Vanessa EllisChief Product Officer · Essays & perspective
Portrait of Vanessa Ellis
Vanessa Ellis
Chief Product Officer · United States · Global perspective

A selected perspective

Product strategy2 min read

A roadmap should explain the trade-off

A feature list tells a team what has been requested, but not why one investment matters more than another.

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The portfolio

From idea to consequence.

I

Product portfolio focus

The product portfolio had become a collection of commitments without a shared view of customer value.

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II

Customer discovery

A proposed feature had strong internal support but an unclear user problem.

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III

Product adoption

A launch met its delivery milestone but required a clearer path to adoption.

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Product leadership is a discipline of choosing. I connect customer evidence with commercial judgement and technical possibility, so teams understand why an investment matters and what would cause us to change direction.

The journal

Further reading.

  1. 02

    Discovery2 min read

    Discovery needs a decision at the end

    Customer interviews and experiments should answer a question that matters to an investment.

  2. 03

    Portfolio2 min read

    Launch is the beginning of an adoption story

    Shipping a product moves the work into the customer's environment, where onboarding, expectations and existing habits shape its value.

Active customers
12 M
Across four product lines
Net Promoter Score gain
+46
After a discovery-led redesign
Products to $100 M ARR
3
From zero, in five years
Roadmap retired
70%
To focus on what customers valued

Beyond the page

The record behind the perspective.

In the boardroom

  • Lumen PaymentsNon-Executive Director · 2023 — Present
  • The Inclusive Design CollectiveAdvisory Board Member · 2021 — Present

Recognition

  • Product Leader of the YearThe Product Leaders Forum · 2024
  • Best Digital ExperienceThe Enterprise Technology Awards · 2022

In conversation

  • “Retiring 70% of the roadmap was the best decision we made”The Product Leaders Forum · 2025
  • “Discovery as a leadership habit”The Technology Leaders Review · 2024
  • “Episode 125 — The problem worth solving”The Leadership Ledger podcast · 2024
Gave the whole company a shared definition of what customers actually need.
Amara NwosuChief Executive, Lumen Payments
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