All the Awesome Speakers for #mtpcon SF 2017 "Product people - Product managers, product designers, UX designers, UX researchers, Business analysts, developers, makers & entrepreneurs 18 April 2017 True #mtpcon, Aparna Chennapragada, Google+, Melissa Perri, Mind the Product San Francisco 2017, Nate Walkingshaw, Pluralsight, Mind the Product Mind the Product Ltd 1342 Mind the Product SF Product Management 5.368
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All the Awesome Speakers for #mtpcon SF 2017

UPDATED Mind the Product San Francisco 2017 promises to be one of our best product conferences yet, with double the number of workshops, more networking events around the conference, and more fun than ever before. But most importantly, we are thrilled to bring you some of the best minds in product and design from around the world to share some truly world-class insights, which is why I’m excited to announce our first three amazing speakers!

Tickets are on sale now – the early birds sold out in mere minutes so don’t miss out!

Josh ElmanJosh Elman, Partner, Greylock

Josh is a Partner at Greylock, a leading silicon valley venture capital firm. Before becoming an investor Josh spent 15 years in product and engineering roles at leading companies in social, commerce, and media. He was the product lead for growth and relevance at Twitter, growing Twitter’s active user base by nearly 10x. Prior to Twitter, Josh worked on the platform at Facebook and led the launch of Facebook Connect. Josh was an early employee at LinkedIn and helped establish early models for user growth and launched v1 of LinkedIn Jobs. Josh also held roles leading product management for Zazzle, and product and engineering for RealJukebox and RealPlayer at RealNetworks.

Josh currently serves on the boards of Medium, Discord, Musical.ly (observer), Life On Air (makers of Houseparty), and Operator. Josh also works closely with our investments in Nextdoor and Whosay. Josh led Greylock’s investment in SmartThings (acquired by Samsung in 2014) and Jelly (acquired by Pinterest in 2017).

Janice FraserJanice Fraser, SVP, Bionic

Janice is a serial entrepreneur and a globally recognized expert on the management practices needed to support innovation at scale. Her clients have included the Obama White House, Proctor & Gamble, Lyft, and the Navy Seals Training Command. Fraser currently serves as SVP at Bionic, where she installs entrepreneurship and venture capital as forms of growth management in Fortune 100 companies, which enables them to launch new billion-dollar businesses. Previously, Fraser was Director of Innovation and Transformation at Pivotal and she has founded and served as CEO for several startups, including Luxr, an early Lean Startup firm, and Adaptive Path, the world’s first User Experience firm.

Caitlin KalinowskiCaitlin Kalinowski, Head of Product Design Engineering, Oculus

Caitlin is the Head of Product Design Engineering at Oculus, the team responsible for the mechanical architecture and product design engineering of the Oculus Rift and Touch products. Before working at Oculus, Caitlin was a technical lead at Apple on the Mac Pro and MacBook Air lines, and was part of the original unibody Macbook Pro team. She received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. Caitlin believes in staying focused on holistic user experience when making product decisions.

Jeff Gothelf & Josh SeidenJeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden, Authors

Jeff and Josh are experienced digital product design leaders, and co-authors of Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience and Sense & Respond, How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously. Jeff has worked in various roles and leadership positions at iXL, Fidelity, AOL, WebTrends, and TheLadders. Most recently Jeff co-founded Neo Innovation (sold to Pivotal Labs) in New York City and helped build it into one of the most recognized brands in modern product strategy, development and design. Josh is a designer, author, coach, and product leader who has been creating digital products and services for more than 25 years including at Cooper at Luxr.

Aparna ChennapragadaAparna Chennapragada, Director of Product Management, Google

Aparna Chennapragada is a Director of Product Management at Google and Technical Assistant (TA) to the CEO. She most recently led the product development of Google Now, a digital assistant that proactively brings information to you through the day. Having led multiple efforts across Google Search and YouTube over the years, she is excited about the potential of AI and algorithms in powering useful everyday products. Aparna has over 15 years of experience in the tech industry, as a computer scientist, engineer, and product leader, starting with helping build the world’s first content delivery services at Akamai technologies. She has a Masters in Management and Engineering from MIT, Masters in Computer Science from University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelors in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.

Dave WaschaDave Wascha, CPO Photobox

Dave is the Chief Product Officer at PhotoBox, Europe’s leading personalised product printing company. Prior to this Dave ran product at Travelex and Moo.com, and spent 14 years at Microsoft in Seattle and in London product managing a wide variety of products including web browsers, developer tools, enterprise application integration (EAI) software, operating systems, online shopping and travel and web search.

Janna BastowJanna Bastow, CEO & Co-Founder, ProdPad

Janna is the CEO and co-founder of ProdPad, product management and roadmapping software for product people, an international speaker, as well as co-founder of Mind the Product. Prior to starting these ventures, she led product initiatives at several startups in London and Montreal, and is actively involved in furthering the craft of product management through mentoring, consulting and training. She often starts and stops conversations with the question: “What problem are you trying to solve?”

Nate WalkingshawNate Walkingshaw, Author and CXO Pluralsight

Nate started his first company in 2004 where he revolutionized medical evacuation with Paraslyde, later acquired by Stryker Medical. In 2011, Nate left Stryker to build Brightface, a product development company that focused on mobile and web applications including Cycleface which was acquired by Strava, the #1 fitness app for endurance athletes. Nate then became the Chief of Research and Innovation at Tanner Labs, where he built O.C. Tanner’s first human-centered product development team. In January 2015 Nate was named the Chief Product Officer for Pluralsight, the largest providers of online technology learning, where he built a user centered product team, and in February 2016 Nate’s role expanded to Chief Experience Office to also oversee Development, Content, and Product Marketing. He is also the co-author of Product Leadership: How Top Product Leaders Launch Great Products and Build Successful Teams (O’Reilly 2017).

Melissa PerriMelissa Perri, Author and Founder ProdUX Labs

Melissa Perri is a Product Manager, UX Designer, and speaker based in New York City. As the CEO of ProdUX Labs, Melissa does strategy and training for product management teams globally. As a practitioner and a coach, Melissa enjoys finding the best processes for her clients while tackling their toughest product problems with the team. Her clients have included Spotify, Rovio, Valtech, Plated, Wayra UK, and Levo League and before becoming a consultant, Melissa worked as a Product Manager and UX Designer at Barclays Capital, OpenSky, Capital IQ, and Conductor. She is currently writing about her experience in The Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value (O’Reilly 2017).<

ZenkaZenka

Jenny Carden (aka Zenka) is an artist and futurist. She will be speaking about the disruptive (and exciting) tech revolutions that will impact product development for the next decade and beyond. Her augmented reality work and sculptures show us how we can leverage our unique place in history and prepare mentally for a future of fast change. Her art is held in the collections of companies like Delta Airlines, Survios, Merge, Senetics, StarVR and River Studios. Zenka graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor’s of Science and honors in film. She moved into internet technology at Akamai where she managed the streaming department and focused on developing interactive media software before leaving to start her own web development company. She is now dedicating her life to creating art for the galactic age.

Trust us – you don’t want to miss this event! For a reminder of what our audience and speakers thought of last year’s conference, check out our recap video:

Conference Tickets

So what are you waiting for? Get those tickets now!

Workshops

We also have eight amazing workshops the day before the conference to help you level up your product management skills and career! Learn UX for Product Managers, how to run Design Sprints, develop User Story Maps, run User Research, achieve Product/Market Fit, run Continuous Product Discovery, or develop IOT Products – grab your workshop tickets before they sell out!

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