Karo was born in Austria, where she also grew up. She earned a master's degree in Architecture from the Technical University in Graz and an Associate of Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. Karo began her career as a Color, Material, and Finish (CMF) Designer at Tesla in California. Afterward, she spent 6 years as a CMF Designer in the UK, contributing to cars made by Jaguar Land Rover as well as Aston Martin Lagonda. Karo currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area working as a CMF Designer for Zoox.

Mario Zechner, an independent software developer, coach, and angel investor based in Graz, Austria. His technical expertise spans applied machine learning, data science, compiler engineering, and computer graphics. He has authored several books and numerous scientific papers. He was also a key member of a successful startup named RoboVM. The birth of his son marked a pivotal moment in his life, inspiring him to contribute to the community and use his skills to address societal issues.

Heather was born in Scotland and spent much of her childhood moving across Europe. She currently resides in Manchester, where she lends her expertise to Split Software as an Experimentation Advisor. With a decade of experience in the field of experimentation, Heather has made significant contributions to prominent organizations such as the BBC, Optimizely, and SKY, as well as to renowned football clubs including Manchester United and Chelsea.

Hennie Farrow is a Designer and Design Leader. Hennie was born in Iran, grew up in Los Angeles and has been living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 90ies. Hennie has a degree in Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University. She worked as an Instructor at the Academy of Art University for over a decade. After that she held various Design Leadership positions in Silicon Valley: Hennie was a Design Lead at Adobe, Head of Design & UX at Zignal Labs, VP of Design & UX at Emtrain and Director of UX at ServiceNow.

Hennie and I discuss the relationship of Design and other stakeholders like Engineers or Product Managers. Hennie gives recommendations on how to make Designers lover working with you. Hennie talks about her creative process and her current passion project (livekeenly.com).

Inaki lives and works in Argentina. He studied Computer Science at the National University of Central Buenos Aires in the city of Tandil. After his studies he founded a startup that managed genetic information for cattle farms. He held various Software Engineering positions and has been a Product Manager at Split Software, a Silicon Valley tech startup, for a bit over a year now. Besides being a Product Manager, Inaki has been creating a cultural center and event space called Huarte over the last couple of years. In our conversation we talk briefly about his first year in Product before we focus on how he created Huarte over the last couple of years.

Christian Ross has been managing products for 13 years. His experience spans both consumer and B2B products. In his career he has managed products at WeightWatchers, American Express, Macy’s, Genesys, Sunbasket, and the PGA. 

Christian got a degree in Computer Science from the University of Mississippi. He also started a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Columbia University.

In our conversation we talk about Christian’s path to becoming a Product Manager, his thoughts on Product Strategy, and how the deliberate use of empathy helped him to have stronger relationships with executives and enabled him to delegate better.