In 2019, I went into consulting when I felt that I had a lot to offer clients having had so many years of inhouse product expertise. As a Principal Consultant with the product practice at AND Digital, I worked across a diverse range of clients from car manufacturers, to banking and food service clients building my skill set with a strong focus on product team coaching, supplier selection and work optimisation.

I continued to build on these skills with Cancer Research UK where I have undertaken a range of roles within the marketing technology team - coaching product managers, assessing new suppliers and optimising delivery processes.

The concept for the Digital Product Collective was born out of a number of conversations with freelance colleagues. We realised that there’s a gap in the market for experienced product professionals to work as part of an umbrella organisation but still to maintain their freelance status.

I’m looking forward to working with a portfolio of companies and extending my skills into new sectors such as healthcare, education and the arts.

I think one of the attributes of great product managers is being acutely sensitive to the needs of their audience and signals from the market, able to interpret and anticipate what users want and then communicate requirements to their engineering team. They need to actively recognise and draw on the deep expertise of their team, whether that’s user researchers, designers, engineers, scrum masters or data analysts to help them execute great products.

Product managers bring all of these elements together so communication, collaboration and empathy are their key tools for success.