The Product Edge

In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Shibu Mathew, VP of Product Management at Immutable at the time of recording, a leading web3 company. Shibu is a seasoned product leader with over 20 years of experience in consumer internet, mobile gaming and e-commerce.

Previously at Electronic Arts, Shibu launched and scaled the E-sports platform for some of the most popular gaming franchises, including FIFA, Madden and Apex, to name a few.

Together, they explored the essential tips and insights to help you navigate into Product Management.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• What is the role of Product Management?
• Stepping Stones into Product.
• How can people break into Product Management?
• What core skills should a Product Manager possess?
• How to stay competitive in this field?

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In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Jen Leibhart, Co-Founder of Product Anonymous – a Melbourne-based community for learning and sharing product management knowledge with others.

Jen is also an organiser for Product Camp Melbourne and believes in bringing people together to create, share and achieve while having fun.

Advocating for research to understand customers' motivation and behaviours has been a long-time passion for Jen.

Together, they explored the key strategies and insights to help you excel in your next product management interview.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• What are 3 to 5 things you should do to prepare for the interview?
• The essential things you need to demonstrate during an interview.
• The power of language, I vs We.
• How to demonstrate soft skills like empathy, adaptability, and collaboration.
• What is the best question to ask?

Connect with Jen Leibhart: 

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In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Teresa Huang, Product Director at Redbubble, with over a decade’s experience working in diverse industries and organisations of all shapes and sizes, including e-commerce, fintech, aviation, health insurance and financial institutions.

Teresa’s passion is to never stop learning and sharing her experiences and to inspire and motivate the next generation of ambitious Product Managers and Leaders.

Together they delve into Product careers and what product folk can do to level up.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• What background do you need to become a Product Manager.
• Taking charge of your career growth.
• Where to start the journey.
• What soft skills are required.
• The importance of a Capability Matrix.
• Embracing feedback.

Connect with Teresa Huang: 

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In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano.

As a Senior Director of People Operations & Strategic Programs at Culture Amp, Aubrey has expertise in everything from designing, implementing and communicating equitable talent programs solutions to sustainability and philanthropy.

Through her work, Aubrey seeks to question and reimagine systems to ensure that all people can access equitable opportunity.

Together Jade and Aubrey delve into equity, diversity, and inclusion (DE&I) and the importance of an equitable approach to DE&I initiatives.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• Equity – The foundation for change.
• Inclusion - Moving Beyond Superficial Connections.
• Diversity - Embracing the Full Spectrum
• Addressing Misconceptions
• Barriers to achieving true Equity
• Strategies for Building Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace
• How to measure success.

Connect with Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano: 

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In the latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Nicole Brolan, Chief Product Officer.

Nicole has lead product teams for businesses such as Redbubble and Xero. Before that, she spent 15 years at cnet.com.au, where she progressed her career from Associate Product Manager to Chief Product Officer. And during this time, as she navigated her career, she found the time to complete a business degree and have a baby boy, Benji.

Nicole believes that product folk should remember the product basics when the landscape is evolving rapidly. Use your core product skills and focus on the problem you are trying to solve, keeping the customer in mind.

Jade and Nicole discussed how to ensure that product teams focus on driving tangible business value.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• What the traditional landscape and market conditions looked like for product folk.
• How has this shaped their roles.
• The impact of current market conditions on product managers.
• What product managers need to do differently.
• How can product managers ensure their team’s success.
• The impact on the future of product management.

Connect with Nicole Brolan: 

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In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett interviewed Mike Zarif, Product Director for Propel Ventures.

Mike is an experienced product leader with a track record in developing and leading high-performing product teams focusing on user experience. He has spent the last ten years launching and scaling products in early-stage startups to large corporations locally and globally.

Mike believes Product Management can be a little like being on a rocket ship where you need to be open-minded, and you can’t be too robust or stringent in your thinking. According to Mike, you need to stay humble to deliver great product management in a product-led organisation.

Jade and Mike discuss what great product management looks like and how it can support a business to become Product-led.

 In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• The fundamentals of great product management.
• The fundamental difference between product management at a corporate versus the start-up scale-up space.
•  What does it mean to be Product-led.
•  The benefits of being Product-led.
• Possible challenges of being Product-led.

Connect with Mike Zarif: 

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mzarif

Website – www.michaelzarif.com

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In this latest episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett sits down with Amanda Ralph, the Principal Product Manager at PaperCut Software, the global leader in print management solutions. 

Amanda has worked with some of Australia’s leading companies including

Qantas, NAB, KPMG and AustralianSupera and co-founded Product Women which now has over 6000 members. Amanda has been recognised as one of the leading Women in Product and this year as one of 25 Global Women Product leaders to follow, by ProductBoard.  

Amanda believes that cultivating curiosity is essential for product folk to achieve success and shared this Walt Disney quote with us. 

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and trying new things, because we are curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Today, Jade and Amanda discuss what it takes to cultivate curiosity under product folk.

In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• The importance of cultivating curiosity for product folk.
• What does curiosity look like?
•  How to foster a culture of curiosity.
•  The tools and guidance rails product leaders can provide their teams to explore.
• How to assess curiosity during the hiring process? 

Connect with Amanda Ralph: 

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In this episode of The Product Edge, Julie Starovoitova shared her insights about how psychological safety can help you build high performance teams with our wonderful podcast host, Jade Bennett.

With a background in Positive Psychology one of Julie's core beliefs is that work can (and should!) be enjoyable and rewarding and that happens when you set your people up for success and create an environment where they can do amazing work.

Julie is on a mission to build human-centric, high-performing, transparent, and positive organisational cultures. Over the span of her career she has been working with senior leaders across different industries including tech, retail and logistics to intentionally craft workplace environments where employees can thrive and the organisations perform at their highest level. 

Julie was named among one of Australia's most innovative People & Culture leaders by HRD Australia in 2023. 

In this episode, you’ll discover:

✓    What psychological safety is 

✓    How psychological safe environments contribute to high-performing teams

✓    Practical ways in which you can build psychological safety into your teams

✓    The role personal agency and positive psychology play in individual and team success

✓    How decision-making is facilitated by clear communication and psychological safety

Connect with Julie Starovoitova :

LinkedIn - https://au.linkedin.com/in/juliestarovoitova 

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In this episode of The Product Edge, Jade Bennett sits down with Tom Dyson Head of Product at JobAdder. Tom has over 10 years of experience building and growing B2B, SaaS solutions.

Tom thinks that the best way to make a great product is to find a balance between art, science, and strategic management. He passionately claims that Product Management is the best job in the world!

Today, Jade and Tom discuss what it takes to build products that customers love and ultimately become raving fans.

In this episode, you’ll discover: 

✓    What great product management looks like

✓    How to manage your career like your products

✓    Transitioning from founder led to customer led

✓    Curiosity, the PM’s superpower

✓    Expert career tips from Tom

 Connect with Tom Dyson:

LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/dysontom

Twitter - https://twitter.com/dysontom

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In Jade’s first episode of The Product Edge since returning from maternity leave, she sits down with Liz Blink, Co-Founder of Product Anonymous, a community group for product people in Melbourne to discuss the importance of investing in Product folk.  

Liz has been a product manager for over 15 years and says she fell in love with it because it offers the opportunity to be constantly challenged. Liz has worked across marketplaces, government transformations, platforms, and product consulting and coaching.

Jade and Liz discuss the importance of product capability frameworks and the role they play in developing product folk. They also explore some of the core competencies product folk should be developing to accelerate their product career.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

✓    What is a capability matrix  

✓    Key product management competencies

✓    How organisation’s can better develop their product folk 

✓    The role you can play in developing your skills

✓    The value of peer-to-peer feedback

Access the resources mentioned in this episode and connect with us...

Resources:

●     Product Capability matrix: email [email protected] for your copy

Connect with Liz Blink:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizblink

Website - https://productanonymous.com

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