ProdCon 2023’s Speakers
Mick Mountz
Amazon Robotics | Former CEO and Founder, Kiva System, Inc.
Kiva System’s order-fulfillment solution deploys hundreds-of-thousands of mobile robots into ecommerce pick-pack-and-ship fulfillment centers and kicked-off the wave of robotics automation now sweeping the material handling world. Mick founded Kiva in January 2003 after spending time in high-tech product development, manufacturing and marketing at Motorola, Apple, and Webvan. In 2009 under Mick’s leadership Kiva was ranked #6 on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America, and in 2012 Fast Company recognized Kiva as the 23rd Most Innovative Company in the World. That same year, Amazon.com acquired Kiva and later renamed the unit Amazon Robotics. Mick holds over 40 U.S. technology patents and is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and National Academy of Engineering. He earned a BS in mechanical engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard and is now an active Boston-area technology advisor and seed investor working with innovative hardware-based startups.
Dávid Lakatos
Chief Product Officer, Formlabs
Dávid Lakatos is Chief Product Officer at Formlabs, overseeing all aspects of the company’s product development. Prior to joining Formlabs, Lakatos founded Sold., an automated peer-to- peer selling service that was acquired by Dropbox. He was a co-founder of FabLab Budapest, the first rapid prototyping lab in Central and Eastern Europe. A native of Hungary, Lakatos holds degrees in electrical engineering with a focus on nanosciences from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, as well as a M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.
Lee Weiner
Chief Innovation Officer at Rapid7
Lee brings a wealth of security and product leadership experience to Rapid7, where he is responsible for leading and driving the direction and delivery of Rapid7’s Assessment & Response product portfolio including Rapid7's cloud security strategy and delivery. Before becoming chief innovation officer he was VP of products at LogMeIn, Inc., a provider of cloud-based remote connectivity solutions. He has also held leadership roles at several software security firms, including Netegrity, Inc., IMlogic, Inc., and Symantec Corporation. Lee received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts.
Dev Bala
Ex CEO - Sentropy
Dev Bala has 20 years of product management experience leading teams and building products across the enterprise and consumer technology landscape. Dev’s area of expertise is in enterprise-grade software platforms; he has built and scaled products such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Docs, Nest, and Facebook Portal over a 17-year career in big tech. Most recently, he was the Chief Product Officer for Sentropy Technologies, a machine learning startup that built automated content moderation products for social media through the use of AI, ML, and NLP. Sentropy raised multiple rounds of funding and eventually had a successful exit to Discord in 2021; Dev then led the platform organization across Discord as part of the integration of the two firms. Dev is passionate about mentoring future generations of product thinkers - he is currently teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and was previously an Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science department at Washington University in St. Louis. Dev holds an MBA from MIT as well as a BS & MS in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis. Outside of work, Dev volunteers as an Assistant Coach for Stanford University’s Men’s Lacrosse team and lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and their two young children.
Eliseo Miranda
Group Product Manager, Gatik
Eliseo is a veteran of the autonomous driving industry having spent nearly a decade as an engineer and product manager for established automotive brands, EV start-ups, and AV companies like Jeep, Lucid Motors and Motional. In 2022, he was recognized by Business Insider as a "Power Player" of Self-Driving, honoring the most influential leaders in the space. During his time so far, Eliseo influenced the development of cutting-edge Advanced Driver Assistance systems across multiple engineering domains— including leading the charge on automated driving features for the 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year, the Lucid Air. He also played a key leadership role in developing a driverless robotaxi service as a Product Lead at Motional, guiding technical teams toward successful commercial and pilot deployments with partners like Uber and Lyft. Additionally, he was part of the original "Project Thor" team at Fiat Chrysler, tasked with standing up the company's first ever in-house autonomy stack. Eliseo is particularly known for his work in innovating product development processes, vehicle integration, perception algorithm development, and automotive sensors/electronics. Today, Eliseo is a Group Product Manager at Gatik, the market leader in autonomous middle mile logistics, where he continues to drive technical and commercial advancements in the autonomous driving industry. He's also active in the world of tech education as an Industry Advisory Board member for the Stonehill College Engineering Program and as an advocate for public education of automated driving features and safety. In addition to his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, he holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology."
John Ellsworth
Director, Boston Product Managment Association
John is a career software Product Management and Product Marketing professional and leader. He moved into Product from a Customer Support role early in his career and has since built Product Management and Product Marketing functions and teams at multiple organizations. John and his teams have brought dozens of products and releases to market, serving customers and users in Business Productivity, Sales Support, R&D, Financial, IT and Medical markets. John also currently serves as the Director of Mentorship for the Boston Product Management Association.
Vivek Farias
Professor, MIT Sloan
Vivek Farias is the Patrick J. McGovern (1959) Professor and a Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on the development of new methodologies for large-scale dynamic optimization under uncertainty, and the application of these methodologies to the design of practical revenue management strategies across various industries ranging from airlines and retail to online advertising. Farias is a recipient of the 2006 INFORMS MSOM Student Paper prize for a research paper judged to be the best in the field of operations management. A consultant in the finance industry, he most recently contributed to GMO LLC’s first successful high-frequency algorithmic trading strategy. Farias holds a BS in computer engineering from the University of Arizona, and a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Hugo Barra
CEO, Detect
Hugo Barra is the CEO and co-founder of Detect, a Connecticut-based startup building an at-home molecular diagnostics platform with over $150M raised in venture financing. Before Detect, Hugo led the Oculus division at Meta as Senior Vice President for 4 years and directed the company’s Virtual and Augmented Reality R&D portfolio and team of over 10,000. Before Meta, Hugo was Vice President of Global for Xiaomi in Beijing, China, where he was responsible for the company's P&L outside China, totaling 21 markets (incl. India, SEA, EU, Brazil) and paved the way to Xiaomi becoming the world's #2 smartphone manufacturer and the company's $54 billion IPO in 2018. Before Xiaomi, Hugo worked at Google for 6 years including as Vice President of Android product management, where he led the product team in developing the Android operating system, developer ecosystem and smartphone manufacturer alliances, reaching 1 billion users in 2013. Hugo holds two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, where he was also Senior Class President.
Deba Sahoo
Senior Vice President & Head of Product, Fidelity Investments
Deba is a Senior Vice President and Head of Product at Fidelity Investments based in Boston, MA. He currently leads a large cross-functional product organization that is focused on a portfolio of B2B products (incubation, 0-1, 1-100, and mature products). Prior to his current role, he has held senior leadership roles in Product, Strategy, Analytics, & Technology. He is a big evangelist of product mindset, both within Fidelity and across the industry. He was recently awarded to be among top global product leaders by Products That Count (one of the largest networks of product managers across the world). He is a member of Forbes Technology Council and a distinguished speaker, writer, & thought leader in areas of Product Management, Product Leadership, Digital Transformation, and Artificial Intelligence. He holds an MBA (Honors) from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) from National Institute of Technology (NIT), India.
Robin Chase
Co- Founder, Zipcar
Robin Chase is a transportation entrepreneur. She is co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the world’s leading carsharing network; as well as co-founder of Veniam, a network company that moves terabytes of data between vehicles and the cloud. In 2019, she co-founded her first nonprofit, NUMO, a global alliance to channel the opportunities presented by new urban mobility technologies to build cities that are sustainable and just. Her book is Peers Inc: How People and Platforms are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. She is Chair of the public company Tucows, and serves on the Dutch multinational DSM’s Sustainability Advisory Board. In the past, she served on the boards of the World Resources Institute, Veniam and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the French National Digital Agency, the National Advisory Council for Innovation & Entrepreneurship for the US Department of Commerce, the Intelligent Transportations Systems Program Advisory Committee for the US Department of Transportation, the OECD’s International Transport Forum Advisory Board, the Massachusetts Governor’s Transportation Transition Working Group, and Boston Mayor’s Wireless Task Force. Robin lectures widely, has been frequently featured in the major media, and has received many awards in the areas of innovation, design, and environment, including the prestigious Urban Land Institute’s Nichols Prize as Urban Visionary, Time 100 Most Influential People, Fast Company Fast 50 Innovators, and BusinessWeek Top 10 Designers. Robin graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow, and received an honorary Doctorate of Design from the Illinois Institute of Technology
Nancy Wang
Director / General Manager of AWS Data Protection
Nancy Wang is a Director of Product and Engineering / General Manager at Amazon Web Services, where she leads P&L, product, engineering, and design for its data protection and data security businesses. Passionate about advancing more women into technical roles, Nancy is also the founder & board chair of Advancing Women in Tech, a global 501(c)(3) nonprofit with 35,000+ members spanning three continents. Nancy is also a Venture Partner for Felicis Ventures, where she works with early-stage data infra and security companies on their product-market fit, market segmentation, and how to build products at scale.
J J Rorie
CEO, Great Product Management
JJ Rorie is founder and CEO of Great Product Management, a global advisory and training firm. She is the author of the book IMMUTABLE: 5 Truths of Great Product Managers. JJ has spent over fifteen years in product management, working with some of the world's largest companies including Riot Games, FedEx, Verizon, T-Mobile, Fiserv, American Hospital Association, Kaiser Permanente, RBC, and many others. She is Faculty at Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, teaching graduate and undergraduate level product management courses, and also hosts the Product Voices podcast where she interviews experts on important product management and business topics.
David Dame
Director of Accessibility, Microsoft
Dave is a seasoned technology executive who is passionate about designing and developing hardware and software for users of all abilities. He has extensive experience in design thinking, product management, and agile delivery. Dave is a champion for accessibility and builds high-performing teams fostering cognitive diversity and inclusion. Short Bio: In his role as Director of Accessibility, Dave is leading the accessibility portfolio for Surface Products aligning with Windows and product innovation roadmaps to empower users of all abilities. Dave is a leadership coach, enterprise agile product leader and trainer with over 20 years of experience, which he leverages to drive large-scale transformation in complex organizations. Focusing on building high performing teams, he has trained over 600 professionals in product management, leadership and agile delivery practices. Dave has worked with technology companies such as OpenText, PTC, and MCAP; in many cases improving delivery times by over 150%. Extended Bio: In his role as Director of Accessibility, Dave is leading the accessibility portfolio for Surface Products aligning with Windows and product innovation roadmaps to empower users of all abilities. Dave is a leadership coach, enterprise agile leader and trainer with over 20 years of product management and leadership experience, which he leverages to drive large-scale transformation in complex organizations. Dave’s practice focuses on scaling change by building up high-performing teams through training & empowering workforces – over the course of his career he has trained over 600 professionals in product management, leadership and agile delivery practices. He has worked with technology companies such as OpenText, PTC, and MCAP; in many cases improving delivery times by over 150%. Dave also spends a significant portion of his time coaching well-seasoned executives, and is very proud that he has played a role in the development of nearly 20 SVP-level and C-level executives.
Phill Deresa
Group Product Manager, Atlassian
Phill is a Group Product Manager for Data and Analytics, overseeing all data and analytics products for Atlassian G&A functions globally. Prior to Atlassian, Phill worked for Accenture on many different enterprise system implementations for government, utility and technology clients. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Phill moved to Palo Alto in 2015 and later Boston in 2019. While in Palo Alto he completed his Masters at Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley in Software Management.
Alexzandra Caldwell-Wenman
Senior Director of Product Management, Tableau at Salesforce
Alexzandra is a Senior Director of Product at Salesforce. She leads the Tableau Cloud Enterprise Growth Team and was previously responsible for Strategic Initiatives and Upgrades for Cloud Platform at Tableau. She has a successful track record of strategically growing product portfolios, piloting new product launches, and creating engaging customer experiences. She excels at executive stakeholder management and maintaining close, collaborative partnerships with both internal and external teams. Before her current role, she spent four and a half years working at Datasite as a Senior and later a Principal Product Manager. Prior to that she worked at a startup, When I Work. Her team was made up of developers, quality assurance, and user experience analysts. Her team worked to drive growth and engagement while delivering stellar customer experiences by leveraging qualitative and quantitative user insights in order to coordinate cross-team initiatives. She also worked as a Manager for QuickBooks Payroll on First Time Use and Retention at Intuit. Alex is a passionate problem solver who jumps right in and immediately looks for how to define a project and measure its success. She is constantly challenging and empowering her team to do their very best work. She knows that using data is the best way to create a great experience for the customer and she is excellent at interpreting this in order to communicate the insights with her team. For her Bachelor's degree, she attended the University of Iowa where she graduated with distinction. She then went to study Marketing and Strategy for her Master's at the University of California, Davis. During her studies, she was the Associated Students of Management Director of Marketing and a Co-Chair for the International Business Club.
Suresh Vittal
Chief Product Officer at Alteryx
Suresh Vittal is the chief product officer (CPO) of Alteryx and is responsible for the strategic vision of Alteryx’s leading analytics and data science innovation. Suresh leads the Product Management, Engineering and Development organizations, playing a critical role in the company’s cloud, data science and analytics automation product strategy. His experience driving cloud transformation for leading software companies is helping Alteryx make machine learning and artificial intelligence easily accessible to citizen users. Suresh embraces a product-led growth strategy and drives an innovation agenda focused on delighting customers and accelerating their transformation journeys. With over 20 years of experience at various size and stage companies, Suresh has led teams across platform and product strategy, product marketing, pricing, packaging and go-to-market strategy. Most recently, he was responsible for overseeing product management, product marketing and go-to-market strategy for Adobe’s Digital Experience business, including Adobe Experience Cloud, one of the most comprehensive set of applications helping brands drive digital transformation. Suresh joined Adobe through the company’s acquisition of Neolane in 2013, where he served as chief product officer. Before Neolane, he was instrumental in building and scaling the Customer Intelligence practice at Forrester Research, where his research agenda focused on enterprise marketing technologies, database marketing strategies and customer analytics. Prior to joining Forrester in 2006, Suresh spent several years working at SPSS and NetGenesis. An industry thought-leader, Suresh regularly speaks on digital marketing, cross-channel campaign management, the intersection of data and creativity and the future of real-time enterprises. Suresh holds a master’s degree in business administration from Greenwich College, The University of Hull in the United Kingdom, as well as a master’s degree of science in computer information systems from Bentley College.
Kie Watanabe
Group Product Manager, HubSpot
Kie Watanabe is the Group Product Manager for Payments at HubSpot. She is focused on driving growth and building great customer experiences to help small B2B businesses get paid quickly and easily from their CRM. Additionally, Kie oversaw teams and partnerships to deliver digital marketing tools, helping launch HubSpot’s Free CMS and Video products. Prior to HubSpot, she worked at several early-stage companies and was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Kie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago
Ryan Mason
Principal – BCG X
North America Growth Practice
Co-Leader
Ryan has years of experience leading teams in growth marketing, startup building, and corporate venturing with cross-functional disciplines in Consumer, Fintech, Insurance, & e-Commerce. Currently Ryan is a Principal with Boston Consulting Group's tech build unit, BCG X. Prior to re-joining BCG, Ryan built and installed a successful DTC Business Unit for Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) outpacing category growth by 300% during his tenure where he oversaw digital product, growth marketing, BI/Analytics, and Finance for a 30-person team. Earlier in his career, he was an early employee and Director/Vice President at VaynerX, a leading, award-winning digital marketing services firm. He has worked in ad-tech at a startup in NYC, SocialCode, and has also Co-Founded a Growth advisory firm which provided consulting services to consumer startups and digital natives from Seed to Series C in the NYC area.
Erik Holm
VP of Product Management, NewStore Inc
Erik Holm is a Vice President of Product Management at NewStore, Inc, and formerly held similar product leadership roles at Demandware and Salesforce. He is responsible for the strategic vision for NewStore’s omnichannel platform, with a focus on enabling direct to consumer brands to blend their digital and physical consumer experience. Erik is passionate about using his retail and technology experience to drive real innovation in the retail market
Sahil Joshi
Principal Lead, Google | Researcher, Product & Society, Harvard
Sahil Joshi is a Principal Analytical Lead at Google, where he helps lead strategy and analytics for a billion-dollar ecommerce ad sales business, supporting large retailers as they grow with Google products. He also co-leads Google’s Retail Sustainability team, where he helps identify opportunities to use Google products and data to help drive environmental sustainability for Google’s large retail customers. He was a researcher within Harvard’s Shorenstein Center’s Product & Society initiative, where he co-authored a case study on the Department of Education and led a study group. He has prior experience at KKR, Bridgewater, and Monitor Deloitte Consulting. He received his BA at Dartmouth College, his MBA at MIT Sloan, and his MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School. He currently serves on the alumni boards of MIT Sloan and the Harvard Kennedy