Customer Centric Innovations

The approach

The best products don't come from micromanaged teams executing a roadmap handed down from above. They come from curious, empowered professionals who have a real voice in the room and the authority to make decisions right where the knowledge lives.

That belief has shaped every product I've built and every team I've led. It's also why both of my services start with people: give a team clarity, ownership, and real customer contact, and the roadmap tends to take care of itself.

I build products that solve real problems: backed by data, grounded in genuine customer empathy, and designed to drive revenue.

Where it comes from

My career started in sales and business development, which gave me something most product leaders don't have early on: a ground-level understanding of what customers actually need and what sales teams can realistically sell. That foundation has never left me. I learned to work backwards from the customer, challenge assumptions, and build business cases that connect customer pain points to real revenue.

Ways to work together

Focused engagements, built to leave something behind.

These are working engagements, not deliverables handed over from the outside. We don't do the work for your team; we guide your team as they do it, so what gets built is something they understand, own, and can operate long after the engagement ends: a vision, a validated prototype, a defensible roadmap, or a stronger way of leading. The work is collaborative and hands-on, built around your customers and your business.

Product Vision Sprint

Product Management

When a team can't say, in a sentence, who the customer is and what winning looks like, every meeting relitigates the same questions and the roadmap drifts.

This working-backwards sprint guides your team to a clear, customer-grounded product vision that they author. We facilitate the hard conversations, start from the customer and the problem worth solving, and help the team pressure-test its assumptions and shape a one-page vision the whole organization can rally behind. Your team walks away with a product vision document they wrote, a working-backwards narrative of the customer, the problem, and the outcome, and a set of guiding principles that make future trade-offs easier.

Best fit

Teams launching something new, aligning around a fresh strategy, or stuck relitigating direction because the vision lives in one person's head.

From Vision to Prototype

Product Management

The most expensive way to test an idea is to build it. Too many teams jump straight to engineering and learn what customers actually wanted only after the money is spent.

This engagement helps your team turn an approved vision into something they can put in front of real customers. We don't build the prototype for you; we work alongside your team as they surface the riskiest assumptions, shape a prototype of their own (a concept, a flow, or a clickable mockup), and design a plan to validate it before heavy investment. Your team walks away with a prototype they've built, a prioritized list of assumptions to validate, and a lightweight validation plan with clear success criteria.

Best fit

Teams with a vision or concept they believe in but haven't yet put it in front of customers, or leaders who want evidence before greenlighting a big build.

Backlog to Roadmap

Product Management

A backlog isn't a strategy. When everything is a priority, the loudest voice wins and the roadmap becomes a wish list no one can defend.

This workshop helps your team turn a crowded backlog into a prioritized, sequenced roadmap tied to business outcomes. We bring a shared scoring model and facilitate the team as they work backwards from customer value and revenue impact and sequence the work themselves, so they know what's in, what's out, and why. Your team walks away with a backlog they've scored and prioritized, a sequenced roadmap tied to measurable outcomes, and a repeatable prioritization framework they can keep using without us.

Best fit

Teams drowning in requests with no clear way to say no, or product leaders who need a roadmap they can defend to the business and sales can actually sell.

Leading with Authenticity

Leadership Coaching

The best products come from unlocked people, not managed ones. But most leaders were promoted for their output and never taught how to give a team real ownership.

This coaching engagement works with you or your managers on leading as yourself: giving people a genuine voice, pushing decisions to where the knowledge lives, and building the trust that lets curious, empowered professionals do their best work. You walk away with a clearer leadership approach, practical habits for empowering and scaling a team, and stronger executive presence and influence.

Best fit

New or growing product leaders stepping into bigger scope, or teams where talented people aren't yet operating with the autonomy they're capable of.

The background

Over a decade in the trenches, from Amazon to the boardroom.

$100M+

Portfolio P&L owned as SVP

10+ yrs

At Amazon: Kindle, Retail & AWS

45+

Largest distributed team led

$10M+

New revenue via AWS innovation centers

Leadership roles

SVP, Courses & Career Portfolio

Edmentum

2024–Now

Group VP, Product Innovation & UX

John Wiley & Sons

2021–24

Principal, Business Dev & Product

Amazon Web Services (CIC)

2018–21

Head of Product & Public Sector BD

Amazon Business

2016–18

Sr. Product Marketing & Head of BD

Amazon Kindle Education

2011–15

Where I go deep

Working backwards from the customer

Discovery, empathy, and real customer contact as the starting point for every roadmap.

Business cases that fund themselves

Connecting customer pain to revenue leadership can actually get behind.

Innovation at the edges

Partnerships with universities, innovation offices, EdTech firms, and economic development orgs.

Scaling teams & operating models

Building distributed, empowered teams across commercial and public-sector markets.

Client focus

Public Sector Publishing EdTech

The best products come from unlocked people.

Focused engagements, built to leave something behind.

Product Vision Sprint

From Vision to Prototype

Backlog to Roadmap

Leading with Authenticity

Over a decade in the trenches, from Amazon to the boardroom.

Leadership roles

Where I go deep

Working on a hard product problem, or building something new?