Spring 2022: Top Product Managers to follow

ProductHooman is our attempt to shine the spotlight on Product Builders, The Creators, The Ones who are changing our lives by doing some great work.

Creating an impact in the tech ecosystem by building the future of the tech ecosystem.

And today we are compiling our first set of interviews done with some amazing Product Managers who have worked at companies like Google, Youtube, Expedia,  Slice, Replit, WhatsApp, CitiBank, SuperOps, Observe.ai, Freshworks, Mysterium Network, TheFlatwork, Perkbox, Goibibo, Housing, Product Teacher, Plann, Cisco and Microsoft who shared their stories with us from January to March.

So here we go with the Thoughts, stories, and ideas of Product Hoomans - Spring 2022 compilation by ProductHooman

Top Product Managers to Look for

1) Jordan Lamborn - Product Manager @Slice, ex-Expedia

I am a product manager at Slice, a company that is committed to helping local businesses thrive against the big guys. I am a strategic thinker. I am an idea guy. I like to say that I can have an opinion or an idea on anything, but that doesn't mean they are all good ideas so beware. I try not to take myself too seriously and I love to write. In fact, one of the things that drew me into product management was the community of product managers and leaders who openly share their knowledge and regular learnings and failures online through channels like Medium.

2) Diego Granados - Senior Product Manager @Microsoft AI&ML, ex- @Cisco

I’m originally from Mexico, was born and raised there.
I started to have an interest in engineering but never had coding classes. Although, I did have a passion for technology.
However, I found myself working in a consulting firm for over 5 years but I still had the urge to go into tech so, after 5 years, I realized I need a change and MBA is the next step for me. That’s when I came to the US, studied for my MBA and that’s where I discovered product management.
I instantly fell in love with the role, going into tech finally. From my internship to working full-time at Cisco for around 2 years and then the next 2.5 years at Microsoft, working in AI & ML, as a Product Manager.

🎙 If you don't like reading, we also have a recorded podcast for this article 🎙

3) Clement Kao - Founder at Product Teacher ex- @blendlabsinc

I’m currently leading a startup called Product Teacher, which is a product management education company with the mission of creating accessible and effective resources for a global community of product managers, founders, and entrepreneurs.

We offer corporate workshops, self-paced courses, career coaching, and other professional development services. We also regularly publish best practice articles on product management through our newsletter.

Through our work, we've helped professionals from hundreds of fast-growing startups and public companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Netflix, Twitter, Airbnb, Tesla, PayPal, Box, Zoom, YouTube, Adobe, Uber, Lyft, Salesforce, Slack, Reddit, Okta, eBay, Hulu, and Spotify.

I founded Product Teacher to democratize product management knowledge. I’m excited to share this valuable knowledge with others and accelerate their careers, and we’re actively releasing even more corporate workshops and self-paced courses to help product managers all over the world succeed.

Before becoming Founder/CEO at Product Teacher, I was a Principal Product Manager at Blend, where I shipped multiple multimillion dollar B2B fintech products. Before Blend, I was Group Product Manager at Movoto building our real estate agent products.

I’ve written multiple books and best-practice guides about product management, totaling 260+ publications thus far. I’ve been featured by 100+ organizations around the world, and I’m humbled to share my experiences here on ProductHooman.

4) Ankur Sharma - Vice President of Product and Engineering @perkbox, ex-Goibibo, Housing

Hi, I am Ankur Sharma!

Professionally, I am a Vice President of Product & Engineering at Perkbox which is a Global Rewards & Benefits SaaS company with users in 45+ countries. I have more than 16 years of leadership experience in building and scaling global, self-service businesses and technology products.

I am adept at forming and nurturing high-performing teams around product vision targeting growth, engagement, conversion and revenue OKRs (Objective & Key Results). I have built several multi-million products some of which now have more than 50 million installs on Android and are continuing to cruise comfortably at 15 million monthly active users.

Outside of work, I read, write and mentor young Product Managers and advice companies. I like meeting new people over a cup of coffee/Zoom. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @ankurdinesh

5) Furkan Akyurek - Co-Founder @theflatwork and Product Manager @mysterium network

I am Fukran and I have been Product Manager for 6 years now. I love building products. I have been launching products basically my whole career. I come from an Engineering background with electronics degree in both bachelors and masters.

I realise that building products is something I wanna do. Currently, I am also working on a startup simplifying enterprise tools use.

🎙 If you don't like reading, we also have a recorded podcast for this article 🎙

6) Dhivya Sriram - Senior Product Manager @Observe.AI, ex- @Freshworks

I’ve been building products in the B2B SaaS space for 4.5 years now but I’m a B2C product person at heart!I have conceptualized, built and launched a collaboration product from scratch (why should Slack have all the fun?) and have also developed products for ITSM. I’m currently a Senior Product Manager at Observe.AI,  where we build products that leverage AI to improve the productivity and performance of call center agents. I am extremely passionate about UX and product copy! I also co-create a comic series on product management called Shipping Tomorrow. When I’m not working, I’m either playing Ultimate Frisbee, admiring the sky or reading.

7) Sanjeev NC - Product Manager SuperOps.ai, ex- Freshworks

I'm a product manager with a background in sales, support and marketing. I am now a product manager at SuperOps.ai, an IT SaaS company based out of Chennai, India. I'm a generalist at heart who staunchly believes that you must expose yourself to multiple career paths before you decide on what's right for you. I also describe my niche as Business Humor and share funny videos and memes on my social media. I find too many people giving gyaan on business. Only few can see the funny side.

8) Esha Shukla - Product Manager @WhatsApp, ex- @Meetup, @Citibank

I’m currently a Product Manager at WhatsApp (owned by Meta Platforms), the private, cross-platform centralized instant messaging and voice-over-IP service connecting billions of users across the world. I was born in Mumbai, India, and spent my childhood in Zambia. I currently reside in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I’ve been in the product management space for the last ~7 years across both business and consumer products in different verticals (fintech & consumer social media). Before Meta, I worked at Meetup as a PM for their organizer subscription & events team. Prior to that, I worked as a Mobile Product Manager @ CitiBank.

As an inside view into my daily life, the most-used apps on my phone are WhatsApp (no surprises! My entire family lives in India, so I rely on the app to stay connected with them on a daily basis), Spotify (intentional design UI that focuses on discovery & recommendations to introduce her to new artists) and Google Maps (always pinning places to go!)

9) Tabish Gilani- Senior Product Manager @replit, ex- @youtube, @google

I currently lead product and growth at Replit. Replit is a company where we're aiming to essentially bring the next billion software creators online.
we provide users with a place to host their projects, learn how to code. And also at the same time, we provide you with a community to learn from, to engage with, and really build a network of creators.

And so a lot of my role here is thinking about, what is the product vision looks like, the product strategy and how do I empower the rest of the team to really build the best product that we can for our users.

Before Replit, I was leading global growth for youtube kids. I was there for about a couple of years. I was at Google as well on the hardware team, prior to that, I was leading product controls for another startup, Leap.ai. I spend time in growth for awhile. Now I guess I've transitioned a little bit more to product side of things.

🎙 If you don't like reading, we also have a recorded podcast for this article 🎙

10) Rawan Saloum - An Upcoming Product Manager

Hi! I am Rawan Saloum, an up-and-coming Product Manager. I graduated from Malaysia with a Bachelors's and Masters's degree. Currently, I am residing in Chicago, United States. I follow the Kaizen philosophy in my daily life, a philosophy that focuses on the constant improvement of character, skills, and experience. I am naturally a very curious person and love to learn about everything!

Alright this is it, we are gearing up for next season and will be back with more stories 🚀 till then keep building 💪