Namrata (Nam) Sarmah is CPO at INTO University Partnerships and the founder of Women in Product UK, a community through which she hopes to build a pipeline of female product management talent and finally put to bed the excuses that hiring managers currently fall back on when challenged on their female talent acquisition. She's also passionate about making sure we get more product people into the C-suite, and will soon be launching the CPO Track community to support this. We chatted about all this, and much more.
Episode highlights:1. You don't need an MBA to get into product, but it's not unhelpful
There's a lot of controversy about the merits (or lack of) of MBAs in product management. MBAs are not essential, but they can be helpful when trying to crack the C-suite as you've already spent a lot of time working on your business sense. There are other ways to get this though; the most important thing is to develop that business sense one way or another.
2. Just because you're great a product management, doesn't mean you'll be a great CPOIt's hard to land a Chief Product Officer job, and even harder to stay in there. You require a mix of skills, and just being the best at product management doesn't help. It requires a mix of business acumen, executive presence (sad, but true) and the ability to tell a story in terms that resonate with your leadership peers.
3. Building a community is hard, but you can treat it like a productCommunity-building is not an easy skill to teach someone; it requires a certain mindset and certain instincts. There are different types of people in the world, and some of them are natural "connectors" who just know how to join the dots and get people together.
4. Women in Product UK is its own thing, and its superpower is diversityThere are various communities around the world that support product managers, or female product managers specifically, but a lot of them have quite a narrow focus on certain job levels or roles. Having top female CPOs available for free in a community is a superpower.
5. The name of the game is pipeline building, and allies are welcomeSome sad sacks will sit and grumble about having a "women in product" group rather than just a generic "people in product" group. but the numbers don't lie. Women are still underrepresented in senior positions, and it's easy for companies to blame "pipeline problems". So let's all build the pipeline, so they don't have an excuse anymore.
Contact NamYou can connect with Nam on LinkedIn or check out Women in Product UK, where you can interact with the community and get onto the WhatsApp group.
Adam & Jason Talk All About Product Strategy (with Adam Thomas & Me, Two Product Management Talking Heads)
The Power of Storytelling for Cross-Functional Alignment (with Ronke Majekodunmi, Director of Product Management @ Promevo)
OKRs: The Gateway Drug to Agility & Good Product Management (with Jeff Gothelf, Product Management Consultant & Co-author ”Lean UX” )
Getting the GIST of Evidence-Guided Product Development (with Itamar Gilad, Product Management coach, speaker and author)
Practice Makes Perfect: Embracing the Messy Reality of Product Management (with Matt LeMay, Product Management Consultant & Author ”Product Management in Practice”)
Going Global! When and How to Take your Product International (with Chui Chui Tan, International Growth Adviser & Director @ Beyō Global)
Helping Tech Teams Get Closer to ”The Business” with Effective Conversations (with Douglas Squirrel, Founder @ Squirrel Squared & Co-Author ”Agile Conversations”)
The Five Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams (with Saeed Khan, Founder @ Transformation Labs)
OKIP LIVE! Is Product/Market Fit Really Dead, or Just Resting? (with Andrea Saez & Dave Martin, Right To Left)
Learning the Bedrock Skills of Innovators & Entrepreneurs (with Bob Moesta, Co-creator of the Jobs to be Done Framework & Author ”Learning to Build”)
Using The Power of Community to Help you Thrive in a Generalist World (with Milly Tamati, Founder @ Generalist World)
Making Sure you REALLY Know your Customers and Pulling out of Growth Stalls (with Adrienne Barnes, Founder @ Best Buyer Persona)
Team Change is Inevitable - What’s Important is How we Respond to It (with Heidi Helfand, Author ”Dynamic Reteaming”)
The Trouble with Product Management Onboarding and How to Get it Right (with Mirela Mus, Founder & CPO @ Product People)
Using Tech to Change Culture and Un-f**king the Design Industry (with Mackenzie Daisley, CEO & Founder at Brieft)
Getting the Narrative Right and Taking Web3 Products Mainstream (with Rachael Sacks, Crypto Storyteller & Founder @ Narrativ3)
The Importance of Messaging & ROARing Your Way to Product/Message Fit (with Diane Wiredu, Founder & Messaging Strategist @ Lion Words)
Supporting Mental Health & Wellbeing for Product Managers (with Jacquelyn Guderley, Product Manager @ OVO & Co-Founder @ Product Mind)
Taking Recruitment into the Future with AI and Embracing the Metaverse (with Shaun Smith-Taylor, Co-Founder @ MyProductPath)
Beyond the Challenger Sale Part 2: Focus on Value & Make your Product Easy to Buy (with Brent Adamson, Author ”The Challenger Sale” & ”The Challenger Customer”)
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