John Baker
Who are the top product managers in the industry, and what makes them so successful? How have they scaled the heights in the domain of product management? Are they all highly trained in technology? And is there something that all of them have in common?
This article will give you an answer to all the above questions. Read on and find out some of the leading product managers of current times and what lessons you can learn from them.
Here is a list of the top product managers and product management thought leaders.
1. Gibson Biddle – “Speaker, Teacher, and former VP, Product Management at Netflix & ex-CPO Chegg”
This veteran product leader started his career in the 90s when even the concept of product management was not in its current form and was just taking shape. He joined Netflix with close to 14 years of product management experience, and while he was there, the number of users grew from 2.5 Million to 12.8 Million.
He followed it up by working in Chegg for five years and achieved 5x revenue growth. He now spends time as a speaker, teacher, writer, and workshop host, always ready to share insights into product management.
2. Jules Walter – “Product Leader at YouTube”
A graduate of Harvard Business School and MIT, Jules is a highly experienced professional whose past experiences include being Director of Product at Storefront (the world’s leading short-term retail marketplace) and Product Leader at Slack.
Apart from being a startup and growth advisor, Jules is the co-founder of BlackPMs.com and the president of codepath.org.
3. Julie Zhou – Former Vice President of Product Design at Facebook, author of “(The Making of a Manager)”
Julie spent 14 years at Facebook, during which she rose from being a product designer to becoming the VP of Product Design. Besides having written a bestselling book, she also writes a product newsletter and various other blogs about the domain.
4. Sachin Rekhi – “Founder and CEO at Notejoy”
Sachin has formerly been a Product Manager with Microsoft and served as the Head of Product (Sales Solution)s at LinkedIn. Apart from having written more than 150 essays about the domain, he has a few courses curated purposefully for the budding product manager.
5. Diana Kimball Berlin – “Partner at Matrix Partners”
Diana started out in Product Management as an intern with Kickstarter while doing her MBA from Harvard Business School and gained popularity as one of the top product managers after her success as the Senior Product Manager at Soundcloud.
The ex-VP of Product at Quip shares her secrets of Product Management on her personal blog. Those of you with non-technical backgrounds can take inspiration from her, as she has made it big in the Product Management industry without an engineering degree.
6. Rajiv Srivatsa – “Co-founder of Urban Ladder, former Senior Product Manager at Yahoo!”
From being awarded the highest honour in Yahoo! worldwide to creating one of the most preferred destinations for reliable furniture, Rajiv has a wide range of experience with multiple products.
This experience and proficiency in the domain have led him to comment “The most successful product managers to follow would say 95% NO!”. The reason he gives behind this is that PMs must think before they agree upon something.
7. Jim Semick – “Co-Founder and Chief Strategist, Product Plan”
Having been in the product industry for over two decades, Jim has developed a knack for building and launching products with a high chance of succeeding in the market. As a mark of his deep interest in product management, he has founded a company that helps people create efficient roadmaps for their products.
He constantly keeps sharing content about the domain on social media platforms and engages with the community; hence, creating a healthy environment for dialogue about the same.
8. Jon Bell – “Product Lead at Netflix”
An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Jon manages a product that is used by a wide audience now. It means he knows how working under a public gaze is.
In his own words, he strives to mix innovation, design, data and technology to build solutions that add exponential value to our (human) existence. By following him, you will not only get a look at Netflix’s products but will also get a lot of life positivity from his feed.
9. Hiten Shah – “Co-Founder and CEO at Nira”
Hiten founded three successful SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, which alone is proof of his expertise in building great digital products. The UC Berkeley alumnus has a huge Twitter following and is also active on LinkedIn where he keeps sharing pearls from his experience.
10. C. Todd Lombardo – “VP of Product & Design at Openly”
In his own words, C. Todd is a Data nerd. Design geek. Product Fanatic. He has been the design and product strategy consultant for leading brands such as Spotify, FedEx, New York Times, etc.
Todd now uses his rich experience to build and mentor teams in the areas of product management and product strategy and has also authored some great product management books. One of those books is called “Product Roadmaps Relaunched”, considered the go-to book for everything related to product roadmaps.
11. Scott Belsky – “Chief Product Officer at Adobe, former CEO and founder of Behance”
Scott is an entrepreneur, author, and investor. He is currently responsible for overseeing product and engineering for Creative Cloud and design for Adobe. He had also founded Behance, an online platform for the creative industry, in 2006.
The platform now has over 25 million members. He is actively involved in advising founders and investing in businesses and is also the author of two national bestselling books.
12. Shreyas Doshi – “Ex-Product Manager at Stripe, Formerly with Twitter, Google, and Yahoo!”
After working with Silicon Valley giants like Twitter, Google, and Yahoo!, Shreyas worked as a Product Manager for internet publishing company Stripe for five years. Since 2021, he has been full-time in advisory roles helping various brands, and teams build brilliant products.
He keeps sharing insights about product management, strategy, leadership, organizational psychology, etc. on social media. He also tweets threads about deep product topics, which can teach a lot to everyone interested in the domain.
13. Lenny Rachitsky – “Founder and CEO of Localmind, formerly product leader at Airbnb”
Lenny created a company called Localmind with his team and scaled it to a level where it was acquired by Airbnb. He then gained success as the growth product manager at Airbnb, and now works for himself as a product writer and advisor. He also produces a regular newsletter, a great source of information about product, growth, and everything related to the domain.
14. Jackie Bavaro – “Author, Ex-Head of Product Management at Asana, formerly in product roles with Microsoft and Google”
Jackie has over 15 years of product management experience, with the most recent being more than eight years at Asana. She had taken up this role after working with giants like Microsoft and Google for more than six years and took Asana to $100 Million annual recurring revenue.
Jackie has also co-authored two bestselling books about product management – Cracking the PM Interview and Cracking the PM Career.
15. Lulu Cheng – “Former Product Lead of Discovery Team at Pinterest”
With more than a decade of experience as a product leader, she has now ventured into coaching people in product management. In her previous roles as a PM and a product leader, she helped scale some of the most famous apps in the world – Pinterest and drop box. Lulu was named one of the 52 Women Making an Impact in Product Management.
16. Hunter Walk – “Partner at Homebrew, Former Product Manager at Google, Head of Product at YouTube”
Scaling products is no big deal for this seasoned product manager, as he has previously built products that earn >$1Bn in annual revenue and generate over a billion daily page views. He led products at YouTube for four years (2007-11), during which time the traffic grew over 40x.
The Stanford alumnus has now been an angel investor for some time and also has a keen interest in sharing his product management knowledge and experience.
17. Ken Norton – “Executive Coach to Product Leaders, Former Director of Product Management at Google”
Before becoming a full-time coach, Ken spent 14 years at Google working on products like Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Mobile Maps, etc.
Now, as a coach, his clientele is Chief Product Officers or VPs of Product at venture-funded startups and large tech companies. One can learn a lot from Ken’s extensive experience in building highly successful products and coaching Product Director-level professionals.
18. Peter Yang – “Creator Product Lead at Reddit”
Currently working on bringing authentic, safe, and fun live conversations to Reddit, Peter has a vast experience in product development. A former employee of tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter, Peter is also the author of a book called – Principles of Product Management.
How to Land a PM Job and Launch Your Product Career. He writes a popular newsletter about building products in the creator economy and also offers an online course on the same subject.
19. Satish Kanwar – “VP, Product Acceleration at Shopify”
Satish leads strategic investments, acquisitions, and alliances at Shopify. Prior to this, he was the leader of Shopify’s expansion from online stores to multi-channel commerce, accelerating sales across e-commerce and retail and forming global partnerships with business leaders like Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Apple.
His credentials include being named in Forbes’ 30 under 30, and getting into this list for his product management success proves why he is one of the top product managers.
20. Dan Olsen – “Author, Product Management Trainer and Consultant, Former Group Product Manager, Intuit”
A trainer and consultant who helps companies build and optimise their products, Dan is passionate about building great products. His clients include Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, etc.
He has an MBA from Stanford University and a strong technical background with expertise in product management, UX design, analytics, and marketing. Apart from having authored the bestselling book “The Lean Product Playbook”, he has mentored and created several top product managers.
Conclusion:
We hope you liked our list of the top product managers, and our article answered all your questions about them. If you want to get deeper into the study of product management and are looking for a career in the field, check out the PG Program in Product Management and Analytics, which focuses on industry-oriented learning with the aim of creating top product managers for the future.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings