encourage only building differentiating IP/assets
Key Learnings: Behavioral science dynamics of retaining customers for “invisible” service, Establishing and running pilot programs for IoT hardware, funnel optimization, best practices for effective quarterly planning.
VP of Product
Role: Led Product Management and Customer Support; Built and introduced new product line, CurrentMD, to market in less than 6 months
Key Learnings: Creating the model for production when user experience and content are being created at the same time, understanding the best blend of primary and secondary market research, and discovering best practices to keep adult learners engaged with the product.
Co-founder
Role: Worked on a 0-1 computer vision AI hardware solution for quick checkout. Drove the team to find product-market fit. Key member of executive team.
Key Learnings: Product development and team building at the earliest stages of a startup. Quick iteration on complex AI and hardware products to rapidly respond to design partner feedback.
Head of Product, Walmart Labs
Role: Owned seller solutions product line, created AI products that enabled sellers to increase their GMV on Walmart's Seller Marketplace.
Key Learnings: Driving large and cross-functional AI initiatives at a Fortune 1 company with stakeholders across orgs and functions (product, marketing, business development, etc.)
Product, Podcast Voice + Search
Role: Own podcast search and voice, and AI special projects across the podcast organization and Amazon Music.
Key Learnings: Applying the generative AI tech stack across several different but interrelated areas within a company. Building and scaling 0-1 products that leverage the latest technical advancements in response to customer needs.
Jeremy Crane
Senior Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Executive
"Successful product development is the core of successful software businesses. I build and scale product teams that deliver results through customer focus and strong partnerships across engineering and go-to-market teams. I love working with companies that embrace continuous product evolution. I'm passionate about guiding firms through the AI transformation reshaping society. My goal is to empower teams to create products that meet customer needs and drive business success in any market climate."
VP, Product
Role: Led all Product Management and Design efforts as part of the executive leadership team. Scaled product and design teams, established development processes, and led strategic product repositioning. Led Generative AI product use case innovation and development for B2B mid market and Enterprise businesses.
Key Learnings: Generative AI applications, high-growth product scaling, strategic product repositioning in the AI space.
Chief Product Officer
Role: Led strategic product development efforts across the Wanderlust portfolio, managing products with over $100MM in GMV transactions and $10MM ARR SaaS business lines. Hired and scaled Product management and Design teams.
Key Learnings: SaaS enabled marketplace businesses, Transaction management and booking platforms, Complex multi-line business management, Scaling product teams, SaaS product development in the travel/hospitality sector.
VP, Product
Role: Led product development and strategic direction for the core product line delivering $300M in annualized revenue (circa 2017). Managed a team of 12+ product managers across two global offices. Member of HubSpot Executive Leadership and Management Team.
Key Learnings: Hyper growth SaaS product development, Product-Led Growth (PLG), Inbound marketing and sales SaaS, Scaling product teams pre and post IPO, Performance measurement processes for product managers. Product operations evolution from product market fit through post IPO scale.
Nate Gosselin
Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Leader
"My passion lies in guiding products from concept to market success, with a focus on early-stage innovation and sustainable business models. I've developed a deep interest in product discovery and achieving product-market fit, and I thrive on helping teams harness emerging technologies, like AI, to create meaningful impact. By blending strategic vision with hands-on execution, I ensure we're not just building the right product, but building it right."
GM / Product Lead, Allo Protocol at Gitcoin
Role: Spearheaded the development of an open-source blockchain protocol for public goods funding, including the creation of comprehensive developer tools and SDKs. Led the product transition from a legacy web 2.5 platform to a fully decentralized ecosystem with integrated dApps. .
Key Learnings: Blockchain protocol development, open-source ecosystem building, decentralized product strategy, developer-centric product design
Director of Product Management, Flatiron Health
Role: Doubled revenue of flagship data subscription business. Launched a new internal data platform division, significantly enhancing the company's data capabilities. Built and led a team of 10 PMs responsible for the output of over 50 engineers.
Key Learnings: Scaling high-impact data products in healthcare, balancing rapid growth with regulatory compliance, leading cross-functional teams in a mission-driven environment
Director of Product, Sharethrough
Role: Led cross-functional team for advertiser-facing products, launching one of the first native ad video units and pioneering programmatic native ad buying. Spearheaded international expansion as Head of Strategy/Chief of Staff, relocating to London to develop and execute local go-to-market strategy and build the UK team.
Key Learnings: AdTech innovation, rapid product iteration in fast-paced markets, international market expansion, adapting product strategy across cultures
Kate Brigham
Senior Product Advisor / Coach and Fractional Product Executive
"Great products make people better, and great teams build great products. I’m passionate about doing work that energizes and develops great teams, and brings individuals together to do the work needed to build great products for end users and the companies that create them"
VP of Product, Design & Research, ezCater
Role: Led the Product management, Design and Research teams in developing user centered solutions to unlock maximum ROI across ezCater’s suite of products for consumers, restaurants and delivery partners. Oversaw the launch of a new product which is now a key revenue stream for the business.
Key Learnings: Transitioned to OKR driven portfolio management to focus work on fueling growth and high impact changes. Build expertise at senior leadership and management levels to scale team operations. Developed communication plans and operating routines to maintain alignment, maximize productivity and improve strategic planning across functions. Supported 2 International M&As to grow the business.
VP of Product, Notarize (now Proof)
Role: Led product development through 600% YoY revenue growth and a Series D funding round, maximizing value for a diverse customer base including consumers, SMBs, and enterprises. Grew and mentored a cross-functional product team from 3 to 20 people, including product management, product marketing, design, and research functions.
Key Learnings: Introduced outcome based roadmaps and regular metrics check-ins to focus teams on key priorities. Created cross-functional collaboration and planning routines between leadership, legal, and customer success functions to maintain alignment during a hyper-growth phase. Oversaw innovation initiatives including development of a notary marketplace to evolve the business model.
VP of Product, Instinct Science
Role: Led multiple functions including product management, UX, and QA following a private equity investment to grow the business. During my tenure, we had almost no churn, regularly exceeded quarter over quarter sales targets, beat our ARR and implementation targets, and received an overall 5 star Capterra rating.
Key Learnings: Time-based goals, supported by accountability routines and new product and engineering collaboration practices improved planning, predictability and visibility, both internally and for external partners. The introduction of a design system and more robust product documentation practices greatly improved operational efficiency.
Beth McHugh
Product Advisor / Coach and Product Consultant
"Product Management is about uncovering and addressing real customer needs while driving business success. This journey of continuous discovery with customers became my passion. I'm dedicated to guiding clients in mastering the art of customer-driven Product Management, showing them how deep customer insights can transform their product strategy and business outcomes. By embracing this approach, teams can create solutions that truly resonate with users and stand out in the market."
Director of Product, Openmind (now CDI)
Role: Led the product team for an EdTech startup focused on improving constructive dialogue between people with different beliefs, backgrounds, and values. Performed Product Discovery on new market opportunities.
Key Learnings: EdTech industry dynamics, product discovery in challenging markets, formalizing Product Management in startup environments.
Senior Product Manager, Learnzillion (now Imagine Learning)
Role: Managed product strategy and development for a K-12 online curriculum. Led JTBD initiative that identified biggest unmet opportunities. Sold to Weld North in 2020.
Key Learnings: Product leadership in fast-paced environments, developing a product strategy leveraging JTBD, educating an organization on Product Management.
Senior Product Manager, Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner)
Role: Led UX design and product development for a startup within the organization. Managed cross-functional teams to enhance online user experiences and drive product improvements.
Key Learnings: Integrating UX methodologies (interviews, card sorting, usability testing) into product development, translating user insights into actionable requirements, leading cross-functional teams in complex digital environments, rapid iteration and deployment strategies.
Better Mortgage, Senior Product Manager
Role: Led the team tasked with ensuring a seamless, error-free closing process amidst complex regulatory requirements and specialized loan scenarios.
Key Learnings: Driving progress within a highly regulated industry, stakeholder management, managing user experience across online and in-person touchpoints
Lucid Software, Product Manager II
Role: Founded Lucid’s design system, established their information architecture, and led the team that built their data service platform, enabling automated diagramming.
Key Learnings: Change management amidst active development, creating and rolling out new systems to product teams, data management systems, integrations, rapid prototyping and testing, data-driven decision making
American Express, Platform Manager
Role: Owned and updated AmEx’s content management system, managed and grew their community of small business owners and influencers.
Key Learnings: Building a product strategy, roadmap, feature prioritization, user research, MVP development and testing.
Rajesh Nerlikar
Co-Founder and Chief Product Advisor / Coach
"I'm lucky to have learned product management from Ben and my startup / enterprise experiences. I started Prodify with Ben to share my learnings because, as I found, there aren't a lot of great resources for mastering the craft of product management."
VP of Product
Role: Lead a team of 9 PMs and 2 designers at a Series B startup working to improve the resilience of the agricultural supply chain by engaging farmers to adopt practices to deliver sustainability outcomes like lower carbon emissions.
Key Learnings: AI product management, scale up product leadership, managing a platform with science at its core.
Fractional VP of Product
Role: Led a team of 3.5 PMs and 2 designers at a Series A digital health startup whose mission was to make cognition the fifth vital sign using a innovative new mobile app that measured brain health.
Key Learnings: International product strategy, the digital health market (including regulatory), managing designers.
Director of Workplace Products
Role:Managed $40M product portfolio with team of ~20 (Product Managers, Product Operations, Technical Project Managers).
Key Learnings: Enterprise product management, replatforming best practices and financial services.
Chief Product Officer
Role: Expanded the team 10x and the company valuation 15x, hit record high retention, established a strong product vision, and groomed new leaders to inherit the team.
Key Learnings: How to balance the day-to-day (defense) with visionary leadership (offense), expanding the definition of "Product" to include pricing, engagement services, and more.
Chief Product Officer
Role: Created a product-led company culture, evangelized product vision, established strong leadership, championed customer focus, led M&A and pricing strategy.
Key Learnings: Vision-led product management, modeling financial impact of product dev, organizing around customer outcomes, scaling to support hypergrowth, executive mentorship
VP of Product & UX
Role: Built the product organization from 5 to 30, customized a product-driven culture and process, helped grow revenue 10x and take the company public.
Key Learnings: Applied behavioral science, strategic UX, how to drive user engagement, the keys to operating as a successful executive and product leader.
Product Design
User Research
Product Marketing
Technology
Customer Success
Sales / Finance
Data Science / Analytics
People / Operations
