AI Career Boost

AI Career Boost is the world’s first AI-focused career accelerator helping more diverse leaders thrive in business roles for AI and Machine Learning projects. We provided courses, keynote speaking and consulting services.

AI Product Coach and Advisor | Founder | Making AI Careers Accessible

Reforge

Co-created Build & Design Conversational AI for product managers, design and user research leaders, consultants and founders. Understand AI by getting hands-on with this practical course taught by industry experts.

Reforge Partner

Amazon

Built and led a high-performing 26-person team that developed and launched the first Generative AI answers on Alexa, using transformer models (like those that underlie ChatGPT). Led several cross-functional teams of engineers and scientists for one of the world’s top Natural Language Processing research groups.

Principal Product Manager - Technical, Alexa AI - Web Information

International LEAP Network

LEAP is a private exclusive network for members of the #CareerLeap Program: executive leaders, entrepreneurs, and high achievers from around the world who inspire and drive growth and impact on themselves, their work and their communities.

Executive Member

Data|Product|Strategy

Helping clients become data-centric companies by harnessing the power of data at scale. Advising on AI/ML/Analytics use cases, team processes, architecture and change management. Exploratory Data Analysis, Data Quality Evaluations, Skills Gap Analysis, Architecture Reviews, Vendor Research and MVP Development.

Founder & Principal Consultant

PeopleHedge

At PeopleHedge, they are trying to solve the world's foreign exchange rate problems. PeopleHedge helps importers, exporters, credit unions, and community banks with foreign exchange services. Typically, they shave about a hundred dollars off the cost of an average transaction for the bank or credit union.

Corporate Board Member

Elsevier

Elsevier is an information and analytics company and one of the world's major providers of scientific, technical, and medical information. When Elsevier acquired Plum Analytics in 2017, I was responsible for the strategy and implementation of integrating PlumX metrics throughout Elsevier's suite of Research Product tools and publishing platforms, and the expansion of reliable metrics that matter throughout Elsevier's products.

Director of Product Management, Research Metrics

Plum Analytics

Plum Analytics uses modern metrics to help answer the questions and tell the stories about research.
We measure the impact of research online, including traditional measures like citations counts along with new metrics that showcase usage, social media activity or online commentary.

Director, Product Management

Amazon.com

Our team was responsible for analyzing and reporting on retail promotions and discounts run through the Amazon retail websites world wide. We used predictive analytics to highlight poor performing promotions, designing the groundwork for predictive recommendation systems for retail promotions.

Software Development Manager, Promotion Data Analytics

Part of the Amazon Community team, the Reviewer Motivation team's mission is to engage potential reviewers and to motivate them to use Amazon’s Community features in ways that provide helpful, confidence-inspiring content to Amazon shoppers. We aim to make providing product feedback fun and engaging!

Software Development Manager, Social Shopping Technology

Metafor Software

Metafor software was acquired by Splunk Inc. in 2015.

Established a customer discovery process for a new analytics product for data center operations teams. Created a 12-month product roadmap, minimum viable product recommendations and an interactive prototype based on the results of nearly 20 customer interviews and market analysis.

Product Manager - Anomaly Detection as a Service

I help Product Managers break into AI Leadership - no coding required! Ex-Alexa AI Principal Product Manager | Launched 1st GenAI Answers on Alexa | Top 100 Women of the Future Winner | Reforge Instructor | Speaker

Polly Allen has over 20 years experience developing software, building and leading software teams and most recently leading cross-functional science and engineering teams as a Principal Product Manager for Alexa AI at Amazon. Her expertise is focused in natural language use cases, such as search and discovery, natural language understanding and generation, and she led the development and launch of the first automatically-generated summaries of web content on Alexa in 2020. (And yes, it used transformer models like those that drive ChatGPT!)

As a leader in the intersection of Product Management and Machine Learning, she is passionate about DEI in the space and empowering more people to understand, leverage and participate in the field. She is an experienced angel investor and past corporate board member, has advised multiple startups, and speaks on panels and conferences about Product Management, Ethics and DEI in AI. She holds a M.Sc. in Software Engineering from MIT and the University of Victoria, and an MBA from the University of British Columbia.

Polly M Allen

If the future of AI belongs to the builders… what does that mean for leaders? Are we all supposed to become super-ICs now?

Do we need to learn to prompt, prototype, ship, and scale ourselves?Or is there a new kind of leadership emerging—one that knows how to guide builders, not replace them?

🔥 That was the heart of my session today at the Sidebar Spark Conference:
 Lead AI by Building: Driving Impact and ROI.

And WOW—Spark lived up to its name! I spent the day deep in conversation with senior leaders who are trying to answer the same question: How do we lead in an era where our teams are getting closer to the tech stack, the pace is accelerating, and “business as usual” is officially obsolete?

Here’s what we dug into together:
💡 Supporting your builder teams — how to create an AI-first culture where product and engineering can actually ship - inspired by goals that matter.
 🔎 Diving deeper into the tech stack — not to become an engineer, but to remove blockers, ask sharper questions, and accelerate outcomes.
 📈 Owning the right parts of the product, like evaluation — so leaders are driving ROI, not cheering on endless proofs-of-concept that never make it to users.

And honestly?

The best part was reconnecting AI Career Boost alumni and old friends, and meeting new ones who are doing truly exciting work.

Spark was a reminder that the leaders who lean in now—the ones who embrace the builder mindset—will be the ones who shape the next decade of product innovation.

Huge thanks to the Sidebar team for an energizing, beautifully run event - thanks so much for having me Ha Nguyen, Lexy Franklin and the whole Sidebar team!

 And to everyone I met on Wednesday: you absolutely made my day. 🔥
📸 Photos of brilliant humans below. Harsha Srivatsa Nico Posner Shampa Banerjee, PhD Marily Nika, Ph.D Subha Shetty Vanessa Garber Goldie Chan Evan LaPointe Vikash Rungta Arvita Tripati, MBA Jessica McLaughlin Anja Lee Laura Dunn

I help Product and Business Leaders thrive in AI Leadership - no coding required! Ex-Alexa AI Principal Product Manager | Launched 1st GenAI Answers on Alexa | Top 100 Women of the Future Winner | Reforge Instructor

No alternative text description for this image

In 2019, my director at Amazon Alexa set goals the team had no idea how to accomplish.

It felt wrong. People were nervous.

Then he explained the difference between watermelon goals and dragon fruit goals — and it changed how I think about goal-setting entirely.

Watermelon: Green outside, red inside. Looks good, no real impact.
Dragon fruit: Red outside, green inside. Uncomfortable, but transformative.

Steal the framework and revolutionize how your org thinks about innovation and AI goals 👇

I help Product and Business Leaders thrive in AI Leadership - no coding required! Ex-Alexa AI Principal Product Manager | Launched 1st GenAI Answers on Alexa | Top 100 Women of the Future

It's goal-setting season, and I keep having the same conversation with leaders trying to figure out how to set AI goals and build their AI strategy fo

Open article: Watermelon Goals vs. Dragon Fruit Goals: A Framework for Setting AI Goals That Actually Matter by Polly M Allen • 8 min read

Watermelon Goals vs. Dragon Fruit Goals: A Framework for Setting AI Goals That Actually Matter

In four days, it'll be three years since ChatGPT launched. In five days, it'll be three years since I founded AI Career Boost.

(If I could bottle and sell that market timing, I would!)

I could never have anticipated how world-opening, thrilling, and rewarding this journey would be.
Emerson wrote: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that you cannot sincerely try to help another without helping yourself."

When I started AI Career Boost, I thought the joy would come from doing meaningful work — helping senior product leaders navigate the transition into AI. And it has. But the deeper joy has been watching the people I work with go on to do meaningful, impactful work themselves. That's the real reward.
To everyone who's been part of this journey — thank you for everything you've brought to mine. I wanted to highlight just one project from our recently-graduated cohort of the AI Career Blueprint below (thanks Kirstin Hartos Maurer!)

If you're a product leader looking to make a big impact using AI, I'd love to have you join us. We're heading into 2025 with a Job Search Systems Sprint next week and freshly revamped content in our AI Momentum membership to help you stay ahead. 

Link in comments.

Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for a project that's deeply personal—and finally ready to share.

For the past several months, I've been building something called the ALS Care Companion: an AI-powered assistant designed to give ALS families instant access to reliable information about benefits, equipment, daily care, and emotional support—24/7, when they need it most.

Why this matters to me: My mom, Rita, was the primary caregiver for two family members who passed from ALS. She's also organized the annual ALS Minnesota Bike Ride since 2013, raising over $127,000 for ALS research. Watching her navigate the overwhelming maze of information while providing exceptional care taught me something important: every ALS family deserves someone like her in their corner. But not everyone has a Rita. This project is my attempt to change that.

Where we are: The platform is live at alscompanion.org. It's a fully functional AI assistant powered by a curated knowledge base built exclusively from trusted government sources and established organizations—including NIH, Social Security Administration, Medicare.gov, and ClinicalTrials.gov to name a few. No random internet content, only vetted sources. In December, I'm opening it up to a small group of ALS families for beta testing and feedback.

What I've learned: This journey has been a masterclass in applied AI. I've iterated through system prompts, built evaluation frameworks, wrestled with RAG architectures, and learned that the hardest part isn't the technology—it's ensuring every response is accurate, empathetic, and safe for people at their most vulnerable.

Gratitude: I couldn't have gotten here without incredible guidance along the way. Thank you to John Cutter for encouraging me to jump head first into AI up-skilling in the first place (that nudge set this whole journey in motion).  Thank you to Polly M Allen and my AI Product Leader cohort—this is my capstone project for that certification, and the feedback has been invaluable. Thank you also to Aishwarya Naresh Reganti and Kiriti Badam for their course on Building Agentic AI Applications with a Problem-First Approach, which gave me foundational skills I'm directly applying here.  

And most of all, thank you to my mom. You're the inspiration behind every feature.

Want to help? I'm looking for people who want to contribute—whether you have ALS caregiving experience, clinical expertise, AI/ML skills, or just want to support the mission. Reach out at kirstin@alscompanion.org.
🔗 alscompanion.org

In the fight against ALS, information should never be a barrier to care.
#ALS #HealthTech #AI #Caregiving #Thanksgiving #BuildInPublic

Open article: ALS Care Companion | Compassionate AI Support for ALS Families by alscompanion.org

ALS Care Companion | Compassionate AI Support for ALS Families

✨I’m so stoked to be speaking at Sidebar’s Spark Summit tomorrow!

There’s a big misconception I hear all the time from senior leaders about AI:

“I’ve got someone on my team who’ll do the building for me.”

Sorry, but when it comes to AI - it really IS different this time 😉

If you’re leading teams that are experimenting with AI, you can’t outsource understanding.
You don’t need to code — but you do need to get hands-on enough to ask better questions, evaluate what’s possible, and lead from experience, not theory.

That’s exactly what I’ll be sharing in my hands-on workshop tomorrow:
“Lead by Building: An AI Workshop for Senior Leaders Driving Impact & ROI.”

Because the fastest way to real ROI isn’t another strategy deck —
it’s rolling up your sleeves. If you’re coming - see you at my session at 1pm?

#SparkSummit #AILeadership #LeadByBuilding #AIProductManagement #AIROI

I've noticed something about the people who are actually getting ROI from AI.
They're not smarter. (Sorry folks, but you know it's true!)
They don't have better tools. Or more tools.
They just... started. BEFORE they felt ready.
Meanwhile, the people still "researching" are stuck in the same place they were six months ago, with more bookmarks and less confidence.
The difference isn't capability. It's the story we tell ourselves about what we need before we're allowed to begin.
This week's newsletter is about that story — and how to stop believing it.

Have you noticed how much time we spend preparing to do things instead of actually doing them? With AI tools, it looks like: "Should I use Replit or L

Open article: AI: The Real Reason You Haven't Started Yet by Polly M Allen • 5 min read

AI: The Real Reason You Haven't Started Yet

When people worry about “AI replacing jobs,” they're usually missing the real story: most teams aren’t struggling because work is hard; they’re struggling because systems are broken.

In this week’s episode with Sanjay Robson, he makes this point beautifully. His team wasn’t trying to cut roles; they were drowning in outdated processes, compliance reviews, and manual tasks no one had time for. AI didn’t replace people. It replaced the noise so they could finally focus on meaningful work.

What broken system in your org could be an AI win?

🎬 Watch the full episode with Sanjay here: https://lnkd.in/gphg7E4V

#AIProductLeader #ProductManagement #BuildWithAI #AIPodcast #Podcast #TechLeadership

The #1 most rewarding thing I’ve experienced while launching and building AI Career Boost over the last 3 years? Seeing our program participants soar and the inspiring, impactful things they’ve built with AI.  Rob’s solution for at-risk youth found ways to mitigate the risks associated with AI and bring out the best in it - building trust with creativity. Excited to see what you build next Rob Pieiga - wherever you land, they are lucky to have you!

Senior Product Manager / Product Owner | Founder | Financial Services (life, insurance, superannuation) & Regulated Industries | AI Product Leadership | Digital Transformation & Customer Experience

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆: 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁

Professional growth is a continuous journey, and I’m proud to mark a significant step forward with the completion of the AI Career Boost – 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 Program & Certification, led by Polly M Allen.

Over eight weeks, I explored the critical balance between 𝗔𝗜 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆, 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

We focused on the leadership decisions that shape successful AI products — defining success metrics, setting 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀, ensuring 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆, and applying strategic patterns like 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹-𝗔𝘂𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗥𝗔𝗚) and 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗜 to solve complex business problems.

The rapid prototyping for the capstone project was both the biggest challenge and the most rewarding takeaway. In a compressed timeframe, I applied end-to-end product thinking — from ideation and evaluation through to validation — to design and build 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗱𝘆𝗕𝗼𝘁, a 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻.

This work wasn’t just technical. Exploring the sensitive area of youth mental health meant going deeper into 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸, 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀, ensuring that the design aligned with principles of 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆.

It was fantastic to learn with and from an 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 of professionals. The diversity of roles, industries, and experience made for rich discussions and valuable collaboration — thank you all for sharing your insights so generously.

A special thank you to Polly M Allen for leading the program with such deep knowledge, insight, and practical experience, and for delivering it in an engaging and inspiring way.

And thank you to the AI Career Boost 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 for keeping everything running smoothly — from scheduling to communication — and making the whole experience seamless.

This experience has strengthened my confidence in leading products that harness AI both effectively and responsibly. I’m looking forward to applying this refined skill set to the next chapter of product challenges.

If you are interested in the course you can find more details here  - https://lnkd.in/gqpXiSKU

#AIProductLeadership #ResponsibleAI #GenerativeAI #ProductManagement #AICareerGrowth #LearningJourney #AI

Excited to be speaking to top product leaders in Canada on Thursday, Jan 27th! We'll be discussing 5 important mindset shifts leaders need to adopt to drive impact and ROI when it comes to AI, based on my experience working with thousands of product leaders across North America and my own experience driving innovation and AI adoption at Amazon's Alexa AI. Come ready for an interactive workshop - you'll bring home actionable insights you can start implementing on your team right away!

B2B SaaS product leader working with early stage companies | Driving tech innovation with AI

As a Product Leader do you have questions about AI? Of course you do. We all do. AI is changing how we understand our customers, how we build products, how we manage our work, and how we deliver value.

I am excited about our next Product Leaders Exchange (PLX) event. Polly M Allen will join us to talk about how to drive adoption and impact with AI. I hope you can join us.

📆 On Thursday, November 27 we will be hosting a presentation by Polly Allen focused on how we as product leaders can drive adoption and impact with AI. As the former Principal Product Manager at Amazon’s Alexa AI, Polly Allen led the launch of the first Generative AI answers on Alexa in 2020. In this talk, she’ll explore the five critical mindset shifts that high-impact AI product leaders are making to navigate this new AI landscape.

👉 To see full details about this event and register:

Open article: The AI Mindset for ROI: 5 Shifts to Drive Adoption and Impact · Zoom · Luma by luma.com

The AI Mindset for ROI: 5 Shifts to Drive Adoption and Impact · Zoom · Luma

Excited to be joining my Canadian product folks for great session tomorrow!

Executive coach & advisor | Transformation catalyst | Chief Product Officer

I am excited to be hosting this event with Polly M Allen tomorrow, November 27.     The AI MIndset for ROI: 5 Shifts to Drive Adoption and Impact. 

At Product Leaders Exchange, we are bringing the community of 🇨🇦 Canadian product leaders together to create connections and accelerate growth. 

And to my 🇺🇸 American friends, you are most welcome to join! But I think the priority for tomorrow is 🦃 turkey and 🏡 family and 🙏🏾 gratitude. Enjoy your beautiful day.

#ProductLeadership #AI #Canada

🎉 Blueprint Alumni Spotlight: Meet Courtney Kingsbury— the builder behind Verity

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by AI tools (“Which do I choose? Where do I start? Why does every tool promise the moon?”) … this video Courtney created captures that pain perfectly.

And then she does something even better:

She shows what clarity actually looks like.

Her AI Career Boost Blueprint capstone project — Verity — tackles one of the biggest problems I hear from small business owners and product leaders alike: AI is everywhere, but the guidance isn’t. You don’t need 200 tools. You need the right workflow and the right decisions at the right time. With confidence you aren't taking stupid security risks with your data.

This video? 👇 It’s such a sharp demonstration of that!
(It also makes me look way cooler than I am, which I deeply appreciate 😂)

What blows me away is that she built all of this inside our 8-week program — taking a messy, real-world problem and turning it into something elegant and genuinely useful.
💛 Proud coach moment.
 💪 And even prouder to see her stepping confidently into product leadership.

If you’re hiring for a Product Director who actually builds, not just talks about AI…
 👉 Reach out to her. She’s the real deal. 
(Full video link in comments!)

Meet Bob Thompson. Bob has grown his company for the past 30 tears.

He's smart. He's capable.

But right now Bob is terrified.

Joe Sessions, COO and co-founder of OptimAIz, shares how stripping away unnecessary complexity has been his secret to building better AI solutions. From rewriting Algebra 1 in five pages to simplifying automation workflows, his message is clear: AI success starts with clarity, not code.

🎬 Watch the full episode with Joe here: https://lnkd.in/g3AKxJ7e

#AIProductLeader #AIProductManagement #LeadershipInAI #AIMindset #ProductLeadership #AIforBusiness #AutomationStrategy

Joe Sessions explains why small, meaningful AI automations beat big experimental bets. “If you ever find yourself doing repetitive work, that’s your signal. Automate it.” His no-fluff approach to AI adoption reminds us: progress beats perfection every time.

🎬 Watch the full episode with Joe here: https://lnkd.in/g3AKxJ7e

#AIAutomation #AIProductLeader #WorkSmarter #AIForProductManagers #AIBusiness #AIExecution #ProductLeadership

What am I thankful for? Being a part of empowering AI-first leaders who build like Courtney Kingsbury. Inspiring work from our AI Career Boost grads!

My husband asked his dev friends to build him an app.

For 15 years.

I did it in under an hour.

I don’t code or program. I’m just a scrappy tinkerer. Junior dev at best.

He wanted alerts for when to open and close the windows based on outside temperature vs his preferred range. Simple idea, but never urgent enough for anyone to actually build.

I used Claude Code. Described what he wanted. Mockup to production before lunch.
15 years of asking. One hour of tinkering.

Here’s the thing: I’ve spent my career translating between engineering and stakeholders. It’s what I’m best at. But I kept hitting a wall. You can only bridge a gap so well when you’ve never stood on the other side.

So I started building. Tinkering. Learning what engineers actually deal with.

Now I get to be the PM and the engineer. And it’s made me better at both.

That’s why I keep doing this. Not to become a developer. To become a better translator.

If you’re looking for a Product Director who actually builds, let’s talk. 

courtneykingsbury.com

Open article: Courtney Kingsbury | Product Director by courtneykingsbury.com

Vibe coding isn't just empowering a new set of people to be developers. It's enabling them to be a part of building the future.

Need an example? Sarah Hackett 🏳️‍🌈 is building a new AI wedding concierge - and early feedback was that a traditional loveable.dev 'dashboard' view was too overwhelming. This redesign highlights how an art director and creative strategist thinks differently that any traditional 'developer'; instead of being stuck in a paradigm of chatbots vs. web apps, she's thoughtfully looked at how a high end concierge look, behaving and FEEL to the user. Pushing the boundaries and creating new UX patterns - these are some of the changes I'm most excited about!

(and if you have an upcoming wedding, hit Sarah up! She's looking for beta testers!)

Art Director & Creative Strategist | Ex-The Martin Agency, &Walsh + Billie

Vibe coding is super empowering for a non-software engineer but it can take a looooooong time...

This week I created a more conversational homepage.
Pretty happy with it for now. Always more to do!

_________________________________________________________
#buildinpublic #Lovable #NoCode #IndieBuilder #Pinch #UXDesign #VibeCoding

Product and business leaders who want to lead AI at their orgs need to get hands-on. Full stop. It's been an exciting week at AI Career Boost seeing the final capstone projects from our latest cohort of product leaders equipped to lead confidently, by example, in the AI era! Congrats Phillip Fairbrother!!

Product Leader | Driving AI Innovation, Experimentation, and Customer-Centered Growth

Excited to share that I'm a certified AI Product Manager! The AI Product Leader Blueprint from AI Career Boost is a transformative #AI #productmanagement experience, where I gained vital AI skills for real-world applications. Excited for new opportunities in AI #innovation!

I had an opportunity to work with a ton of incredible AI Product Leaders over the last 8 weeks and learn a LOT about what goes into managing Generative AI products. I built prototypes, 'vibe-coded' full products, including multiple chatbots, RAG systems, and agentic ecosystems with multiple AI agents working together to accomplish tasks. I whole heartedly endorse working with Polly M Allen and the folks at AI Career Boost

Feel free to check out some of my work at https://fairbrother.ai/ and let me know what you think! Excited to be part of this new digital frontier. 

Certificate: https://lnkd.in/e2c4M43K

The number of PMs stuck in “which tool should I use?” mode is… a lot. And it’s slowing people down more than any technical skill gap.

Sanjay Robson, said it best: just pick something and start. Replit, Base44, Lovable — none of them matter if you’re not actually building.

The fastest learners in AI are the ones who treat tools like gym equipment. Try one, switch when you outgrow it, keep moving.

Momentum beats perfection every single time.

🎬 Watch the full episode with Sanjay here: https://lnkd.in/gphg7E4V

#AIProductLeader #ProductManagement #BuildWithAI #AIPodcast #Podcast #TechLeadership

AI won’t solve your workflow gaps if you're still thinking in last year’s playbook. In this week’s episode, Daryl Teo shared how his entire AI shift started with one move: changing the way he approached problems before touching any tools. Instead of jumping into solutions, he asked, “What would this look like if AI were my first teammate?” That simple shift changed everything for him, and it can do the same for any product leader trying to stay ahead. Curious what that looks like in real teams?

🎬 Watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/geM5343N

#aiproductleadership #aimindsetshift #aiproductmanagement #techleadership

I’m happy to share that I recently obtained a new certification: Certified AI Product Leader from AI Career Boost!  It was a great balance between strategic content and hands-on practice. It's been a solid foundation for navigating practical use cases and understanding the accelerating pace of development in this space.

Unlock Your Early Bird Perks 🔓

Join our newsletter today to unlock exclusive access to course discounts, early bird perks, and other special opportunities. Don't miss out—sign up here: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g-wzUdTQ

Niamh Redmond

UX Research, Design & Product Strategy (contract consulting)

Nova Ray Consulting

Exec-level operating partner helping clients focus and prioritize, improve quality, innovate, craft zero-to-one products and enhance existing offerings. Our approach starts with gaining a deep understanding of your business, customer/ user needs, your team, and the market. We prioritize creativity and human-centricity.

We help leaders with:
• Customer & Product Discovery
• Testing assumptions + hypotheses
• Product-market fit
• Traction + driving growth
• Improving retention
• Scaling sustainably, up-skilling, and retaining team members

By guiding or conducting customer discovery, UX research, and product strategy, I provide actionable insights that empower evidence-based decisions, reduce costs, and improve teams’ experiences to drive revenue growth, expand market share, and enhance performance.

🌍  Trusted by Industry Leaders:
I’ve partnered with companies like MetaLab, Stripe, and Facebook/Meta, as well as ambitious start-ups, scale-ups and other organizations to drive impactful results and enhance product offerings.

Expertise includes:

• From SaaS (B2B & B2C) through to enterprise tech & Fortune 500s, and other orgs such as healthcare, and airports.
• CleanTech, Energy/Utilities, ClimateTech, HealthTech, MedTech, FinTech, eCommerce, AI/ML, XR/AR/VR/MR, IoT, and conversation design.
• Software, hardware, and hybrid product development (physical/digital).
• Digital transformation, accessibility, and inclusive design for airports, government, education, and not-for-profits, including a Gates Foundation-backed start-up (DEIB-AR).

Results:

• Informed decision-making
• Stronger competitive positioning
• Customer-centric, outcome-focused roadmaps
• Intentionally designed offerings to boost satisfaction, retention, and loyalty

Leadership:
Founded by Niamh, an experienced product strategist, design and UX research leader, she offers advisory and fractional CxO (CSO/CPO/CDO). Our studio arm or partners can occasionally provide hands-on support.

Founder & Principal

Various Startups

Dedicated to early-stage companies and high-growth organizations, I prioritize understanding your unique challenges as a strategic partner. Whether you need expertise in product strategy, customer discovery, UX and product design, branding/marketing, or operations (team alignment, up-skilling, scaling,) I collaborate closely with leadership to drive impactful outcomes. Our motivation lies in transforming ideas into actionable results and impact. 

Recently wrapped up an engagement with a HealthTech start-up in stealth mode who are transforming individualized care with Causal AI. Worked with their CCO (Chief Clinical Officer) and founding designer- they provide personalized care for patients self-managing their cancer treatments as they are developing solutions for the specialty pharmaceutical industry to predict treatment outcomes and identify each patient's unique needs by utilizing medical, social, financial, and environmental data.

Current clients include:
TechStars
VOLTA
Passage
Other client engagements that are not under NDA/confidential can be discussed with qualified leads.

Fractional CxO / Advisory: Strategy, Product, Discovery Coaching & Design Leadership

Volta

"Volta is Canada's largest East Coast Innovation hub and Co-Working Space. We connect tech entrepreneurs with programming, resources and space to scale and grow their companies in the tech and innovation ecosystem."

Start-up Advisor: Product Strategy/Leadership & Discovery

Passage

Head of Strategy & UX / Fractional Product & Design Leader. I provide fractional, advisory and hands-on services to Passage clients; those building hardware and software products- from pre-seed to large businesses. I've collaborated on numerous projects since 2021 across various industries, including MedTech, Consumer & Hardware products, and CleanTech/ClimateTech. I have also worked in Principal level IC roles. My work has included proposal input and client pitches, through to customer discovery, product strategy, UX research and experience / product design direction. Passage also boasts valuable partnerships, including leading San Francisco and Silicon Valley based Mechanical Engineering & Industrial design firms.

“ The real world needs better real-world design. Passage brings software applications and platforms to life for a host of businesses—from startups to enterprise companies. Specializing in clean technology and the medical space, with deep experience across many categories, we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work for you. 

Years of expertise. Hundreds of projects. Brands from Logitech to GM. At Passage, we are design professionals who have honed our skills on some of the most noted software and hardware design projects around. We combine talent and know how with a pragmatic get-to-it mindset to help your business succeed and go further, faster. 
Fellow
Logitech
InVision
Jaybird
Avail
Borrego
WeWork
Ultimate Ears
Samsung
Herman Miller
Savant
August Smart Home
Riviera Partners”

Fractional Head of Strategy & UX

Women's Equity Lab

Limited Partner, Investor (Toronto & Atlantic Canada)

Techstars

Techstars have invested in more than 3,700 early-stage startups.
"As one of the largest pre-seed investors in the world, our portfolio is as diversified as our 8,600 founders are unique - from HealthTech and FinTech, to Web3 and CleanTech; from Miami and Silicon Valley to Lagos and London.

We support many of the world's best entrepreneurs with access to capital, mentoring, finding customers, hiring talent, choosing the right infrastructure, and much more!"

Mentor

Stripe

Partnered with head of Product, and Staff Designer on a new Commerce solution: A complete payments platform for ecommerce. “Stripe provides all the tools you need to accept payments online and in-person from customers around the world. Plus, our platform maximizes conversion and reduces fraud using machine learning. Companies like Wayfair, Peloton, & Warby Parker choose Stripe to scale & grow their revenue.”

https://stripe.com/en-ca/use-cases/ecommerce

(Freelance role- engagement to cover an-in house person’s leave.)

Product Discovery & Experience: Principal UXR

MetaLab

"We make interfaces. We're the team behind interfaces that billions of people click, tap, pinch, and zoom every day. You may not have known it at the time, but you’ve probably used something that we designed. Since '06, we’ve helped some of the world’s coolest companies build products & services that are attractive, thoughtful, & enjoyable to use. Slack, Coinbase, TED, Apple, Disney, & Google, to name a few. "

UX Research Insights & Product/ Design Strategy (contractor)

Antenna Consulting Ltd.

I occasionally work on select engagements for Vancouver’s leading UX placement/staffing-style agency; Anthony helps organizations by placing specialists that are freelancers / independent contractors as experienced user experience (UX) strategists, designers, and researchers on a project basis. Reach out if you would like an intro!

Principal-level UXR, Staff -> Principal Designer

Microsoft

Product Management & Product Design Coach, Mentor | Microsoft Garage

Founder & Principal at Nova Ray Consulting: Customer Discovery, Product Strategy, UX Research & Design | Advisory, Fractional CxO

Ex-operator, helping current operators. I have had the good fortune to work with some great people across various industries. Having worked with Enterprise tech, Fortune 500 companies, and scale-ups, to coaching start-up and early-stage companies, and other organizations, I have a proven track record of orchestrating product development and driving strategic design, ensuring that user insights are central to innovation processes. 

I'm a strategic, entrepreneurial, and collaborative leader with 20+ years of experience in technology, product strategy, UXR, experience/ design leadership, marketing & communications, and digital/business transformation. I work with clients through advisory engagements, as a fractional partner, or, as a strategist and hands-on consultant. 

My experience includes uncovering customer/ user/ human needs, applying systems thinking, advising about scaling teams & crafting product, service, and brand experiences that foster both innovation and sustainable growth.

🌎 Journey: From individual contributor roles to management (Sr. Director -> Head of / VP Level)- at fast-paced startups-> scale-ups, world-class product + design studios, and larger enterprises. I have transitioned into independent, advisory and fractional capacities, providing high-level strategic direction but with a great mix of hands-on abilities. I have worked in Europe, across North America (U.S. & Canada) and with teams / customers globally.

🤖 Diverse Industry Experience, with breadth and depth: My expertise spans Emerging Tech, Digital Transformation, CleanTech, Energy/Utilities, ClimateTech, Blue & Green Economy, HealthTech, MedTech, FinTech, eCommerce, Social & MarketingTech, AI/ML, XR/AR/VR/MR, IoT, conversation design, and more -> enhancing my ability to adapt and innovate across sectors.

🖼️ End-to-End Experience Design: I have worked on engagements in software, hardware, and hybrid product development, with a focus on digital transformation.

🫆 Human-Centered Innovation: My approach to innovation prioritizes user needs and customer / patient / employee / guest experiences, in all design processes.

💡 Innovative Product Development:
My experience in product strategy, customer discovery, UX research and product design, marketing and branding has successfully transformed insights into actionable strategies that enhance product offerings and engagement.

🤝 Advisory & Investment in Innovation:
As an advisor, mentor and sometime angel investor, I actively support startups focused on sustainability and innovation; people solving real problems, purposefully.

Principal & Founder - UX & Product Research/ Insights, Strategy & Design

I work as a Principal-level consultant on a fractional basis to partner with client organizations. Clients include: Stripe, MetaLab, Facebook, Meta, Lululemon, Microsoft, Pluralsight, Telus, Hootsuite, The University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, the BC & NS Governments, the Law Society of BC, and Toronto International Airport.

I can also leverage my extensive industry experience and network, to stand-up and collaborate with small teams, as needed. I'm able to draw on some the best UX talent across North America, or alternatively am happy to evaluate your needs, and make recommendations or introductions to larger, world-class UX agencies and product innovation studios; when other skillsets or additional resourcing is required. I am also available, on a limited basis, as a coach/mentor. 

I have spoken at industry conferences and/or served as a judge at events, including:

• TechConnect, NL.
• To students at SFU’s school of interactive arts and technology (SIAT), Emily Carr, Vancouver Film School, UBC, and at Hackathons
• Vancouver Startup Week
• Vancouver UX Awards
• Hootsuite's first Tech Talks series, 2016.
• Hootsuite's Unconference, company kick-off, 2015.
• Guest speaker at UBC Sauder’s BCom & Early Career Masters programs 2010 - 2013. 
• Defuse Dublin, organised by the IxDA Ireland. 2009. 
• Founded/ organised the Refresh Dublin design conference, 2009. refreshingcitiesdublin.org

I have run my own consulting firm since 2013 full-time, bar a 3 year stint when I went in-house for a role at a Canadian technology scale-up, which I was headhunted for. I have sat on advisory committees, helping design programming at the University level in continuing studies and exec. ed. I have also served on Boards of Directors.

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Niamh Redmond

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