From billing milestones to institutional product choices

Mandate

Build a coherent product proposition with clear authority, scope and commercial obligations.

Outcomes

• Replaced an ambiguous renewal control with a preparation workflow
• Required fresh internal approval after material proposal amendments
• Revised proposed packaging to include read-only reviewers
• Declined an in-house valuation engine outside demonstrated capability

Decisions in context

The CPO appointment made me accountable for choices across the portfolio rather than for a single workflow. I brought research, product management and design into four management teams while preserving the CTO's separate engineering responsibility. Much of my work concerns the promise we make before implementation begins: what the user believes the product has done, what the institution remains responsible for and what the commercial package makes possible. I report to the CEO and present product matters to directors when invited, without serving as a director myself. The role has required me to defend slower or less lucrative options when the alternative would create a misleading proposition or an obligation we could not support. I want our managers to make that reasoning explicit, so a decision can be challenged on evidence rather than on my seniority or a client's enthusiasm.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; strengthening product decision-making across four management teams.

Mandate

Connect workflow design with implementation, packaging and continuing service commitments.

Outcomes

• Established joint reviews of product and implementation assumptions
• Documented the boundary between internal workflow and external execution
• Introduced portfolio decisions that distinguished common needs from client-specific requests

Decisions in context

Leading the portfolio changed the scale of my questions. A screen could work well for one institution and still create a poor common product if its meaning depended on a local process that other clients did not share. I built a ten-person product and design group and worked with implementation colleagues to understand which differences deserved configuration and which indicated a different need. We began reviewing packaging and service assumptions alongside features. I reported to the COO and had a defined function allocation rather than authority over company revenue or engineering delivery. Presenting these choices to the executive team prepared me for a broader role. It also taught me that a product decision is unfinished until the company can explain how it will support the promise after the initial release and how the client will know what remains its own responsibility.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CPO as the portfolio required a unified product leadership function.

Mandate

Turn observed treasury tasks into understandable and repeatable product workflows.

Outcomes

• Built scenario-based acceptance criteria for deposit inventory changes
• Separated user research findings from configuration requests
• Made scope exclusions visible in release and implementation notes

Decisions in context

I joined Sarnovel because I wanted to influence the choices that implementation teams were otherwise left to explain. My first portfolio covered deposit inventories and internal treasury proposals. I spent time with preparers and reviewers, asking them to describe their tasks rather than beginning with a feature list. Three analysts helped turn those observations into scenarios and acceptance criteria. Engineering colleagues decided how to implement the agreed behaviour within their own management structure. I learnt to be precise about the product boundary: storing a record was different from approving a proposal, and neither meant that an external transaction had occurred. The experience gave me a practical vocabulary for product decisions and showed me why exclusions must be explained as carefully as included features. That became the foundation for the broader portfolio role I took in 2016.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead the treasury-workflow portfolio and a larger product/design group.

Mandate

Translate client processes into configuration and realistic acceptance scenarios.

Outcomes

• Recorded process owners and approval assumptions before configuration
• Used realistic task scenarios in client acceptance sessions
• Documented recurring usability issues for the product team

Decisions in context

At Kelvori I moved from using business records to helping institutions adopt software that organised them. I mapped processes, prepared test scenarios and explained configuration choices. From 2007 I led four implementation colleagues, coordinating assignments and escalating questions that required a client's policy owner. We did not decide accounting treatment or treasury authority on the client's behalf. The most instructive sessions were those in which a demonstration appeared successful but a user could not explain what had happened next. I began keeping a record of recurring misunderstandings and discussing them with product colleagues. That work made me interested in the decisions made before a system reached the implementation team. After nearly six years, I accepted a product-management role where I could work directly on those choices and take responsibility for a common proposition across institutions.

Reason for the move

Moved into product management to address recurring problems before implementation.

Mandate

Keep commercial records aligned with orders, service milestones and customer acceptance.

Outcomes

• Linked billing schedules to documented service milestones
• Separated internal completion from customer acceptance in account records
• Coordinated outstanding-document reviews with service colleagues

Decisions in context

My first appointment began two months after completing a commerce degree. I prepared order documents and billing schedules, followed up missing acceptance paperwork and supported the commercial manager. From 2001 I coordinated three administrators across a group of accounts. I did not negotiate the major contracts or design the equipment. What I learnt was how different teams could use the same word for different states of work. A service visit could be finished while a commercial milestone remained incomplete. A schedule could be accurate in its own terms while misleading the next person who relied on it. I began helping colleagues make those distinctions explicit in our records. That interest in the relationship between a process and its representation led me towards software implementation, rather than a conventional progression through sales or account management.

Reason for the move

Joined a software company to work on the systems behind recurring commercial processes.