Product leaders play a crucial role in any organization. It’s up to them to create and oversee a product team, determine a product’s strategic direction, and select the systems and tools needed to create great products.
This is not an easy job role, but it’s an essential one. Without great product leaders, it’s easy for whatever it is that you’re selling to fall flat and come up short compared to their potential.
And because this is a complex job role, it’s always good to get advice from those who have already had great success in the field.
We’re featuring a number of product leaders in our upcoming Hot Takes Live Event, and each of them is outstanding to follow in their own right. So without further ado, let’s take a look at twelve of the best product leaders to follow this year.
1. Amy Beaudoin
Amy Beaudoin, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Uptempo, is the first product leader that you need to follow in 2023.
Beaudoin has over 14 years of marketing experience, predominantly working with SaaS companies. She has strong experience in go-to-market strategies, product launches and releases, marketing program development, digital strategy, and brand management.
Beaudoin has helped create great content online, including this webinar about connected marketing operations.
2. Thomas Shields
Thomas Shields is the Director of Product Marketing at Superside, a design ops platform to help businesses generate creatives at an incredible scale.
He’s got experience helping organizations grow, and fast, as a product marketer that looks at the entire customer journey. He’s worked with big companies and startups alike, helping them to scale their user bases, engagement, and revenue.
He uses a variety of techniques to help brands grow, including different marketing platforms, attribution modeling, account-based marketing, and competitive analysis and positioning.
Shields is active on LinkedIn, where he regularly shares great tips and hot takes.
3. Alex Grant
Alex Grant is the Vice President of Product at Personio.
He’s a product leader with true diverse experience that gives him a well-rounded approach, which makes it no surprise that he has a track record of leading high-performing global teams. He’s led multiple SaaS products to success (think category-leading success) thanks to a clear strategy starting with the GTM process.
Alex is one of the 48 SaaS leaders that will be sharing their hot takes at the intersection of Revenue, Growth, and Ops during our one-day virtual event, Hot Takes Live, on Feb 16th at 10:00 AM Eastern.
Curious about what he’s going to talk about? He gave us a preview of his Hot Take during a LinkedIn Live with our CEO and co-founder, Armando Biondi.
4. João Romão
João Romão is the Principle Product Manager of Growth at OutSystems.
He’s spent over 10 years developing digital products in the B2B SaaS niche, utilizing his backgrounds in both computer science and business. The products he’s helped to develop have been used by over 200,000 users and have reached millions more through indirect use.
He knows that the secret is to build products that create real customer value… and to do so better than the alternatives that are already on the market.
Make sure you catch his upcoming take during our Hot Takes Live!
Hot Takes Live Replay
Catch the replay of Hot Takes Live, where 48 of the top SaaS leaders across Marketing, Sales, and RevOps revealed some of their most unpopular opinions about their niche.
These leaders shared what lessons they learned and how they disrupted their industry by going against the grain (and achieved better results in the process).
5. Kushal Sharma
Kushal Sharma is the Director of Business and Product Insights and Data Analytics at Hootsuite. It’s a long job title, and it’s an important job. He has over 16 years of data analytics leadership experience.
Sharma has some remarkable experience—and wins—in data leadership. He knows how to leverage product data to create successful product growth, even in hyper-competitive SaaS markets. He’s led technical teams to produce business insights and statistical analysis using a variety of different tools. This includes developing KPIs that actually drive the correct behaviors you truly need to be optimizing for.
He also cares greatly about fostering inclusion, equity, and diversion so that the team can bring their authentic selves at work, enabling them to do their best work.
6. Genny Orser
Genny Orser is the Vice President of Product & Marketing at Mappedin, which allows users to create indoor maps easily. She leads the strategic vision for both the product and marketing teams to develop the best mapping experiences and user experiences across the board.
Orser has been working in marketing for almost a decade, with work experience as a loyalty marketing specialist, a marketing director, and now the vice president of marketing.
Her Hot Take Live is coming soon, and it’s one you can’t miss. She’s going to discuss how most brands aren’t nearly as customer-centric as they think they are because they’re focused on their customer service team is centered around customers, and that’s it. She’s going to share how marketing and product teams also need to understand the customer more holistically than anyone else in the company and share some tips for doing so.
Want a sneak peek? Genny will preview her Hot Take in this LinkedIn Live with our CEO and co-founder, Armando Biondi.
7. James Mayes
James Mayes is the co-founder of Mind the Product, which creates training, content, and conferences for product managers. This alone makes Mayes worth following, along with all the content published on the site.
Mayes worked in talent acquisition for over a decade while building high-performing tech teams in businesses ranging from startups to FTSE100. He’s also worked as a non-executive director, a board advisor, and a vice president.
Want to see great content that Mayes has helped bring front and center? Check out the content available on Mind the Product.
8. Arjun Pillai
Arjun Pillai is the Senior Vice President of Product Management & Data at ZoomInfo, a B2B database with lead information.
He started out with an educational background as an electronics engineer and has gone on to work as a successful entrepreneur. He’s now a well-respected subject matter inexpert in Sales and Marketing Data.
Arjun founded his first company in 2012, which grew to have over 100,000 users from 150 companies before it was sold to Full Contact Inc. It was the first-ever product acquisition from the State of Kerala, India.
He’s worked at the helm of data strategy and partnerships, gaining relationships with over 100 different data companies. He’s since worked as a consultant for some of the top companies in the space.
Pillai regularly posts great content on his LinkedIn, which you can see here.
Hot Takes Live Replay
Catch the replay of Hot Takes Live, where 48 of the top SaaS leaders across Marketing, Sales, and RevOps revealed some of their most unpopular opinions about their niche.
These leaders shared what lessons they learned and how they disrupted their industry by going against the grain (and achieved better results in the process).
9. Bryan Saftler
Bryan Saftler is the Director of Product Marketing- Communications, Media & Entertainment Industries at Databricks.
Saftler has a strong entrepreneurial background with a track record of leading product marketing teams and driving global marketing strategies at scale. He’s built marketing infrastructure within billion-dollar brands, run multi-million dollar events, and led partnerships with major-name brands like Nike and NASA.
Saftler has both built and advised startups and helped establish new products in tough markets.
Make sure you hear what he has to say at our upcoming Hot Takes Live!
10. Ryan Donovan
Ryan Donovan, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Grin, is enthusiastic about merging business leadership and product development skills to help companies grow rapidly.
Donovan has over two decades of experience in helping businesses leverage tech strategies and GTM solutions to solve complicated problems.
Like many product leaders on this list, he’s worked with companies at many stages of development to help them scale to the level of growth they’re looking for. Previously, he worked as the Chief Technology Offer at Hootsuite, which made him responsible for developing product strategy. Before that, he worked at Microsoft in multiple roles.
Want to hear more from Donovan? Check out this interview on The Tower here.
11. Mike McFarlane
Mike McFarlane is the President and Founder of Mike McFarlane Marketing Group, or 3MG.
He’s an Indie MarTech Consultant and hosts The Indie Marketers Podcast. He has over 16 years of experience working for enormous companies in the MarTech agency space, including brands like Oracle Eloqua and PathFactory. During that time, he helped hundreds of companies and professionals achieve their goals.
McFarlane is an expert on marketing automation, campaign tools, CRM uses, and process refinement. He likes to work as an extension of his clients’ teams to come in and help you accomplish your goals.
McFarlane is incredibly active on his LinkedIn, and you should also check out his podcast. If you’re looking for a good place to start, you can’t go wrong with this one.
12. Alessia Camera
Alessia Camera is an experienced Growth, Marketing, and Product Leader at multiple B2C and B2B early-stage startups in different industries. She has recently led the go-to market of European tax tech unicorn Taxfix in Italy.
She’s been advising and mentoring startups at international accelerators such as Startup Bootcamp, Virgin Startup, and ODI, and she’s been a speaker for events and university lectures in Italy, London, and internationally.
Her first book, “Startup Marketing”, published by Hoepli, the biggest publisher in Italy, has become the no.1 book about growth hacking and startup marketing strategies in Italy, followed by a second book, “Viral Marketing,” on product marketing and viral growth.
Hot Takes Live Replay
Catch the replay of Hot Takes Live, where 48 of the top SaaS leaders across Marketing, Sales, and RevOps revealed some of their most unpopular opinions about their niche.
These leaders shared what lessons they learned and how they disrupted their industry by going against the grain (and achieved better results in the process).
Best Product Leaders: Final Thoughts
Product leaders have a challenging job, and they’re often working at the intersection of business strategy, product marketing, sales, and product development. They need a strong strategic background, and as we’ve seen above, plenty of hands-on tech experience doesn’t hurt!
There are plenty of product leaders out there, but these are twelve of the best working in the field today.
Most of the twelve product leaders featured above (and a total of 48 experts in their field) will share their spicy Hot Take in our upcoming event, so make sure you register! And added bonus: every person who registered is entered for a chance to win a ticket to SaaStock 2023 and $500 for travel expenses.
Ready to hear spicy hot takes from these product leaders? Register for our Hot Takes Live event today!