From Museums to Fintech by Amy Carmichael

In this ProductTank London talk, Amy Carmichael, Head of Product at Crowdcube, tells us about her strange path from studying art and museums to become the Head of Product at a fintech startup. She takes us through the four themes she discovered along the way.

1. Do the job you want before anyone asks
2. Lean on your strengths outside of product
3. The key to influence is empathy
4. Identify what you want to experience and what makes you happy

Watch the video to see Amy’s talk in full. Or read on for an overview of her key points.

Do the job you want before anyone asks

If you want to become a product manager or move into a product role when you’re not already in one, then you need to start doing the job before anyone asks you to do it. Amy began by working in the arts at a museum. She wanted to become a product manager so began to learn more about product management and see how she could incorporate concepts like agile and kanban to her current role.

Lean on your strengths outside of product

Amy moved from working in another role at a museum to become a product manager at a museum. This helped her to utilize her strengths. She moved from working in museums to working in edtech. This allowed her to combine her experience and passions and then connect them with product principles to be a good product manager.

The key to influence is empathy

As a product manager, listening is crucial. If you want to grow in your product management career and gain the respect of key stakeholders then you need to listen to their pain points. Once you understand their pain points you can help to build relationships, understand their point of view and then grow your influence to have a bigger and better impact.

Identify what makes you happy

You need to map your career goals to truly discover the type of product manager role you want to have and how you want your career to evolve. Amy recaps how her experiences in trying different things and mapping her career brought her to her current role, one which she enjoys a lot.

The final takeaways from her talk are that in our careers it is important to try everything and don’t be afraid to move around to find what truly sticks and what we’re passionate about. You will ultimately be able to find out who you are and where you want to go.