Board of Directors

Martin Eriksson, Co-Founder & Chairman

Martin Eriksson started his career as a web designer and developer, realised he didn't have enough talent at either but did have a real knack for translating it all for the business people. After several start ups in his native Stockholm, he has led product teams at Monster, the Financial Times, Huddle, and Covestor in London and Boston. He founded ProductTank and co-founded Mind the Product, and now works as a Chief Product Officer at large while running the content side of Mind the Product. He is also the author of the best-selling Product Leadership: How Top Product Leaders Launch Great Products and Build Successful Teams (O'Reilly, 2017)

James Mayes, Co-Founder & CEO

James has been with Mind the Product since the first conference in London in 2012. Initially focussing on commercial sponsorships, he’s taken on an ever increasing number of challenges as the company has grown, leading to his appointment as CEO in 2017. He still owns many of the partnership discussions and spends much of his time travelling to maintain and develop these relationships.

Before joining Mind the Product, James had two other careers. He started as a tech recruiter in 1996 (first project: building Europe’s first Java development team for IBM’s research lab) and continued in this industry for 12 years. His focus was on building niche technology teams for startups and enterprise alike. He embarked on a startup journey of his own in 2009 in a commercial/product role, selling TweetJobs in 2011 to continue his learning for a year with another of London’s hottest firms. Both were in the social talent/community space.

Analisa Plehn, Chief Operations Officer

Analisa joined the team as a volunteer at the 2013 conference and quickly took over all the operational aspects of the business, and is the one that makes sure all our crazy ideas and events actually happen. She is an innovation consultant and brand strategist who also provides brand strategy, communications, account management and ongoing brand support for a variety of clients in fields such as food / beverage, luxury / fashion, tech services and healthcare.

Janna Bastow, Co-Founder & Non-Executive Director

Janna comes from a user-centric design background and has extensive experience building social web experiences. She founded ProductCamp London in 2010 in an effort to meet and learn from other product managers.

As a product manager always looking for better tools, she co-founded ProdPad, product management software that helps you manage your roadmap and your product backlog.

Simon Cast, Co-Founder & Non-Executive Director

Co-founder of ProdPad, Mind the Product, and ProductCamp London. Simon began his career in Space Engineering, where he developed a Fortran realtime program to automate satellite operations. He then traveled around the world, though not in orbit, before a stint in the Australian Army.