The Most Influential Product Leadership Speakers in 2026
Product leadership conferences have always served as a bellwether for what's really happening inside product organizations — the tensions, the frameworks being stress-tested, and the ideas gaining traction. In 2025, three themes dominated nearly every stage: the challenge of building accountability structures for AI adoption, the pressure on product leaders to own business outcomes (not just roadmaps), and what it actually takes to run a high-performing team when the pace of change is relentless.
These are my picks for the most impactful product leadership voices on the conference circuit in 2025 — drawn from Mind the Product's INDUSTRY conference, ProductCon (London, New York, and San Francisco), and the Product-Led Alliance's Summit series. Each speaker was selected for the quality and specificity of what they shared onstage, not simply their title or company brand.
CPOs & Executive Product Leaders
Vrushali Paunikar
Vrushali Paunikar is CPO at Carta, the equity management platform that manages $150B+ in assets across more than 50,000 companies. She rose through the ranks at Carta itself — scaling the company’s
…Vrushali Paunikar is CPO at Carta, the equity management platform that manages $150B+ in assets across more than 50,000 companies. She rose through the ranks at Carta itself — scaling the company’s valuation business to software margins and growing the venture capital product line from zero to over $80M ARR — before stepping into the CPO role. She also envisioned the company’s Event-Based Accounting platform, which today supports 8,500+ funds. Before joining Carta, she held product leadership positions at Rocket Lawyer, Dynamic Signal, and Applied Predictive Technologies, and holds a BS from Carnegie Mellon University.
“2025 conference talk: At INDUSTRY 2025, Vrushali made the case for "problem-oriented" teams — arguing that great product organizations are built not through bigger budgets but through focus, creative constraint, and compounding learning. On AI: "As a product manager, the best way for you to create leverage is to master your craft and 10x your offerings with AI."”
Rob Seaman
Rob Seaman is CPO at Slack, where he drives the vision, roadmap, and delivery for one of the world’s most widely used workplace collaboration platforms. He joined Slack in 2022 after leading
…Rob Seaman is CPO at Slack, where he drives the vision, roadmap, and delivery for one of the world’s most widely used workplace collaboration platforms. He joined Slack in 2022 after leading the Salesforce-Slack platform integration as SVP of Product at Salesforce. His 20+ year career spans product roles at Oracle, SAP, Siebel, Domino Data Lab, and personalization startup Likelihood, where he served as CEO. He holds a BS in Accounting and Computer Applications from the University of Notre Dame.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon San Francisco 2025, Rob spoke to Slack's evolution into what the company calls an "agentic work operating system," deeply integrating AI across summarization, enterprise search, and autonomous workflows — and what it means for product leaders to build accountability frameworks around AI that enterprise buyers can actually trust.”
Jeetu Patel
Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and CPO, responsible for the company’s full product portfolio as it repositions itself as critical infrastructure for the AI era. He joined Cisco in 2020 to lead
…Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and CPO, responsible for the company’s full product portfolio as it repositions itself as critical infrastructure for the AI era. He joined Cisco in 2020 to lead the Security and Collaboration division, growing both into multi-billion dollar businesses before being elevated to CPO. Before Cisco, he was CPO and CSO at Box — transforming it from a single-product app to a multi-product platform used by 69% of the Fortune 500 with revenue exceeding $700M. He previously held executive roles at EMC and served on the boards of JLL and Equinix.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon San Francisco 2025, Jeetu argued that security is no longer a constraint layered onto product — it must be a product feature in its own right. As AI integration accelerates, product leaders bear accountability for governance frameworks that make trust a first-class deliverable. "The CPOs of the future will need to be as fluent in risk management as they are in user experience."”
Tim Holley
Tim Holley joined MyFitnessPal as CPO in May 2024, overseeing Product Management, Product and Content Design, Product Marketing, and Research for the world’s leading nutrition tracking app. He brings over 15 years
…Tim Holley joined MyFitnessPal as CPO in May 2024, overseeing Product Management, Product and Content Design, Product Marketing, and Research for the world’s leading nutrition tracking app. He brings over 15 years of product experience, most recently as VP of Product at Etsy — where he helped grow GMV from ~$500M to ~$12B — and before that as a product leader at SoulCycle. His background is rare in product: deep marketplace expertise combined with real-world wellness consumer experience.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon New York 2025, Tim delivered a widely-cited talk on CPO communication in the boardroom. His core argument: boards don't want feature lists, they want business translation. "Your job is to take a list of projects and features and share with the board why they're important and how they're going to have an impact on the business — not enumerating everything you're working on."”
Simone Paul Tamussin
Simone Paul Tamussin leads product strategy as SVP of Product Management at Mastercard Gateway, the company’s global payments processing platform. He is known for his work transforming large enterprise product organizations away
…Simone Paul Tamussin leads product strategy as SVP of Product Management at Mastercard Gateway, the company’s global payments processing platform. He is known for his work transforming large enterprise product organizations away from compliance-driven agile frameworks toward outcome-led, customer-centric operating models. He was one of the few speakers to appear across multiple major conferences in 2025 — making him among the most active product voices on the circuit that year.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon London 2025, Simone shared how Mastercard Gateway moved beyond SAFe to a more flexible, outcome-driven model — arguing that rigid frameworks often protect organizations from changing rather than helping them improve. He also joined a Chief Product Officer Summit panel on measuring and communicating product impact, addressing how enterprise CPOs move beyond output metrics to demonstrate real business value.”
John Manganaro
John Manganaro is CPO at Bonterra, the leading social good software company serving nonprofits, foundations, and corporate social responsibility programs. His work sits at the intersection of mission-driven software and product-led growth,
…John Manganaro is CPO at Bonterra, the leading social good software company serving nonprofits, foundations, and corporate social responsibility programs. His work sits at the intersection of mission-driven software and product-led growth, overseeing product strategy for a platform used by thousands of social sector organizations. He brings a distinctive lens to product leadership: one where commercial and social outcomes must be balanced, and where “impact” carries a second meaning beyond product metrics.
“2025 conference talk: At the 2025 Chief Product Officer Summit, John participated in a panel on measuring and communicating product impact, bringing a social sector perspective to a conversation typically dominated by pure-play SaaS voices. He focused on how CPOs can move from output-focused reporting to outcome measurement that resonates with boards, investors, and cross-functional stakeholders across different organizational contexts.”
Elena Leonova
Elena Leonova served as CPO at Spryker, the enterprise B2B and composable commerce platform, where she led a global product organization of 35+ across Product Management, Design, and Documentation — helping establish
…Elena Leonova served as CPO at Spryker, the enterprise B2B and composable commerce platform, where she led a global product organization of 35+ across Product Management, Design, and Documentation — helping establish Spryker as a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader. Her 15+ year career spans VP of Product Management at BigCommerce and product leadership at Magento (Adobe) and eBay. Born in Ukraine, she is widely recognized as a leading voice on platform product strategy, financial literacy for product leaders, and women in product management. Note: she has since transitioned to executive coaching and advisory work.
“2025 conference talk: At the Product-Led Summit 2025, Elena made the case for financial fluency as a core CPO skill. Product leaders who understand revenue models, margins, and unit economics don't just survive executive conversations — they win them. "Financial fluency empowers product leaders to make strategic decisions that align customer value with profitability."”
VPs & Heads of Product
Mamuna Oladipo
Mamuna Oladipo is VP of Product at Shopify, where she drives product vision and strategy for merchant-facing products globally — including Shopify Markets and Shipping. She brings over a decade of experience
…Mamuna Oladipo is VP of Product at Shopify, where she drives product vision and strategy for merchant-facing products globally — including Shopify Markets and Shipping. She brings over a decade of experience leading product, design, and engineering teams across B2B and B2C contexts. Before Shopify, she was SVP of Product, Design, and Engineering at Kickstarter, where she managed 150+ cross-functional team members and rebuilt the platform’s product strategy. She has also held VP roles at SeamlessDocs and Sony Music Entertainment, and holds an MBA from the University of Maryland.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon New York 2025, Mamuna introduced what she calls "strategic depth" — the leadership skill that separates good operators from truly great executives. Her framework: zoom in on problems with precision without slipping into micromanagement, using clarity, curiosity, and trust as the operating levers. "Strategic depth is not about hovering — it's being close enough to spot the risk, and skilled enough to step away when it's time."”
Dave Bottoms
Dave Bottoms is General Manager and VP of Product at Upwork, the world’s leading marketplace for freelance talent. He is known for expanding the practical scope of product leadership — from roadmap
…Dave Bottoms is General Manager and VP of Product at Upwork, the world’s leading marketplace for freelance talent. He is known for expanding the practical scope of product leadership — from roadmap ownership to full P&L accountability — and for developing the frameworks product leaders need to make that shift credibly. His background spans product leadership roles at high-growth technology marketplaces, with a focus on business model evolution and go-to-market alignment.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon New York 2025, Dave opened the day with a talk on the GM mindset for senior product leaders. He described his own journey from VP of Product to full business ownership at Upwork and challenged attendees to reframe how they think about their roles. "Ask yourself, what would I do if this were my P&L? And if you do those things, you will be more prepared when you get a tap on the shoulder."”
Aparna Sinha
Aparna Sinha is SVP of Product at Vercel, the AI cloud platform for building and scaling web applications, where she helped launch the AI Cloud and oversaw the release of 100+ AI
…Aparna Sinha is SVP of Product at Vercel, the AI cloud platform for building and scaling web applications, where she helped launch the AI Cloud and oversaw the release of 100+ AI features in a single quarter. Before Vercel, she spent a decade at Google — where she was part of the founding team that built Kubernetes and scaled it into a top-revenue Google Cloud service, earning two Feats of Engineering awards. She also led Enterprise AI/ML Products at Capital One. She holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, began her career at McKinsey, and is a former Chair of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and advisor at PearVC.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon San Francisco 2025, Aparna shared the practices that allow small, AI-native teams to ship at extraordinary velocity without sacrificing safety — including Slack-native decision-making, open-source feedback loops, and customer-zero dogfooding. "Building in AI is like building in an earthquake... the best model changes at any time, sometimes multiple times a day."”
John Cutler
John Cutler is Head of Product at Dotwork, a work management and portfolio operations platform, and one of the most widely read product thinkers publishing today. He was previously a researcher and
…John Cutler is Head of Product at Dotwork, a work management and portfolio operations platform, and one of the most widely read product thinkers publishing today. He was previously a researcher and thought leader at Amplitude, where he wrote The Beautiful Mess — a newsletter that has become required reading for product leaders navigating organizational complexity. His work consistently engages with the systemic challenges that most product content avoids: prioritization dysfunction, the squeeze on Directors of Product, and why changing people without changing systems rarely works.
“2025 conference talk: Opening day two of INDUSTRY 2025, John reframed "playing the game" at work — arguing that navigating organizational politics isn't cynical, it's a rational response to the systems people find themselves in. The challenge for leaders is to design those systems intentionally. "A bad system will beat a good person every time." He encouraged product leaders to see themselves as designers of working environments, not just products.”
Growth & Product Strategy
Elena Verna
Elena Verna is one of the most influential growth operators in B2B SaaS — with a career spanning SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey (seven years), interim and advisory roles at Miro, Amplitude,
…Elena Verna is one of the most influential growth operators in B2B SaaS — with a career spanning SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey (seven years), interim and advisory roles at Miro, Amplitude, and Dropbox, and her current full-time position as Head of Growth at Lovable, the AI-native app builder that reached $200M ARR in under a year with just 100 employees. A partner at Reforge — where she created courses on Product-Led Growth, Growth Leadership, and Experimentation — she is widely credited with popularizing the Racecar Growth Framework, which distinguishes compounding growth loops from one-off optimizations. She is a three-time ProductCon speaker.
“2025 conference talk: At ProductCon San Francisco 2025, Elena kicked off the day with a talk on what she calls the collapse of traditional distribution — arguing that SEO and paid social are losing their reliability as AI reshapes discovery, and that the only defensible moat now is a compounding product loop. "There are millions of great products we've never heard of — but only because they didn't have distribution. A great product is not enough. Great product plus distribution wins every time."”
About This List
All speakers featured above presented at verified 2025 product management conferences, including Mind the Product's INDUSTRY conference (Cleveland, September 2025), ProductCon events in London (February), New York (May), and San Francisco (October), and the Product-Led Alliance's Chief Product Officer Summit series. Speaker titles reflect roles held at the time of their conference appearance. Readers are encouraged to verify current affiliations before outreach, as some individuals may have since transitioned roles.
