Episode 79: Moving Up to CPO with Amy Carmichael, John Martin, & Simone Dive
In this special episode of the Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri invites three graduates from her CPO Accelerator program to share their stories, insights, and advice about moving into the C-suite. Amy Carmichael of Crowdcube, John Martin of Housecall Pro, and Simone Dive of Clir Renewables all recently took on the Chief Product Officer role in their companies. They tell Melissa what it was like to make the jump, how the job differs from other product leadership roles, how to start practicing for the job now as an IC, and the skills they recommend strengthening if you hope to land a CPO job in the future.
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Here are some key points they will be discussing:
Amy, John, and Simone talk about their journey from entering the product field to becoming CPO. [2:16]
Melissa asks the guests to reflect on the most surprising aspect of the CPO role. Simone highlights the human element of the product; for Amy it’s taking the time to plan product strategy; and John talks about going to market. [5:21]
When transitioning into a CPO, you may need to finetune some skills to succeed in your new role. [8:29]
Being a CPO is not only about managing teams and setting strategy – it's about understanding how your product and company fit into the larger market. [10:00]
Although financial skills are important as a CPO, John believes that learning to invest in people was the biggest skill he needed to hone. He explains that product managers and product leaders are sought after, so it was important for him to develop his people skills and relationships with his team so they’re likely to stay with the company. [12:32]
Melissa asks her guests how they managed to build relationships and foster collaboration with their new team. [14:20]
Melissa asks her guests how IC roles can prepare a person to become CPO, and what they can do to put them on that path. [18:52]
Simone advises aspiring CPOs to get comfortable not taking credit and to build relationships with the people who make executive decisions. [20:53]
Amy, Simone, and John talk about how to evolve into a great CPO [25:11]
Resources
Amy Carmichael on LinkedIn
John Martin on LinkedIn
Simone Dive on LinkedIn
Transcript:
Melissa:
Welcome to a special episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. If you have been following me for a while, you know I am a huge advocate of the Chief Product Officer role. While I was helping companies find Chief Product Officers for their teams, I saw that we had such a lack of great experienced Chief Product Officers out there BUT we had excellent Product Leaders, who just needed a little help to make it to the C-Suite. So I created a program called CPO Accelerator to help these leaders make the jump. So far we’ve had over 120 people go through the program, and a lot of people make the leap. Today we’re talking to three of our graduates who recently got promoted to Chief Product Officer, to get their advice and stories to help others enter the C-Suite.
Amy:
I'm Amy Carmichael and I'm the chief product officer at crowd cube.
John:
Hi, I am John Martin and I am the chief product officer at house call pro.
Simone:
Hi, I am Simone dive. So I work as a chief product officer at clear renewables
Melissa:
Amy, John, and Simone came to Product from very different backgrounds, but all rose up the ranks to become the top product job.
Amy:
So, yeah, so like, like a lot of people, I think my journey into product management was, uh, a meandering one. Um, I started off actually in the, in the kind of arts and museums. Um, so yeah, started there, started learning about product management and trying to implement some of the tools of product management in this production company, and then moved on to work in a museum, who were kind of beginning to explore product management as an industry, and then kinda gradually got more frustrated with, with, um, you know, working in a public institution with a lot of hierarchy and a lot of history. Um, so then went to work in a small start up and did various product jobs, um, and then onto kind of more enterprise roles and then ended up at crowdcube, which is kind of this lovely medium between a startup and an enterprise company where, um, we're a kind of high growth, um, period and yeah, it's been super exciting.
John:
It has been a long and winding road. Uh, I was right out of college. I did a couple of years in nonprofit roles. I was a teacher and worked for international health organization and then went to graduate school. And when I was in graduate school, it was actually a master of divinity.
So, uh, pretty late in my career, I moved into, um, the product manager role and it was a team leadership role, as well as me learning how to do the job. And so, as I've often said that I kind of knew how to do half of the job, which was identifying problems, understanding markets, understanding customers. Uh, but I had no idea how to do the other part of the job, uh, which is making solutions, designing them, building the software, rolling it out and testing it. And so it was, uh, I was learning on the fly and was kind of both a, I think I was a senior director at the time and trying to build out a team. We ultimately built a team of four squads, uh, but also was treating myself like a associate product manager and learning even just the vocabulary of technology and all of the agile ceremonies and how, how it all worked at the same time is trying to lead a strategic direction there.
Simone:
I got into this, uh, racket, I don't know , but I got into this actually by, uh, teaching myself how to code because I really got into, um, uh, designing websites back in the day when there was like very strange job titles and everything. I did that for a bunch of years and I really, it was at the point where everything was very technology driven and, um, but I kind of thought that there was a better way. And I got really obsessed with, um, user experience and user centered design when that was actually coming kind of the early days, I guess. And so I ended up, uh, shifting my career into user experience and worked in gambling, um, doing UX and moved roles into innovation and more into, uh, strategy for companies. And then that kind of led me into product. Like I kind of feel like I've always been someone to be like, you know, when I was coding websites, it's kind of like, um, yeah, but why am I building it like this? You know? And then I start designing. I'm like, yeah, but why am I actually designing it like this?
Melissa:
All of our CPOs started this role within the last two years, so I thought it would be great to reflect on what they found most surprising when stepping into the role since it’s still fresh. For Simone, it was the human element.
Simone:
I would say even for some of our exec conversations that, um, that we have, um, even that at clear, sometimes like 50% of the conversation would be around like the people aspect of the business. So I thought that was really interesting. I thought, I guess I thought that the exec members are sitting there and just like dollars and sensing it all the time. Um, which obviously is a huge part of the exec team as well. But, um, there's actually a massive, massive aspect of, um, the people and human element, which I actually quite enjoy.
Melissa:
For Amy, it was finding time for strategy, something we hear is a struggle for a lot of our people on the Dear Melissa segments.
Amy:
I think probably the most surprising thing about being, being in that chief product officer role was the, the amount of time it takes, um, to think about strategy, to think about the future, and to kind of put together vision and, and a strategy, and also how continuous that that job is. So, you know, I kind of had this picture of work on it and there it is, it's done. Um, and actually it's a, it's a continuous process that you are, you are constantly learning and, and iterating on. Um, and, and really just the amount of space you need to be able to do that. And also what a different it makes when you do have the space to do that, um, everything, you know, within your kind of product team starts kind of making sense as a whole, and everybody is really all pulling in the same direction, and it makes a lot of difference, but it's a, it's a big time commitment and it's very difficult to do alongside, um, all of the other things that you're trying to do, which you quite often are, um, in a, in a smaller company, so yeah, definitely a, a challenge, but, but really amazing to, to have that time to do it, and see the impact that it's having.
Melissa:
And then for John, it was about going to market.
John:
You know, as a team lead, I was really laser focused on what is this customer outcome we're trying to drive, what's the design to meet that customer outcome. What's the business value that we're gonna drive from that and how to test, and then in the SVP, and then moving into the chief product role, it's, um, been surprising how much I've needed to think about, well, how do you best go to market across this whole portfolio of products? We, um, you know, I've spent the first year and a half building this team at house call pro. We went from two squads when I started and we have 22 squads right now. And so it's been this amazing trajectory of growth, and we've built all of these amazing products.
And now we're in this good problem, which is how do you bring all of those to a customer base that is kind of reluctant to change. These are plumbers and electricians and HVAC providers who aren't waking up thinking about their software every day. They're waking up thinking about how to, you know, how to make some money, how to do some jobs. And we're now have 22 squads worth of feature development that we're super excited to give them and they need to, uh, we need to now make it so that they, that, um, doesn't overwhelm them so that they can incorporate it into their workflow in an, in an easy way. And then we can meter out our revenue from them, because if we are, you know, if we're releasing three different revenue generating products, uh, they're not all gonna get adopted all at the same time. So I think the surprising thing has been to, to, um, strategize the go to market side of it, as much as the, um, fulfilling the customer outcomes that we're trying to, um, fulfill for our, for our pros.
Melissa:
Now in order to make this jump successfully, we also know that people need to hone their skills. But how do you know which skills you’ll need when you’re moving up the ladder, since the job of a VP and CPO are different? One piece that made a difference for Amy was the financial skills.
Amy:
So on the one hand me, you know, coming to a, a CPO role, um, certainly from an arts background and a kind of more business and psychology background, what I was missing really was financial language and the kind of confidence there. Obviously being a product manager is great preparation, I think, for being an executive of any kind, actually not everybody's jobs require them to of things as their day to day. You know, people management, you know, understanding finances and return on investment, you know, thinking about strategy. I think product managers have to do that really early on in their career so that was great experience and the lead up to it. But for me, it was about honing those skills, identifying where I had gaps and really making sure that I, I went out and tried to fill them. And I think the CPO accelerator course really helped with that. Um, and gave me the kind of confidence and the vocabulary, to talk about it with my peers.
And I think in terms of skills and, and the kind of the difference between being that kind of head of VP level, that, that VP level is very much about taking that step on from product management and really honing your skills within a product to looking obviously across product, but also people management, you know, empowering teams putting the right structure in place, the right tools in place. I think the, the step on to be CPO is really all about the bigger picture and how the products and how crowdcube fits into a much wider picture. And I actually got some really great feedback from, um, the, the CEO kind of early on in my, in my product leadership career at crowd cube. And it was to really understand the industry that we worked in. I think one of the, the, the benefits of, of product is that you don't have to be an industry expert. I think its really great. When product managers come into a new industry, Bring the skills of, of being a product manager and all of that questioning and understanding problems and bringing people together to find solutions and not having the kind of baggage of being in an industry for a really long time. I think that's, that's a great benefit.
But actually when you get to CPO level, what the main task that you have really, is to see the future of the business, and you're not gonna get that from inside the business. I think it was about looking outside, understanding the industry as a whole and where we fit into the kind of ecosystem of retail investment, even of decentralized ownership and web three, you know, thinking way beyond what we were doing already in the, in the product and what our customers were asking for directly and seeing how we might fit into a much bigger picture. And, and that I think is, is the biggest change, it's not just about your team working within the business, but how the business fits into that wider ecosystem.
Melissa:
But some people come to the table with financial skills already, like Simone.
Simone:
Honestly, well, I, I feel really lucky. I came from, um, I came from, uh, my time when I worked in gambling. Um, we had really strong, um, financial disciplines and things like that in the company. And I feel really grateful to have had that experience, um, because I find E even though I've had that experience, I still think finance is like one of the biggest disciplines that every single CPO needs to like know. Um, and every single company does it differently is what I've found actually even like moving, I, I worked in, uh, gambling for a decade at, um, at, at, uh, um, in the same company and then moved into, um, another organization at, at pay by phone, um, the one before clear and now at clear, and I, I guess like when you've obviously, cuz I worked in an organization for so long, you're so used to how it's done and then when you are actually, uh, moving it's like this whole ramp up that you really need to do about how their financial practices work and um, all that type of stuff.
And I think that is like super critical for the CPO, um, you know, to be able to challenge, to be able to improve it, um, you know, to interpret it to your team, um, all that type of stuff.
Melissa:
And while these hard skills are absolutely essential, John found that his biggest skill he needed to hone before the leap that paid off was learning how to invest in his people.
John:
So it's interesting. Uh, I mentioned I went to divinity school and was, you know, at one point in my life thinking there was, uh, potentially a minister role in, in my future, which was not the case. And it's, you know, I'm, I'm in a good I'm, this is a better spot for me to be in, but the people side of it is, is I, I have to rely on my people skills all the time and, you know, to help new people, um, who we've hired, come in and really understand the business, understand them so that I know that, um, I can, you know, help them sidestep any problems that they, you know, their particular personality might run into and just, you know, working one on one and making sure that everybody's got a really clear trajectory. Um, and so, and, and, you know, at, in this market product managers and product leaders are incredibly sought after.
And so I've leaned into the, you know, being someone who cares quite a lot about our people and they know that I think I hope. And, um, and so it's another way of keeping your best folks is to make sure that you're really invested in them. And so that's been, you know, a, a skill, a strategy that I've leaned into a lot. Um, the other one is recruiting, which, you know, in, in my role, I hired, I think I've hired 50 people in the last year and a half. And, um, and that's, uh, you just have to get really good at closing people and really good at painting a picture of how this role is gonna be transformative for them and their career and what they're interested in. And, you know, don't close everyone, but you, uh, that's a skill that's, you know, there's nobody else to do that for you, uh, except for you in this role.
Melissa:
One of the hardest parts for new product leaders becoming a CPO is seeing themselves as part of the executive team, and making sure they build those relationships with their peers. I wanted to hear what these three CPOs had to say about how they’ve fostered connection and collaboration with their new exec teams.
Amy:
Yeah, I think to get off on the right foot within the business, it's about building those relationships. It's about, you know, building relationships with the executive team, and also the wider business. Um, and I think trying to, to understand the business from a wider point of view, so meeting up with other people within the industry and you know, trying to learn very specifically, I mean, for, for me, it was learning a lot about how capsule markets work, for example, and I relied hugely on the legal team and on our commercial team to, to teach me really. And so it was, it was very much kind of relying on, on people within the business with that expertise so that I could learn, but obviously the benefit of that is that you also build relationships so that you've got that kind of mutual understanding of, of, of where you are coming from and the goals that each of those, um, departments has. Um, so really it was trying to, to kind of fill gaps of, of my knowledge, but doing that by, by building relationships with people that were experts in that area. And I found that incredibly useful.
Simone:
I'm naturally like I love people. I love understanding them. You know, I, I love getting them I guess, and I'm very curious person. So I think kind of that mixed with the fact that I have my own focus and goal, which is like, I need to understand like what's important to you so I could do my job more effectively and then actually just building those relationships one on one. So many people wait for the meeting to happen, I guess. And a lot of the stuff that happens in the business is out of the meeting. You know, you kind of wanna go to the meeting with, um, everyone already aligned and when that doesn't happen and maybe, you know, I've missed, I've missed an opportunity say with one of the exec members and they have been missed out on me doing that one-on-one engagement. Often it's it's bad meeting in all honesty.
So I really like in the early days kind of nurtured those relationships on a one-on-one basis and listened like really, I didn't know anything when you're starting in a company. Right. And to like come in and think that I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna my way. And I'm not gonna listen to anyone. I think it's just like a recipe for disaster. You know, if you're actually, um, listening to each of the exec members and then kind of using their words to then articulate what your direction is and what you wanna be doing in the company, I feel like you're gonna be way better off, you know, you really will. And I don't know. I think another thing with, um, building those relationships executive is like, don't be scared. I don't know. Like a lot of people are scared to talk to the CEO. It's like, oh my God, it's the CEO or you know, the chief revenue officer or the CTO or whoever, but they're people, right. They have they're people that have also got the same focus about driving this business that you, you have. So, I mean, if you can come and be prepared and be curious and ask really good questions, like it's, it's, it's only gonna be a net benefit for you.
John:
We have a really interesting executive team where there are, um, there are five co-founders, four of them are on the executive team. Two of 'em are, um, the co CTOs. So my peers on the CTO side and, um, president and, um, head of our, um, community and kind of external facing, um, folks. And so I spent, uh, the most time with the co CTOs, um, as we were figuring out how to scale up both the product and design org and the engineering org at the same time, we had to stay in really close communication with each other and we've now expanded that engineering leadership group. So I spent most of my time with them, um, and it was a lot of really getting to know the history of the company. So the company had started in 2014 and I came in in 2020.
And so they had traveled a lot of, uh, they had been through the trials and tribulations of startup world. And I was coming in kind of at this moment where we were moving into scale up mode. And, um, it helped that I knew the industry and the customer really well. So I had a lot of context on what their journey I knew the company, you know, even when I was at home advisor and, um, but it was a lot of listening to what was, what was their experience like in these early days? Because it was such a, you know, I felt like it was really necessary for me to really understand what the, what the ups and downs were like on the early days before trying to come in and say, okay, here's now how we're gonna do product and design because, um, you know, what was needed was of, uh, us to prepare to scale up. Um, but that was a very different way of doing it than had been in place before. And so it was a, a lot of really understanding all the really good reasons why we had gotten to the place where we were today and trying to trying, and I think, you know, in artfully, on my part in many ways, trying to under trying to explain why we had to move into this other direction instead of staying the way that we, um, that we were working on things.
Melissa:
While working with executives is definitely one key to success for being a great Chief Product Officer, I also wanted to learn their advice for what people in Individual Contributor roles could do now to prepare for the C-Suite.
Amy:
If you see VP or CPO on your trajectory, I think people management has to be a part of that. And I think that there are ways to do that. I mean, it's interesting, we, we're kind of going through a, a, a kind of calibration phase in, in crowd cube, and it's kind of, we we're having these conversations about what you do when maybe there's not that opportunity within the business. And I think there is always ways of, finding those opportunities, whether that's reaching out and mentoring people, creating networks outside of the business, but also learning from managers within the business about how that might happen and seeing what, what you can take on as a kind of mentorship role, even if it's not line management, but ultimately line management teaches you so much, and I think it's really important.
And obviously theres a limit, but I do feel like really understanding the business and understanding the challenges within the product is, is great experience and great preparation for taking on a leadership role. And I think even if you are practicing, even if you end up doing a leadership role outside of the company that you you're in right now, a lot of what I felt I was doing in previous roles was having a go in my own head. You know, what, what do I think are the key strategic things we should be focusing on. And, and I do feel like you can really start doing, before it's your official role and, you know, try and feed into those discussions with your management, with the people who are in those positions within your business. And, you know, hopefully if you've got, if you've got a good, good manager and good leadership, they'll be open to that. And, and, you know, you'll start finding out more about those challenges. And so I think it's just about, you know, thinking about what that role requires and trying to do it almost, you know, already within your product management role kind of really getting into the detail of the business, the challenges of the business, trying, trying again, to, to see different points of view.
Ultimately your job when you're getting into leadership, you're driving work through others. So I mean, I would be pretty, it'd be pretty hard pressed if you are an individual contributor and you haven't like, I always, what, how I talk to my team when I'm doing say the development, um, conversations and things like that, like think of the stories you want in your back pocket when you're interviewing for the next job you want. And, um, you know, when I think about that, if there's a, um, an IC that I was hiring for say for a director of product role, and they didn't have an example, a really strong example of a way that they could actually drive work through, say a team, a working group, or an individual, I would, I would struggle whether they might be right for leadership in all honesty.
Like you kind of measure of success changes a little bit when you actually shift into the kind of like leadership role, cuz it's like, okay, you know, when I see someone else being really successful in hitting their outcomes, I'm like deep down inside behind the scenes. You're like, yay. I contributed to that. And you're really kind of trying to build that person up. So if you can't let go the work, it's gonna be hard for you. It's gonna be real hard. So I'd be focusing on mentoring opportunities. I would be focusing on projects that you can lead from behind, not from, in, from the front, you know, and be comfortable not taking the credit for a lot of things. But I think you balance that with knowing who the influences are in that next level of role. Right. Because you know, the, the people that are, they, they know your impact, like they know, you know, so, um, yeah, so I mean, let the team take the credit, get the stories and all the rest of it, but still kind of like help build those, those relationships with that, you know, next level up say influencing group, like find even one ally that you know, is gonna be your sponsor.
They talk a lot about, um, especially actually women , they'd say women are over mentored and unsponsored. Right. And you know, I, I don't wanna play gender roles or anything, but a lot of times guys might have more confidence to be like, Hey, can you tell this person I'm awesome. You know, like, um, and go to bat for me, put your reputation on the line and women have a tendency not to do that. And like it, it's not just a women thing that women probably need to do it way more. Like, obviously we wanna do the mentoring, but find also your sponsors, the influential sponsors that can help drive your career. I've been super lucky in my career to have those people, you know, and it's, it's, I wouldn't even be here if I, if I didn't have that people that believed in me that had those, um, influential and kind of good reputations. Right. So, yeah, that would be my advice.
John:
It was really helpful for me to anchor on a, on a way of approaching recruiting and then honing that over time. So I, uh, you know, read a couple of books and, um, and kind of anchored on a process and a set of questions that I use for, you know, the initial upfront screen and a deep dive interview and a process for everyone to go through. So worked on making the, the mechanism of it consistent, which allowed me and the other people in the process to be able to really easily compare folks, because you knew that you were keeping constant the, um, the sets of questions and the process, and then, you know, iterate on it over time, but not iterating on it, like in the middle of one cycle with a, with a, um, candidate. And so it, it allowed me to hone, you know, you get really good after, you know, 150, 30 minute, first time screens of knowing.
Who's great if you're asking the same type of questions every time. And it sounds like excruciatingly boring when I say it that way, but it's actually fascinating to see how you ask the same questions and people come up with totally different answers. And then you start to see patterns about how it's, you know, the people who answered this question, I ended up hiring and they did great. And, um, so you start to see these patterns. And so I would say, you know, lock in on an, a consistent approach and then hone it and practice it over time so that if you need to ramp up and all of a sudden hire four people immediately, you're not like struggling with all the, you know, recruiting takes everybody's time. And if, and if you all of a sudden have to go into go mode, um, it's not easy to do that if you don't have a well-established process to be able to lean on.
Melissa:
And finally, we’ll leave you with some wise words about how to grow into a CPO role, and the time and learning it takes to get there.
John:
Knowing how to manage product managers and taking that role really seriously as a director, you know, if you're a director and you've got four to six product managers that is incredibly good training for being a manager of directors and then a manager of VPs. And so knowing how to manage product managers, ensuring that the quality that you, that you always have, the highest quality that they're moving quickly, that they're learning fast, that they're oriented on customer outcomes and business value.
That's all the same stuff that you need later. And I find that folks wanna move through that phase really fast because they're ambitious and they're, um, wanna get to a product leadership role that is the, those years when you're in that director role VP role. And you've got, uh, you know, four to six teams. Those are the years where you're gonna learn your best habits in managing folks and managing the product management process. And that is, um, I wish I would've known that so that I could have really intentionally developed those skills during that time and not just seeing it as a time to try to get past, to move, move on up the path, but as like the time to learn the craft.
Amy:
One of the things that I love about your podcast is that it really normalizes, you know, executives asking questions. I think there's a kind of an aura of mystery and that suddenly you, you, you get a job title and you''re supposed to know all the answers.
And I think it's so helpful to have a network of people that you can talk to absolutely, but that you can publicize the idea that we don't all know the answers to everything. And actually the way we're gonna achieve success is, is to be able to be open about that and learn, um, from the people that are experts and, you know, and understand what expertise you bring, um, and offer that out to other people. Um, so I think that was, that was super important to me and, and it felt like that that was the first step is to be really clear about what I know that I'm adding straight away and what I know that I need to work on and, and making a plan about how I'm gonna get to the point where I'm a more kind of rounded CPO.