Est. 2008

Chief Product Officer · Japan · Global perspective

September 2026 edition

Noriko Fujita

Finding the customer problem worth building for.

Leading article

Finding the customer problem worth building for.

I lead product organisations at the intersection of customer problems, business ambition and technical possibility. My focus is on helping teams make considered choices about what deserves to be built, what should be learned first and what should be stopped.

I see a roadmap as an expression of judgement, not a list of promises. Discovery and delivery belong in the same operating system: evidence from customers should change priorities, and the consequences of those priorities should be visible to the business.

I build relationships between product, engineering, design and commercial teams so that the organisation can make trade-offs together rather than negotiate them late in delivery.

Continued on the profile page →

From the desk of Noriko

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.

— Noriko Fujita

In this edition

Product strategy

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.

Product strategy · September 2026 · 2 min read

Portfolio

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.

Portfolio · March 2026 · 2 min read

Dispatches from practice

Case 01

Product portfolio focus

The product portfolio had become a collection of commitments without a shared view of customer value. I worked with commercial and engineering leaders to identify the problems each initiative addressed, the evidence behind them and the capacity required. We reduced competing priorities and gave each remaining investment an explicit learning objective.

Case 02

Customer discovery

A proposed feature had strong internal support but an unclear user problem. We ran a focused discovery programme with customers, observed the work surrounding the request and tested a smaller proposition. The findings changed both the product scope and the way the team described the value to customers.

Case 03

Product adoption

A launch met its delivery milestone but required a clearer path to adoption. I brought product, customer success and sales into a common review of onboarding friction, usage signals and customer expectations. Product decisions were then informed by the whole customer journey rather than release completion alone.

The full record of leadership work →

Appointments

Lumen PaymentsNon-Executive Director · 2023 — Present

The Inclusive Design CollectiveAdvisory Board Member · 2021 — Present

Honours

Product Leader of the YearThe Product Leaders Forum · 2024

Best Digital ExperienceThe Enterprise Technology Awards · 2022

As reported in

The Product Leaders Forum“Retiring 70% of the roadmap was the best decision we made” · 2025

The Technology Leaders Review“Discovery as a leadership habit” · 2024

The Leadership Ledger podcast“Episode 125 — The problem worth solving” · 2024

The record

Chief Product OfficerAldermoor Group · 2020 — Present

Vice President, ProductFairhaven Holdings · 2016 — 2020

Director of Product, GrowthLumen Payments · 2013 — 2018

Senior Product ManagerKestrel Systems · 2008 — 2013

Letters to the editor

“Gave the whole company a shared definition of what customers actually need.”
Amara Nwosu, Chief Executive, Lumen Payments
“Says no with more clarity and kindness than anyone I know.”
Felix Brandt, Chief Technology Officer, Kestrel Systems

An invitation

Correspondence welcome.

Noriko welcomes conversations with boards, chairs, search advisers and editors.

Open to
  • Board appointments
  • Advisory roles
  • Speaking invitations

office@norikofujita.example