Product Talk

Why do 85% of AI projects fail, and how can product leaders beat the odds? In this episode of the Product Talk podcast, host Denise Hemke sits down with Greg Nudelman, product and UX leader and creator of the Snowball Sprint, to unpack why AI initiatives break down and what it really takes to build AI products that succeed. Drawing on real-world examples from cybersecurity, enterprise AI, and IoT,...

How can product leaders turn today's climate urgency into scalable hardware and software solutions that attract capital, unlock long-term energy storage, and build the diverse teams needed to make it all work? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse...

How should product leaders rethink pricing in an AI-driven world where value, speed, and automation are constantly shifting? In this podcast hosted by EY Platform Operations Lead Justin Leibow, Decisionalpha CEO Etinosa Agbonlahor speaks on behavioral economics and the evolving psychology of pricing. She explores how companies can move beyond cost-plus models, design pricing as a strategic feature...

What really breaks when a company scales and why do proven playbooks suddenly stop working? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Apollo.io CPO Bela Stepanova speaks on what it takes to scale from $40M to $200M ARR and beyond. Drawing from her experience scaling multiple high-growth companies, Bella unpacks the mindset shifts, product strategy changes, and organizatio...

How do you build an AI product that delivers real value long before AI becomes a buzzword? In this podcast hosted by Products That Count CEO Hoda Mehr, Amplitude Head of AI and former Kraftful Founder Yana Welinder speaks on building AI-native products, staying relentlessly focused on real customer problems, and navigating the journey from startup to acquisition. Drawing from her experience taking...

What if the most important part of product management has nothing to do with roadmaps, features, or technology? In this podcast hosted by Rachel Owens, Meta Product Leader Rick Sanchez speaks on why clarity is the most critical responsibility of a product manager. Drawing from a career spanning media, gaming, consulting, and AI-driven products, the conversation explores how great product leaders c...

How do you move from shipping features to building a product vision that actually drives growth? In this podcast hosted by Huntress Director of Product Nisarg Desai, American Express Vice President of Product Management Jose Quesada shares how he approaches product vision and strategy for one of the world's most scaled B2C platforms. Jose breaks down the difference between vision and strategy, how...

How do you turn messy, unstructured healthcare data into real-time intelligence that actually improves care? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis Vice President of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Datycs CEO Dr. Srini Rao shares how his career spanning AI at IBM, global telecom infrastructure, and healthcare data engineering led him to tackle one of healthcare's hardest problems: making unstructured clin...

How do you decarbonize the world's most emissions-intensive industries at the speed climate science demands? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global en...

How do you scale generative AI in healthcare without sacrificing trust, transparency, or governance? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis Vice President of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Cognizant Senior Director Elliot Papadakis shares how Cognizant is building and operationalizing an AI gateway that sits at the center of its responsible AI strategy. Elliot discusses embedding generative AI into payer...

What does it take to create an AI product that becomes part of someone's workflow for good? In this podcast hosted by Products That Count CEO Hoda Mehr, Grammarly/Superhuman Chief Product Officer Noam Lovinsky breaks down the company's bold shift from a writing assistant to a multi-product ecosystem spanning agents, email, documents, and more. He shares the product frameworks, organizational struc...

How do product leaders think big enough to compete in an AI-native world? In this podcast hosted by Sid Shaik, Walmart U.S. former Chief Product Officer John Alferness joins us again and speaks on scaling AI at retail and enterprise scale. He breaks down how CPOs can separate core AI capabilities from applications, choose the right moonshots, and use AI to unlock personalization, efficiency, and g...

What does it take to think bigger when your products already operate at massive scale? In this podcast hosted by Sid Shaik, Walmart U.S. former Chief Product Officer John Alferness breaks down how product leaders can push beyond incremental gains to unlock true step-change growth. He explores the mental models behind moonshots, the discipline required to manage risk at scale, and why AI is acceler...

What does it take to build products that stand out in one of the most technical spaces in the industry? In this podcast hosted by Cassio Sampaio, Nutanix Vice President & General Manager Dan Ciruli speaks on how product leaders can guide customers through complex infrastructure decisions and stand out in ecosystems dominated by hyperscalers. He explores the realities of legacy systems, the skills...

What happens when a fragmented internal tool becomes the strategic backbone of a multibillion-dollar enterprise? In this podcast hosted by EY Platform Operations Lead Justin Leibow, Walmart Sr Product Lead Sangita Raj shares how she rebuilt an overlooked portfolio system into a high-impact engine for clarity, alignment, and productivity. She traces her journey across T-Mobile, Microsoft, Amazon, a...

How do you build an AI product that's powerful, reliable, and grounded in real user needs? In this podcast hosted by Qventus Product Director Mark Bailes, Google Product Lead Alankar Agnihotri discusses what it really takes to build impactful AI and LLM-driven products. He shares the hidden complexities behind model behavior, the shift from deterministic to probabilistic design, and what product m...

What separates the CPOs who scale with confidence from those who get stuck? In this podcast hosted by Sid Shaik, Pendo Chief Product Officer Trisha Price breaks down how top product leaders think, operate, and make decisions that move entire organizations forward. She shares hard-earned lessons from scaling complex enterprise software, leading both vertical and horizontal product portfolios, and s...

What challenge separates teams that ship real customer impact from those that just ship features? In this podcast hosted by Cassio Sampaio, Retool Head of Technical Customer Experience Chris Harry explores how customer-facing teams and product teams can partner to drive meaningful adoption, credibility, and long-term trust. He shares practical insights from two decades of working with deeply techn...

What does it take to build something genuinely new inside a $60B Enterprise? In this podcast hosted by Sid Shaik, Outshift by Cisco VP & CPO Papi Menon breaks down how product leaders can drive meaningful innovation inside massive enterprises, and why the future depends on incubating bold bets like agentic AI and quantum networking. He shares how to identify ideas worth pursuing, how to navigate i...

What happens when product teams operate in markets where failure isn't an option? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP of Product Nacho Andrade, Propel VP of Product Marketing Tom Shoemaker explores how teams build high-quality physical products in complex, high-stakes environments. He digs into the realities of PLM, quality management, commercialization, and the rising role of AI across hardware...

What if a single platform could turn any online store into a self-optimizing growth engine? In this podcast hosted by Products That Count CEO Hoda Mehr, Moonshot AI Co-Founder and CEO Aviv Frenkel will be speaking on how AI-driven experimentation is transforming conversion optimization for ecommerce brands. Drawing from his founder journey, he explores what it takes to automate CRO, build user tru...

What does it take to lead and excel as a product leader in the age of AI? In this podcast hosted by NEOGOV CPO Denise Hemke, GoodRx former VP of Product Sandy Huang speaks on people sense, discovery, execution, and the judgment required to build great products in an AI-accelerated world. She shares insights from two decades across Amazon, GoodRx, Flipboard, Minted, and Shutterfly, offering a groun...

What happens when building a product means outsmarting an intelligent adversary every single day? In this podcast hosted by Cassio Sampaio, Tenable Vice President of Product and Program Management Matthew Frank will be speaking on the realities of creating secure B2B SaaS products. He explores how exposure management is evolving, why identity is becoming the new perimeter, and how AI is reshaping...

How do you build products that can keep pace with the climate crisis without compromising on speed, innovation, or customer insight? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to...

Can product thinking truly transform government services? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by NEOGOV CPO Denise Hemke, State of Maryland CPO Sheetul Agrawal speaks on reimagining government technology through customer-centric innovation. Sheetul shares her groundbreaking approach to bringing product management principles into public sector digital services, revealing how AI and user...