The Team
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, focusing 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 in the social talent/community space.
Martin Eriksson, Co-Founder & Curator
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 chairing the board and 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) and an Executive-in-Residence at EQT, one of Europe's largest private equity and venture capital funds.
Analisa Plehn, Chief Operating 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! Before she joined us full time, she was an innovation consultant and brand strategist, working with clients in a diverse set of fields, from food & beverage to luxury & fashion to tech services & healthcare. She continually brings her rich set of experiences to bear as she ensures that our events, training division, and internal operations all line up seamlessly, so that our little team can reach product people in every corner of the world.
Emily Tate, US General Manager
Emily has spent over 10 years in product leadership as a consultant with Pivotal Labs and a product manager in the travel industry. She started her career managing software solutions for airlines before taking her experience to the traveler’s side of the journey as the product manager for a leading travel management app, TripCase. Emily is passionate about the craft of product management and loves talking about new ways to make products people love. She started ProductTank Dallas/Fort Worth and has been actively involved in the product management community ever since!
Rosemary King, Director of Training Products
Rosemary started her career in political campaigns and did field organizing, advance and fundraising before she left politics behind for similar jobs with gov and non-profit orgs. After struggling with bad systems and tools in both areas, Rosemary went back to grad-school at NYU Wagner and earned an MPA, specializing in management and systems analysis. After completing an independent study on digital tools for civic engagement, she was hired by non-profit tech start-up Case Commons in 2010. After time with ThoughtWorks NYC, Rosemary made the jump across the pond to join the new PivotalLabs London office as its first Product Manager. After going freelance and focusing on consulting and training, she joined Mind the Product as Director of Training.
Chris Massey, Product Manager
Chris brings a background in technical editing, community building and product marketing to his perspectives on product management. He's been marketing B2B software products to developers for 8 years, and prototyped an experimental technical publishing platform along the way. Chris thinks in terms of user narratives - which is to say that he likes getting to know people. He also first encountered Mind the Product as a conference volunteer, where he took on the leadership of the volunteer crew, before joining the team as an editor, community leader, enthusiastic baker, and Product Manager. You can find him at ProductTank London, or on twitter as @camassey.
Marc Abraham, Global ProductTank Coordinator
Starting his career as a corporate lawyer, Marc made the transition into digital technology initially as a project manager and then as product manager. Marc has been managing products for the last 8 years, working on a range of successful digital products/services, at companies such as 7digital, carwow, YouView, Not on the High Street, WorldFirst and currently serves as the Chief Product Officer at Settled. He works closely with organisers of all our ProductTank meetups in over 100 cities around the world to ensure deliver the highest quality events for a the world's largest community of product people.
Emily Rubenstein, Operations Manager
Emily makes everything easy for us and creates great events for our product community. If you have a query about an event you are attending, she will be your first port of call. When she is not looking after you or us, Emily works behind the scenes with venues, speakers and sponsors. Her experience as a teacher comes in handy when herding us all in the right direction!
Amy Roberts, Marketing and Design Manager
Amy started her career as a coordinator in the "glamorous" world of TV production in London, making the switch to marketing after a move to the quieter landscapes of Cambridgeshire. She spent the next four years getting into the nitty-gritty of database development as a Product Marketing Manager for SQL Server tools company Redgate. Immersing herself in the day-to-day life of a development team and getting to see the product management role up close on a daily basis has put her in good stead for her role with Mind the Product, where she now heads up all things marketing. In her time Amy has also developed and managed a successful insiders program for database professionals.
Away from the technology space Amy has also spent a number of years in broader persuits as a Brand Manager for a successful horticultural company, whilst heading up marketing, operations and creative direction for largescale amateur theatre productions, and is also developing her own creative wedding hire brand.
Juliette Barrett, Account Manager
Juliette's career began in the public sector, working on high level fundraising campaigns for non-profit charities. After leaving sunny California for London, she used what she had learnt as part of her music degree to teach and mentor young people at a large Media college in East London.
She then went on to work for a profit and purpose driven company which helped both corporates and young people through Tech and Digital Transformation projects. She focused on training and facilitation; coaching FTSE 500 clients in the retail banking space on how to maximise their efforts in the growing digital economy.
She brings years of experience in operations, events, project management and transformation within the tech industry. She recently left a fast growing digital transformation start-up as Head of Operations, before joining the Mind The Product team as training operations and account manager.
Will Barritt, Marketing Executive
Will joined the Mind the Product marketing team in 2018. With skills in animation and video editing, he started his marketing career at Cambridge Business Improvement District (BID), set up to support businesses in the local area. As well as working as a Cambridge City Ambassador, Will has extensive experience in business communications, hosting community projects as part of his work for Cambridge BID, such as free outdoor cinema events, as well as assisting in setting up AGMs. While Will grew up in Pembrokeshire in Wales, he moved to Cambridge to do a degree in animation, fell in love with the city and ended up staying!