Krishna Panicker has a strong background in product management, with experience at various companies including Airbase, Pipedrive, Questback, Blink, Microsoft, and Skype. He is currently in the role of VP Product at Airbase. Krishna earned a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Systems Engineering from City, University of London.
Maria Lasprilla has over a decade of product management experience, a big bulk of which she spent at Pipedrive and, more recently, at Wolt. She is currently running Imblue, her own product consulting company offering her services to a variety of software companies training product teams and supporting leadership roles connect their strategic thinking with day-to-day teams execution challenges.
In this interview Maria Lasprilla picks the brain of Krishna Panicker to understand his thinking on the role product managers play in having an impact in the business. We discuss the nuances between business, finance specifics and customer empathy, and grapple with the difficulty of drawing clear lines of responsibility and accountability across the different functions of a company.
Topics and questions we covered:
How to frame product as part of business?
What to look for to understand how we can impact the business?
B2B SaaS business levers and other business levers
How a product leader is expected to think about business compared to an IC role
Should the scale balance towards customer focus or towards business impact?
Relative vs absolute impact
The role of finance as a function in informing product decisions
Should product managers have economy and finance knowledge?
Risk appetite, and more
References:
Estonia - https://visitestonia.com/en
What is a Product Manager? by Martin Eriksson
Pipedrive - https://www.pipedrive.com/en
Airbase - https://www.airbase.com/
Skype - https://www.skype.com/en/
In the video:
Krishna Panicker - VP Product
Maria Lasprilla - Product Consultant
Behind the scenes:
Clélia Borget - Videographer
Rolando Beaujon - assistant
Luis Barragán - assistant
Lumi - emotional support
About Tallinn Product Group
Tallinn Product Group is a place for product enthusiasts to share their knowledge. We are a mix of different types of product people(technical, design, analytics, business…) and many of us are product managers or we work daily with product managers. Why we have started this platform is to explore Estonia’s success in creating unicorns. Our content varies with each creator, offering something for everyone.
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Business is Product. Product is Business.