 Thank you so much for the introduction, and I'm very excited to be here back at ProductCon. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit more about empowering product management and advice to my younger self as a women leader. A little bit about who I am and my journey and what brings me to this topic today. I did my undergrad in computer science. I did my master's in Carnegie Mellon University, and I have been in the retail industry in product management for a decade now, working at Sears, Walmart, and currently at Sephora. Both my parents are writers. I love writing, and I channel on with my frustration and all my negative energy towards writing. I have a dog who is three years old. His name is Leo, who's my constant source of inspiration and also kind of my therapist slash stress reliever. I love gardening, have a lot of plans, as well as organizing myself. I'm an introvert at heart. I recently even wrote a book called Not the Loudest Person in the Room, which talks about all my thoughts of how I got here and what has helped me learn throughout my journey. As I was thinking about what I should talk about in this topic, I was thinking, if I'm a product manager at heart, how can I look at my career through the lens of product management? And if I have to define or grow this product, which is my career, how would I do it? My growth, which is currently the product that I'm talking about, is a combination of passion, strategy, and continuous innovation. This, of course, did not happen overnight. This has been a journey that I have learned through various touch points in my life from various people, and I continuously try to evolve as I learn more. The first thing about product management, if you know, is figuring out who your customer is. And in this sense, the customer is yourself, which means how do you figure out who you are, what works for you, what does not work for you, and what environment is more conducive for your productivity and what isn't? This is something that I realized much later in my journey, but if only somebody had taught me initially that understanding myself before I tried to understand everybody else was important, would have helped me a lot. So what makes me me? This is a question that if I had asked a couple of years ago, I would have probably not have all the answers and I still don't. And I know this is gonna continuously evolve over the next couple of years. What is my emotional portion when did I figure out I was an introvert? How do I use writing as my channel for all my energy? What I have a to-do list that always keeps growing, but to-do list keeps me sane. So all of these little things about what helps me be sane and more productive is very important for me. Self-awareness and understanding who you are is not just important for yourself, but it's also the foundation for a strong team and boundless potential. Because I know my style, what works for me, I'm able to build a team that complements my style of working as well as complement the strengths that I don't have that other people have that I can learn from. I think in that way, when you're looking at building a team, you're not just looking at the strengths and weaknesses of you, but the people that you bring in so that overall as an org, you're pretty strong. Apart from that, I think just understanding and communicating how you work helps in building a thriving and work environment because I wish everybody could read people's minds, but unfortunately they can't. One thing that I have come to realize in the last couple of years is just communicating what works for you and what doesn't. For example, I constantly tell the people that I work with that I need time to process things. On the spot questions, on the spot answers is not something that I'm comfortable with. It's not that I cannot do it, but the best version of myself comes through when I have time to think and process. So this is something that my peers as well as my leadership team knows, which I think has helped them give me an opportunity to be the best version of myself. As well as embracing your unique perspective, for the longest time in my career, I was always trying to look at what do others feel is the best version of myself that I need to be. Only in the last couple of years have I realized that embracing my unique perspective and understanding that the diverse thoughts that people put together and come together is what builds a very unique product. So if you're looking at building a diverse team, it's not just checking the box in terms of diversity, but also embracing your own unique perspective so that you can be confident about the thoughts that you're sharing. So as I started thinking through this, I have this me framework that I kind of use, which looks at who you're targeting, which is right now me, what is my style of working? What is my emotional quotient? And how do I communicate who I am and how I work so that I can be productive? The next part of the product lifecycle, if you're looking at, now you understood the customer, the next is what does success mean? You constantly look at products and evaluate what are the key metrics you have to target, what is the goal? Is it conversion? Is it revenue? So if you take a step back and look at what does success mean to you, how does your career look successful over the next couple of years? I think that just unlocks a lot of, sparks a lot of thought that you can actually work on. For me, the biggest confusion I had earlier in my career is what motivates me. You know, sometimes people always think that motivation is promotion going to the next level, but there's so many different levels of motivation that people have. For me personally, it was a bigger responsibility, a larger role, as well as meaningful conversations with smart people, also focusing on growth in terms of not just career growth, but overall personality, and what else should I be working on that makes me grow as a person and not just as a product manager? If you put this lens, not just for yourself, but your team as well, I have seen a lot of opportunities where I can learn from my team on what truly motivates them. And sometimes it could be just dollars, but you really need to understand what is the true motivation for people? And what does growth mean to me as well? Because growth during different career points in my time meant different things. During certain times it meant going to the next level, but at this point of my time, I do know where I see myself in the next five years. It's funny when, you know, in interview questions, they always ask you, they always ask you like, where do you see yourself in the next five years? And I'm like, I don't even know where I see myself in the next month or so. How would I possibly be able to answer this question? But looking back now, I think it's very important to have that longer term goal in mind so that you can plan your next steps of how do you get there? Because you're not just looking at the immediate next step, but you're looking at your larger goal of where you want to be. For example, I need to be a chief product officer in the next couple of years. If that is the goal, then are the steps that I'm taking right now actually helping me achieve that? In the short term, you may think that, you know, you're taking a hit either on your salary or your designation or the company that you're working for. But in the long run, if it aligns with the goal that you actually have, it's still open. One of my mentors actually taught me this, which is looking at what are the pillars of my life? I was a workaholic a couple of years ago, and I was extremely proud of being an workaholic before I knew the nuances of being a workaholic. I think what my mentor taught me was looking at what are the different pillars of my life, which includes my family, my health, my work, and my personal goal. So if these are the four pillars of my life, how can I accelerate each one of them and not just focus on one because that's what makes you whole? So today I have a particular goal for each of these pillars and I'm able to allocate and manage my time so that I can actually focus on all of these pillars and not just the work. So continuing the me framework that we were working on, you know who you are, you know who the audience is, you know what success means, what is your motivation, what are the pillars and purpose of your life? So now we're gonna move on to the next segment. So how do I make it happen? So going back to the product lifecycle, you know who you're targeting, you know what success means, how do you actually make it happen? I wish there was a formula that I could share that here are the five steps that you know how do you make it happen, but a few things I have learned along the way is identifying what is the path to get there and not everybody's path is the same and even my path so far of being a senior product manager to like a VP of product and UX has gone through so many ups and downs. If I have to go back in time and revisit that path, I would have probably made a few different choices in the type of initiatives that I worked on in the choices that I made of which team I wanna be a part of, which company that I wanna be a part of, how long should I stay with the company? Is this, am I still continuing to learn in the place that I have all of these questions constantly having a retrospective of where you are in your current path, make sure that you have a path forward understanding where you have come so far. Knowing all the things that you know at every point, one thing that I have constantly learned is what should I learn and unlearn? What I mean by this is at every stage in your growth, whether it's moving to the next level, moving, changing jobs, going, switching roles, what are the things, how do you build your skill set that is required for you to be successful at that job and not just at that level, but operating at the next level? One thing that I constantly look at is irrespective of if there is an opportunity or if there is a need, if I have to step into my boss's role tomorrow, am I ready for it? And if not, what are the things I should accompany or what should I be successful at that I can take over the job tomorrow? I think this constantly keeps me grounded on what I am good at and what I constantly need to evolve, which gives me perspective on what should I work on next? Who I can learn from? I think this has been such meaningful and important aspect of my journey so far, because there have been so many inspirational mentors and peers and friends that I have worked with where I constantly take nuggets of things that I learn from them. And it's very important to make sure that you have a circle of people that you can consistently learn from, be it in your current job or your network or anywhere else, but having a mentor or multiple mentors or having people that you can look up to and learn from, irrespective of their level, doesn't mean they have to be the C level or the VPs. I learned so many things from my team as well, is also an important thing. And then finally harnessing the power of strong relationships because relationships is what you take away at the end of the day. As I said before, I've been in product management and in the retail space for over a decade, but what has kept me running so far is the relationships that I have built across the years that I have worked with, which I continue to be grateful for and learn about. So building on the framework, you now know how with the skills you need to learn and unlearn, forging your path for success, building mentors and allies who can advocate for you and who are able to provide guidance and the right opportunity for you to succeed. When do I start? I don't think there's ever a right time that says, now's the time to look at building this main framework, but one thing I can say is it's never too late and it's never too early as well, right? So at any moment I get where I wanna take a break and just evaluate my journey so far, I really look at the parts that I have put forward and evaluate if this makes sense or not. How do I make progress? Because when I look at the success metrics of my journey, it does not mean that hitting a goal of like, hey, I need to be a CPO by X years is success. I think what I see as success is if I'm making progress towards my goals, towards the pillars of my life. And if I have a plan forward of if I'm stuck in a certain place, how can I actually break that funk that I'm in and I actually look at how do I make progress? And how do I evolve as I grow? When people ask me what my leadership style is, my answer always is that it's not set in stone and I learn as I grow and I evolve and unlearn so many things as I am more self-aware of who I am and what my environment is. So it's important for us to look at not just getting hung up with the current environment that you're in, but you're looking at how are you continuously evolving as you grow? So finally we have the last part of the main framework which is when, right? Like when do you start to implement this framework? How do you make progress and how do you constantly evolve? So this completes like what I look at the product lifecycle of my journey and my career and how do I constantly evolve and look at this different pieces of the puzzle and try to bring it together? A few things that I wish somebody had told me earlier was also personalizing my journey. Personalization is such a buzzword these days you're looking at personalizing your customer experience, your site, your apps, but what about personalizing your own journey? What have you looked at? Like, you know the concepts of what personalization means from a customer perspective. If you could apply the same concepts of that to your particular career or your lifestyle, there's so much more you can learn about yourself and so much more meaningful progress that you can make in what triggers you, what is your trigger to move to the next best intent, your next best action? And it's kind of fun for me personally being a product manager to look at personalizing my own journey and have a retrospective at different times. One thing that I have struggled with a lot which I continue to do so is imposter syndrome of asking myself, am I good enough? And this by no means, am I saying is my fault or the female executive fault saying that they have, it's something that we need to fix. But it's just the matter of fact that recently there was a study where 75% of female executive cross industries experienced imposter syndrome. Two ways to look at it is one for myself but also the environment that I am building as a leader to make sure that the team that I'm working with do not experience the same thing. I have personally experienced it myself during various points in my career which how to get out of it has always been a strong ally or a strong mentor who's able to be very objective about the things that you are good at and what you're not and not get into this vicious cycle of questioning yourself at every time of are you good enough? And this definitely adds more pressure to myself which is not needed, a lot of stress which can reflect in your health issues as well. But something that I know I'm cognizant of that this is something that I need to work on and build an environment where my team doesn't feel the same. And finally advocating myself going back to the product management principles, you know how when you build a product you're looking at marketing the product and communicating how good the product is but are you doing the same for yourself? This was again something that my mentor taught me of when are you actually going to speak out for yourself? I was always that person in the room, in the corner, being a fly on the wall, I don't speak up in meetings but I do know how to advocate for myself which does not put me, make me too uncomfortable but just the right amount of uncomfortableness that I can push myself but make sure that it's not stressing me out or causing me a new concern. So this is something I would definitely, I wish I had known a couple of years ago. If you had not listened to any of the things that I had spoken so far, I think a few key takeaways that I would like to highlight is build your own me framework. You don't have to be a product manager to do this, it's just a framework for you to evaluate yourself, what your goals are, what makes you comfortable, productive, how are you your true authentic self to bring in the values that you have as well as how are you building an environment that everybody can try? Embracing your unique perspective as your authentic self and leveraging it to contribute valuable insights, building strong relationships with not just your current team members, stakeholders, your network that you have, the people that you work with, cultivating leadership skills, advocating for yourself, seeking mentorship and sponsorship to empower your career because it takes so much for us to actually think about to make sure that we are successful. I hope this was helpful. If you have more questions, you can follow me on LinkedIn. You can find me at Sneha Narahali. I'm very active on LinkedIn, but thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts and I'm looking forward to any questions.