Leslie Grandy
Lead Executive in Residence for the Product Management Leadership Accelerator
Leslie Grandy is a global, first-to-market product executive and board advisor with a 25+ year career delivering game-changing products for top brands – Best Buy, Discovery, T-Mobile, Apple, and Amazon. Throughout her career, Leslie has been at the front end of innovation launching the first paid video streaming service, RealOne SuperPass with over 1 million subscribers after co-authoring a patent for a system that provides integrated media; delivering the first Android mobile device, the T-Mobile G1 and the first cellular-enabled digital picture frame, the T-Mobile Cameo; and leading Best Buy’s Digital Innovation Lab. Leslie is the founder of The Product Guild, a Product and Innovation Advisory Services company through which she has advised both early-stage ventures and numerous publicly traded companies on innovation and new product development, including Starbucks, Oracle Power, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. Leslie is also an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking who inspires audiences to achieve their creative potential.
Alam Ali
Former Partner General Manager and Chief of Product, Microsoft
Alam is an outcomes-driven innovator with extensive experience in software product and engineering, as well as deep technical expertise in big data platforms, cloud infrastructure, social networks, semantic search, and online advertising technologies. He is an engaging collaborator and empowering leader with a proven record of inspiring software engineering teams to get products to market quickly, while ensuring high quality and customer satisfaction.
Recently, Alam was a Partner General Manager and Chief of Product at Microsoft where he led product and engineering teams to define and build a new product line with the potential for $1B revenue over five to eight years.
Previously, Alam was Vice President at Motorola Solutions where he let product and engineering teams to create the Public Safety Cloud. He was responsible for the creation of new cloud-based software systems that enabled digital records and evidence management including all bodycam and fixed camera data. Additionally, he was responsible for the first public safety virtual assistant deployed to first responders.
Alam is a constant practical innovator having worked on two startups focused around leveraging machine learning to unlock customer and business value.
Alam is a member of Humanity First, a global non-profit organization focused on long term disaster relief, promotion of peace through mutual respect and understanding, and strengthening the capacity of people to help themselves.
Alam and his wife live in the Pacific Northwest and have raised three children. Two of them attended the University of Washington.
Jessi Alva
VP Technical Product | Program Management, SAP Concur
Jessi has spent the last 20+ years leading Product efforts. She has honed her key sense of solving customer pain points across a broad range of products and services that has included both software and hardware. Her domain experience includes managing products in organizations that delivered wireless software & hardware, domain registrar & registry and e-commerce. During the last 7 years, Jessi has worked at SAP Concur leading a team that delivers complex and critical engineering initiatives. Jessi has a passion for learning and evolving which is reflected in her work experience. She enjoys running, shopping, and traveling with friends and family.
Matt Carr
Former Vice President, Amazon Advertising
Matt has spent 25 years in the digital media and tech industries, serving in leadership roles at both large companies and start-ups. Most recently, he was Vice President of Amazon Advertising, where he led teams in Product Management & Development, Account Management, Analytics & Insights, Operations, and Marketing. Matt spent ten years at Amazon. Prior to that, Matt led Product Management and Business Development at AdReady, an advertising DSP serving the mid-market segment. Matt also spent ten years at Microsoft where he led teams in Product Management working on its core advertising technology and ad products. Matt began his career in product management at an Internet start-up in the late 1990’s. Before that, he was a musician playing in a number of Seattle area bands in the 1990’s. Matt has an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business and a BA in History from Georgetown University (Magna cum laude). Currently, Matt is volunteering with Seattle area community organizations, doing guest lectures and mentoring at UW and other universities, advising colleagues in the industry, and spending time with his wife, kids, and dog in Seattle.
Sudha Elavarti
VP of Product- Marketplace & Monetization, Shipt
With 20+ years across industries (enterprise, SaaS, consumer) including experience at Twitter and Microsoft, Sudha leads cross-functional teams from vision to user growth. She excels at crafting multi-year roadmaps, launching successful products, and fostering adoption. User-centric design, data-driven insights, and agile methodologies fuel her approach. A passionate advocate for building and mentoring diverse talent pipelines, Sudha fosters inclusive cultures that empower all voices. Her commitment extends to community work with Women in Product and promoting diversity & inclusion initiatives.
Dave Fleischman
Chief Product Officer at Angi.com
Dave Fleischman is the Chief Product Officer at Angi.com, where he oversees the company’s product vision, strategy, and execution. With nearly 30 years in the technology industry, Dave is an executive whose team leadership skills encompass a wide range of roles including product management, marketing, technology, and user experience. His expertise is in building high-functioning teams that conceive, invent, and deliver customer-centric integrated products that scale and drive growth.
Prior to his role at Angi.com, Dave served as Interim Chief Product Officer for ALSAC, the fundraising arm of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where he worked to strategize, manage, and deliver products to raise funds for the hospital. He continues to serve on the Digital Innovation Advisory Board for St. Jude’s. He has held senior-level product, business, and strategy roles at Compass, Blue Nile, Expedia and Microsoft. Dave has a BA in English from UC Santa Barbara.
Rob Katz
Vice President of Product – Responsible AI & Tech, Salesforce
Rob Katz is VP of Product in Salesforce’s Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology. He co-leads Salesforce’s Responsible AI & Tech team, which ensures the company’s products and software are designed, developed, and delivered based on a foundation of Responsible AI principles and best practices. He and his wife Clara live in the Seattle area with their two children.
Jono Luk
Vice President of Product Management, Cisco Webex
Jono Luk is Vice President of Product Management with Cisco Webex. He leads the Contact Center Product Management team. His past experiences include being a founding team member at Microsoft for Azure Active Directory, SharePoint Online and Power BI. Jono recently applied his skills and passion to help get Truveta – a healthcare data startup – off the ground. He is also President of the Board of Therapeutic Health Services, a Seattle area non-profit focused on delivering substance abuse and mental health support programs.
Marcello Majonchi
Vice President of Product Management, DocuSign
Marcello currently serves as Vice President of Product Management at DocuSign and spent the last 20 years in the tech industry, holding senior and executive positions in Product Management, Engineering & Strategy in large public corporations (Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, DocuSign) and fast-growing startups. He pioneered new technology segments such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Privacy-Preserving Technology, and had the opportunity to design and build breakthrough SaaS products and services on the cloud and on the edge.
Marcello is very active in the innovation ecosystem as an investor, and serves as advisor and board member for several startups in Europe and the US.
Karim Meghji
Chief Product Officer, Code.org
Karim is a seasoned product, and technology leader and entrepreneur who has helped build and scale successful businesses based on the belief that a strong customer focus, an iterative approach to product and technology, and an empowering people culture are critical to an organization’s success. As Code.org’s Chief Product Officer, Karim leads product in service of the mission that every student across the globe should have the opportunity to learn Computer Science.
Prior to joining Code.org, Karim held Chief Technology and Chief Product Officer roles at Remitly, a leading digital financial services provider for immigrants, steering the company’s product and technology teams through rapid growth, global expansion and a successful IPO in 2021 (RELY). Karim has also led product and engineering at companies disrupting online marketing for hotels (Booking.com, and buuteeq, acquired by Booking.com), corporate managed travel services (Yapta, acquired by Coupa Software), music and movie content distribution, and early on was part of the team that pioneered streaming audio and video on the internet (RealNetworks).
Karim earned his Bachelors degree in Computer Science from San Jose State University, discovered his passion for programming in a community college class using Borland’s Turbo Pascal, and had his first programming experience on an Apple IIe in a high school mathematics class.
Robert Neer
Vice President of Product, Walgreens Boots Alliance
Robert has had a career primarily as a product manager and product management leader and is passionate about the disciplines of product management, engineering and design in technology-forward organizations. He has had several opportunities in different roles to create and lead product, design and engineering teams that meld the power of technology and the practice of human-centered design to solve real human challenges.
He is currently leading product for U.S. Health Care for Walgreens Boots Alliance as Vice President of Product, helping Walgreens realize its mission to create more joyful lives through better health across its emerging Healthcare portfolio including primary care, virtual care, and clinical services. Prior to this he was VP of product and UX for Pharmacy technology at Walgreens.
Before his time at Walgreens, he was Vice President of Product and Engineering at Best Buy and was a founding member and General Manager of the Seattle Technology Development Center for Best Buy.
He has had product and engineering leadership roles at Amazon, T-Mobile and the Walt Disney Company.
Omar Shahine
Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Word + Editor, Microsoft
Omar is a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, leading the Word + Editor team in the Office Product Group. He has worked at Microsoft for over 20 years and has held numerous product roles. Most recently he led the Product Management organization for OneDrive and SharePoint and led both products to be industry leaders.
Omar brings an incredible passion for a strong culture of product making and leads his team with curiosity and inclusion. Omar also invests in Microsoft communities such as his role as a co-captain for the Principal Women’s Mentoring rings, executive co-sponsor for a divisional chapter of Blacks at Microsoft Employee Resource Group, and founded the E+D Product Leader Community for Microsoft’s most senior product leaders and serves as Co-Chair for the Experience + Devices Product Management Leadership Team where he helped co-author the “Book of Product Management”. He has a strong focus on product, craft, and modern PM techniques as well as organizational capability for planning, execution, and growth.
Srishti Sofat
Senior Vice President of Product Development, Oracle Fusion CX
Srishti Sofat is Senior Vice President, Product Development at Oracle Fusion CX. She brings over 25 years of experience in building and scaling large scale consumer and enterprise software products. She has been solving interesting problems in Marketing Orchestration, Personalization, Mobile, Mar-Tech and customer intelligence to help a global set of customers. Drives a strong culture of product innovation and execution.
In her current role at Oracle she is responsible for the strategy and vision, engineering & product, for Oracle Marketing Product Suite. She is a champion for Oracle Women Leadership (OWL), Mentorship Program and Diversity initiative.
As a leader, she focuses on defining the organization’s vision, having the team be excited and committed to common goals, and in that journey ensuring that there is ample opportunity for learning, growth, and fun. She sees her role as a leader is to stretch people and inspire them.
John Yurcisin
Former Chief Product Officer, Change.org
John is an accomplished executive with more than 25 years of experience across two different chapters as a Product Executive and a Marketing Executive in leading worldwide teams. He leads with a growth mindset and gets excited about bringing teams together to drive innovation, delighting customers or small businesses/brands by building world-class customer experiences and creating sustainable growth in e-commerce or non-profits. Most recently, he was Chief Product Officer at Change.org where he was responsible for teams in Product Management & Development, Account Management, Analytics & Insights, Design, and Marketing. Prior to that, John spent 10+ years at Amazon across four roles leading product and tech teams, innovating solutions on behalf of customers, direct-to-consumer brands, and small businesses. Before that, John lived in Hong Kong working in Marketing leadership roles at UBS and Ogilvy, and prior to that in Chicago with HSBC and Hyatt Hotels. John bleeds purple with three degrees from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, including an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, an MS from the Medill School of Journalism’s Integrated Marketing degree, and a BS from Northwestern University. Currently, John is in Seattle volunteering, mentoring, advising start-ups, and raising his two young sons.