Featured Guest:

Colleen Wilson, Fintech Advisor and Product Executive

Colleen Wilson is a seasoned product executive and advisor with deep expertise in fintech and AI. Her career includes impactful roles at companies like Edward Jones, Square, Blueleaf, and MANTL, where she led transformative product strategies that drove significant growth. Colleen is passionate about building empowered teams and creating market-driven products that resonate with customers. Outside of her professional work, she actively contributes to the leadership community, writes on topics of product and parenthood, and enjoys life in Chicago with her husband and son. Say hello at colleenwilsonpm.com.

Episode Transcript

0:02 Welcome to Social Currency Powered by Sunrise Banks, a podcast about the most innovative change makers in finance, technology and social impact and how they are.

0:11 Guests are dismantling barriers, reshaping their industries and perhaps even ours too.

0:16 I’m your host, Tyler Seydel and I’m Eric Schurr here we speak to those driving positive change through social entrepreneurship from cutting edge technology to creative grassroots efforts.

0:28 Each episode seeks to reveal the stories behind the revolution that is propelling us toward a world of financial inclusivity.

0:37 I’m Tyler Seydel and I’m Eric Schurr.

0:39 And today we’re going to talk about product management and product strategy, the difference between the two and how financial institutions can leverage a culture of product management to create growth and positive impact for customers and their businesses.

0:54 Now, let’s hear about our guest, Colleen Wilson. Colleen is a product evangelist, an advisor and fractional CPO supporting start-ups software as a service providers and large companies to grow through product.

1:05 She spent more than a decade in fintech company’s driving change with a product centric approach.

1:11 So, Colleen, welcome to the podcast.

1:14 Wait.

1:14 Thank you.

1:14 Thanks for having me.

1:16 Oh, you bet to begin talk to us a little bit about how you got your start in product management.

1:23 Talk, talk about the journey that got you to where you are today and brought you to our, to our table today to speak.

1:28 Absolutely.

1:30 So, like most people who are in product leadership roles, the, the path was not linear, nor was it intentional product management as a discipline is still really basically in its adolescence, you don’t go to college to become a product manager.

1:43 I think you can now.

1:44 But, but,, but I, 20 years ago, you, you didn’t.

1:48 And so I started my career at a company called Edward Jones in ST Louis.

1:53 It’s a, it’s a more traditional full service broker dealer that has over 15,000 physical locations and they provide financial advisory services to individuals like people like you and me and our parents and our neighbors.

2:07 And I was really blown away by their mission and like what they stood for, they had a very clear strategy, meaning that they knew what they wanted to do, they knew who they worked with, but more importantly, they knew who their customers were not and what their business model never would be.

2:24 And in that company, I had an opportunity.

2:26 They had a program called the Rotational Development Program, which was made for people just like me who had a degree in economics and marketing.

2:33 What do you do with that?

2:34 You become a product manager?

2:36 So you rotate through a series of departments every 90 days.

2:41 And during that time, you also get your series seven and your 66 and you learn about the industry and the business and the competitors and it just was the perfect foundation for a career in the financial space.

2:55 And during that time, I learned a lot about strategy.

2:57 I learned a lot about leadership.

2:59 I learned so much about working cross functionally across the business with all different disciplines towards a common goal.

3:06 But I also fell in love with the industry of financial services and and wealth management and banking to a certain extent.

3:16 And and one of the challenges around with the business model that Edward Jones had was that it really was predicated on having individual offices, physical brick and mortar locations in the communities where those people served clients.

3:29 And so the only way you can really bring together a cohesive customer experience and execute a strategy at that scale.

3:38 We’re talking 60 to 75,000 people, 15,000 physical locations in the US.

3:44 And Canada is through technology and putting together, you know, a technology that every client goes through.

3:50 No matter if you’re getting service in Alabama or Alberta, you’re going through the average Jones five step process.

3:56 We had tools and resources that would help you do this.

3:59 And a really big part of that was the financial planning software and the questionnaires that we would give people and that was really how we unified it.

4:06 And that was how I found my way into product management was after bouncing around a series of departments, I really longed to work on something cross functional and I landed in the team that was responsible for that technology.

4:19 So at that point, then did you how, how did you make your way to other organizations?

4:24 And have you seen your, how have you seen your product management practice expand since then?

4:29 Yeah, great question.

4:30 So, you know, when, when I, when I made that move, I, I was, I don’t even know if I had the title of a product manager because Edward Jones at the time wasn’t fully agile.

4:39 It was really more waterfall, you would write like these really big requirement documents and you go campaign for resources and you know, there are people who are much more smart than I was much more experienced that were doing that.

4:50 I had the benefit though of working with the technology providers and also working with some of the engineers.

4:55 Now, we were not co located.

4:57 So we weren’t operating in like the Agile Manifesto.

5:00 We were not sitting shoulder to shoulder, but I was talking with clients and with financial advisors every day and learning about how they were using the technology.

5:08 And I loved the rollouts because I loved like running contests and promotions to get people into the software.

5:13 So they were touching it every day and they were not scared of it and they felt really confident when they would sit down in front of a user and in front of a client that they would really understand it.

5:22 But that’s not really the, the form of product management that I practice today.

5:25 And that’s actually, that’s not really how Jones is running product management today.

5:28 So I learned in that process that I loved what technology can do to create a cohesive customer experience.

5:34 During that time, I was getting my M B A at Wash U in ST Louis.

5:38 And my husband had an opportunity to move to California for his job.

5:42 And at this time, this was like 2014.

5:44 So like remote work was not a thing then.

5:47 I mean, I, I went to college without a cell phone and I started my first job, like without a laptop, like I had to drive into the office every single day, which sounds funny now as I work from like my house in Chicago.

5:57 But but there were different times.

5:59 And so I ended up going and working at Square Out in California.

6:03 And this was right when Square, it was before Square was public and Square had a budding lending platform called Square Capital.

6:10 And the whole premise of square capital was to remove barriers that would prevent sellers that were using Square to process payments from hitting their business goals.

6:19 And a lot of the, the verticals that square served were like restaurants and other capital expenditure businesses.

6:28 Like I own a beauty shop or I own a spa.

6:31 I need to buy equipment.

6:33 I, I want to buy a second food truck.

6:36 These are not things that like, you usually have that much idle cash sitting in your bank account for if you do good for you.

6:42 But, but a lot of these sellers didn’t and they, they were used, they were looking for loans or access to capital and they weren’t finding good options.

6:49 And so some really smart people on the risk team at Square actually identified this need.

6:55 And I was one of the first non engineers on this, what is now the square capital or what now is Square Financial Services a whole separate business.

7:04 And so when I was there, like that was really when I learned about really doing hardcore customer discovery development, like going out and talking with your sellers watching how they do business sitting at blue bottle coffee.

7:18 And this was right when like chip and pin was when you had to dip your chip.

7:23 And people were getting so fresh at the poor baristas at the blue bottle coffee on Market Street being like, what the hell do I do?

7:30 And you know, watching how, how people were using your technology and trying to make it better.

7:34 And I learned a ton about customer discovery but I, I fell in love with working directly with engineers and with product designers.

7:42 And I think that from then on, I was like, I do not want a day to go by where I’m not talking to an engineer or a designer and we’re not talking in a customer centric way about how we are going to solve a problem for a customer in a way that works for our business so that we can stay in business and continue to achieve that mission and continue to, to grow a business and, and fulfill that mission.

8:03 So, so that’s really how I pivoted into being a, a product manager for tech companies.

8:09 When I left there, I went to a wealth tech company out of Boston.

8:12 very different profile than Square.

8:14 I left square public worked at a high growth banking platform and and getting ready to go back into another fintech company here pretty soon, well captured very articulate and I appreciate how you look at the space and innovation.

8:30 What you really captured is how can we improve the experience for our customers in a way that works for our customers?

8:35 That is still the going paradigm in terms of what a value proposition is at a customer level.

8:41 We covered a lot of ground in there and one thing that I’d like maybe to parse some distinction around before we get, maybe perhaps too far into our conversation.

8:49 Is really around strategic planning and product planning and if you can highlight those differences for us, yeah, they are different.

8:55 And I think that there, it’s, it’s really, it’s really important to, to recognize that.

8:59 So, you know, generally a, a good business has a really solid business strategy and, and going back to like what I referenced with Edward Jones and there’s tons of examples of this out in the market get, like when you have a good strategy, you know who you are as a company, you know, who you’re trying to serve what you’re going to do differently.

9:17 And you basically state a hypothesis for how you’re going to get there.

9:22 This is your edge, this is what you’re great at this is how you’re going to make a difference on the world in a way that’s really unique to your business.

9:28 And it’s based on a hypothesis or a set of beliefs that you have, you probably have evidence that back around like where you think the market is going, what you believe about, about your industry, et cetera.

9:40 That strategic vision for the company is something that the head of product cannot do and should not do.

9:46 This comes from the CEO of the company and this comes from their executive team, which is chief product officer is often on that executive team and that guiding force that overall vision for your company, every single function should be basing their individual functional strategy on that overall corporate strategy.

10:07 So as a head of product, then what I do is I put together based off of our company strategy, what my product vision is.

10:14 So like casting a vision for what the product array and experience is gonna look like in 3 to 5 years, how is the customer’s life going to be different because we exist at a product level.

10:25 And then you break that down further into what’s called the product strategy.

10:29 And the product strategy is more of it’s not a tactical plan, but it’s more concrete and it talks about the investments and outcomes that you are going to generate as a product team to move you closer to that vision, which is in the service of your corporate strategy.

10:44 So you cascade those things down.

10:46 The product vision really serves to evangelize where you’re going and how you’re different.

10:51 It’s an excellent recruiting tool.

10:53 It’s great for raising capital.

10:54 It’s great for bringing on big customers, but it is not a plan that product strategy really serves as the map to like how you’re going to get there.

11:04 And that product strategy should always be rolling up to the street strategic goals of the company.

11:10 And so whenever I think of really strong product leaders and these are traits I try to have myself is you need to be very fluent and interested in technology, you don’t need direct code, but you need to be able to work really closely with your engineering partners and understand the limitations and the opportunities and what is possible with technology to achieve outcomes.

11:29 You need to deeply understand and appreciate your customers and your market.

11:33 So like you have to think like that, you have to embody them, you have to have a connection with that and mostly you just have to appreciate them and recognize that you are not them.

11:42 And then lastly, you must understand your business.

11:45 because if you don’t understand your business, you can build amazing products that don’t make any money or that bankrupt your company or that or that no one will buy.

11:54 And then what’s the point?

11:55 You have an amazing experience that you can’t sustain, it’s not viable.

11:59 And so, you know, it’s always essential whenever I on board at a company, I always get really radically clear.

12:05 Like how do you make money?

12:06 Who do you serve?

12:07 How are you different?

12:08 What is your business strategy?

12:10 How has that evolved over the years?

12:12 Because that strategy is going to be the basis for how you make tough decisions.

12:16 And I need to know what that rubric is so that I can reinforce that in the products daily.

12:21 One thing that really resonates with me is if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going.

12:27 And so as you highlight a little bit of that growth, some of that trajectory, I understand how that can play a very important role in product strategy because you want to stay grounded and exactly who that enterprise’s personality is exactly what it is.

12:39 We’re trying to deliver.

12:40 One other thing that you captured was product management and how it’s changed and shifted in the time that you’ve perhaps left previous employees.

12:49 Could you maybe highlight some of the changes within that product management space, the bigger changes that you’re witnessing and seeing, of course, And it’s really important and I think that products kind of having a moment at this point in time just because of like what we have access to also with, with, you know, the, the onslaught of A I and I think with product management specifically far in the past, going back to like the nineties, there a lot of this comes from Scrum, Scrum Agile and some of the, the bigger processes specifically coming out of the West coast where like product managers, a lot of them come, there’s a distinction between like a product manager and a product owner, a product owner, really owning like the tactical breaking down of tickets and grooming of a backlog and helping perform Q A and owning the day to day prioritization and a product manager, really owning the strategy.

13:42 I think in most modern technology organizations, those those two roles have really come together.

13:47 But if you index towards one index towards outcomes, I think the single largest shift that we’re seeing in the product management space is a shift from output to outcomes, owning business outcomes.

13:59 Instead of saying, you know, I want to shift this many features, I want to deliver this thing.

14:04 Let go of delivery and hold on to impact.

14:07 What do you want that thing to do?

14:10 What do you want to see happen with your N P S scores?

14:12 What do you want to see happen to your growth in revenue?

14:14 What do you want to see in terms of your growth and utilization if you’re doing the lending product, what do you want your default rate to be?

14:20 What do you want your take rate to be like really looking at those business metrics?

14:25 And, and that’s really, I think what, what true amount of product management comes down to is you are being trusted to bring together your understanding of the business, your understanding of the technology, your understanding of the market and your ability to collaborate cross functionally with an empowered product team to make the ch the choices day in and day out to optimize for the outcome, not to optimize for delivery.

14:49 So, so Colleen, if I, if I hear you correctly, you propose managing product manager effectiveness, the performance as product managers as product owners, not only on the features and functionality and performance and customer reaching customer satisfaction of the product, but also the revenue that, that, that the product realizes.

15:07 Yes, yes.

15:08 Absolutely.

15:08 And this is a shift and I think you’re even seeing it.

15:10 If you look at the coast, there’s a lot of, of west coast companies that are kind of adopting A PM as G M model where the product manager, the product leader, the leader of the product manager is within a business line or within an org actually own the P N L.

15:25 And I have seen this happen in multiple ways.

15:27 I have owned P N L si have worked with G MS who own the P N L and I kind of like moonlit, owned it.

15:33 But I, I do think that the more you think about how the decisions you make affect a lot of the bottom line in terms of costs and revenue like that is deeply, deeply important.

15:45 You’re making investments of usually the firm, the company’s most expensive resources, their time and their people and a lot of people and a lot of highly paid people to execute on this product strategy.

15:57 And you need to understand how it’s going to affect the business.

16:00 OK.

16:02 No, thank you for that.

16:03 In a, you know, you talked about you touched upon organization here.

16:07 I know in a recent article that you wrote, you also talked about organizational structure and how it can drive how the structure itself can help drive growth through product management.

16:16 Can you talk about a couple of a couple of structures that you’ve looked at and maybe talk a little bit about the pros and cons and the role of product management in each of those.

16:25 Absolutely.

16:26 So I think the most common organizational structures like framework, like first principles frameworks of how companies that use, they’re either tech enabled or that truly make their money from technology, like from a subscription technology platform, they usually organize it in one of two ways and usually they, they converge in the middle in some kind of hybrid organization.

16:47 But one side of the coin is a functional model, meaning that your executive team is comprised of functional experts, meaning like a head of product head of technology, head of sales, a a head of clients, client support, clients, et cetera, head of finance, so on and so forth and all P MS, all marketers, all you know, insert function in here, roll up to that leader, that functional leader.

17:16 That’s really more of a functional model.

17:18 What’s good about this model is that there is a lot, it’s lean and it’s fluid.

17:23 If you decide to make changes, I see this very commonly done in pre product market fit companies usually on the venture backside, anything from like series A to series C because you’re still defined, you’re still getting the product market fit and you’re starting to scale.

17:38 This allows for some shared resources, like you might share a DEV OPS team or an infrastructure team, you might share marketing resources, you might have a single, single sales team.

17:49 You might even share designers from time to time or, or what have you.

17:53 And so that’s really a functional model.

17:55 The, the pros of that is that it’s very lean, it’s very fluid.

17:58 You also have central functional ownership.

18:00 Like if you’re bringing on more junior, I’m gonna use P MS because that’s what, what my function is.

18:05 It’s easier to train them as a head of product and have it and see all of their work.

18:10 However, it can lead to just some breakdowns in communication because you’re forced to prioritize that head of product is going to be prioritizing all day long and and helping diffuse or, or, or realign resources and versus having, you know, all folks be organized in terms of like business line or general manager line.

18:31 So a really good model.

18:33 I think that there’s absolute value in having a functional leader.

18:35 The other thing is is that as a functional leader, one of the things I always talk about with, with my teams as well and that I try to embody myself as a leader is even though I am a chief product officer and I am a head of product.

18:48 If I’m on an executive team, my first team is that executive team and I am, I am tasked with being an executive leader of the company first and an executive of product.

18:58 Second.

18:59 What that means is that there might be all kinds of things I want to do as a head of product to be like this is the, what I think the right way of doing it is, but it might not be the right thing for the business.

19:09 And if those two things are at odds, I’m going to choose what is right for the business because that is a job that I took at being on an executive leadership team.

19:19 And so I think that that’s something to keep in mind and not all leaders are, are minded in that way and that can be that can cause some stress.

19:25 I think at the executive level in terms of, of alignment.

19:27 So that’s really the functional model.

19:29 On the other side, we have a general management model and a general management model tends to work really well for more developed companies where they have multiple product lines that are mature and they have multiple product lines that are make sure they each have their own P N L oftentimes they’re operating like independent business units within a much larger company.

19:52 And what’s good about this is if you know what those metrics are for each of those business lines, this can be incredibly effective at having a single owner over the success of that business line end to end.

20:04 And so, for example, the G M of let’s use square capital, for example, they have a sales team they have a marketing team, they have a support team, they have a product team, they have an engineering team, then you have like square Payroll, they each have, they have all of those functions too.

20:23 And so what’s nice about that is, it’s all centered on like what that business unit’s mission is and hitting those business unit metrics.

20:31 However, this is for much larger organizations, there is some redundancy because you have a product lead on each of those teams, you have an engineering lead on each of those teams and you then have the communication breakdown isn’t vertical, it’s horizontal.

20:46 And you want to almost have those folks dot line across to one another.

20:51 And so, and you know, decision making can break down this happens in both structures.

20:55 It’s really about finding the flavor that that’s right for your organization and for your stage, as well as your clarity in terms of executing on that business strategy.

21:05 I oftentimes see something in the middle where there is a G M or A PM as G M.

21:13 If there’s a G M and and a product leader, I think having shared ownership of the P N L is really important, I think aligning on those incentives and those metrics is really important just to make sure that those two folks are like Batman and Robin when it comes to leading those, those, those teams, I also think regardless of what model you choose, think like a matrix and kind of dot line report into one another.

21:37 So like when I was at Square square has kind of gone back and forth between functional and G M and there’s actually there some great writing out there.

21:44 One is on Lenny.

21:45 Lenny’s blog, Lenny’s newsletter that was written by two of my compatriots over at Square and they did it a beautiful job.

21:53 Rohini Pandy and then Mary Lou wrote a great article about this that I think really breaks down the pros and cons very, very well.

22:01 But when I was at Square, we were a G M model.

22:04 However, I was in a product and product marketing role and once or twice a week, all of my compatriots who had the same job I did on Invoices or Payroll or Dashboard or Caviar at the time and that was one square on Caviar.

22:20 We would all sit together and like trade ideas because we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose our craft.

22:26 And that like, oh how are you writing Pr Ds or how are you writing M R Ds?

22:30 Oh, mine look different.

22:31 And I think to every in every company having a bit of a microculture and, and team identity is super healthy, you just want to make sure it doesn’t get in the way of working really, really well together.

22:43 So, thank you.

22:44 So, so it sounds like fintech.

22:47 You talked about the functional model.

22:48 And that’s, that’s what we see when we’re talking to prospects and folks out there, I think for the 100 year old community banks that are out there, it sounds as though maybe a general manager model is something that they should be looking at if they’re not already.

23:04 But then again, I, but I guess my question or my challenge to you is how do you define product within 100 year old community bank?

23:11 I know a lot of questions.

23:13 It’s so hard.

23:14 And because oftentimes, so what I typically see and like community banks, especially more established is they have these business line owners like, so I’m the head of commercial lending and usually the business lines are a function of the financial product and the segment they’re going after like so commercial lending, larger businesses on, on the debt side or on like the liability side.

23:37 or you’re like the head of retail, like retail banking.

23:41 People like you and me opening, you know, checking accounts and credit cards, you may have a head of T M treasury management like it, it just so I I often sometimes see th these heads of of business lines and and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that structure because procuring those products, deciding those products, setting the rates, managing the portfolios of those products that is very different than managing a portfolio of technology investments.

24:08 And so I don’t think you can just lift one model and drop it in a totally different industry.

24:14 But I do think that there are some common principles that can be drawn from.

24:17 If you have those business line leaders, how are they thinking about their digital and client experience?

24:23 I’ve seen a lot of banks adopt a head of digital product and then head of digital product, which isn’t, isn’t really the product.

24:31 It’s more of the experience at which a customer goes through a digital or physical journey, usually an omni channel journey and thinking about that customer end to end and how they’re going to do that.

24:43 And I think that that’s completely healthy as you grow, you may decide that you’re lending, your lending experience is gonna be very different than your deposit experience.

24:52 It’s going to be very different than your post account opening experience and how you do online and mobile banking.

24:58 I think that that can be very healthy.

25:00 And so I think the bottom line is if, if you have these business line leaders who are responsible really for the growth and health of the portfolio, oftentimes they’re going to need support on creating, on creating and overseeing a beautiful experience that helps achieve those top line numbers.

25:16 And so I would start generally with a platform of growth PM.

25:21 somebody to think about that cohesive customer journey and then think if you need more of a of a business line to product manager pairing a lot of times I’ll see a bank hire a platform PM or a, a growth PM which is really all around cross sell and Upsell.

25:39 So like I go into a bank, I open a checking account.

25:42 Then they’re like, do you want a debit card?

25:44 Of course, I do.

25:45 What are your CD rates?

25:46 Oh, that looks good.

25:47 I’ll take one of those too.

25:48 So, really thinking about how you string all that together.

25:51 And then I also see every now and then a lot of banks use third party technology.

25:57 And so even though, you know, a lot of times I’ll get a question of, I don’t, we don’t have our own engineers, do we need product managers?

26:03 You may still need a product manager.

26:05 I don’t, I, I think you should really think deeply about, about owning that digital experience, think of your, of your vendors or your or your third party providers as an extension of your team.

26:16 And if you have a product manager, they should be meeting with the head of product from your vendors.

26:20 When I was at mantle, I would talk with product managers all the time at the banks that we were working with.

26:24 What’s on your road map, here’s what’s on mine.

26:26 What are you focused on?

26:27 Here’s what I’m focused on.

26:28 What is your growth look like for next year?

26:30 Ok, great.

26:31 That’s really good input for me.

26:32 And so really seeing those extensions.

26:34 And so I think like, you know, having a couple of key products managers and maybe even a couple of integration managers as well because planning those integrations does take a lot of resources.

26:44 But I think it really comes down to having those folks who own the technical experience and having them very closely tied to those who are managing the portfolio of the financial products, very insightful Colleen immensely.

26:59 And one thing too, just for the broader audience at large, when we’re talking products in my mind, the product mindset extends beyond market facing components, even into internal interdependencies such as compliance, providing a service back to a business line or third party risk.

27:14 Could you maybe talk to us about the importance of a product mindset in roles that maybe perhaps people don’t associate with product?

27:21 Yeah, absolutely.

27:23 I think that, you know, having a adopting product principles, agnostic of what your job title is, adopting key product principles about knowing your business and the lovers and drivers of your business, of having a deep curiosity about what life is like for your users.

27:39 And for your customers.

27:40 And I think also having a deep understanding of your technology that is a universal asset.

27:45 that ability to work cross functionally is a universal asset.

27:49 And so I think regardless of role, that is really something that every company should invest in, looking at the data of who’s logging in and, and who’s procuring what types of products is super important.

28:01 And so of oftentimes, you know, people are like, where do I get a good product manager?

28:05 They’re probably in your business already.

28:07 Some of my favorite places to look for product managers specifically.

28:11 And, and when what made me truly decided I wanted to be a product manager was I worked on a service line when I was at Edward Jones as part of my rotation.

28:19 I worked in the retail banking.

28:20 So credit cards, mortgages, et cetera, margin loans.

28:24 And I answered questions all day long.

28:26 I E I dealt with frustrated people.

28:29 and they, and they’re Edward Jones for credit card.

28:31 If you really want to understand what’s broken about a product, sit on a service line and have people tell you about their frustrations and, and how upset they are all day long and, and be like, what do, what is, you know, I’ve answered 100 calls today.

28:44 What do they all have in common?

28:46 Can I go to the root cause and try to solve this once and for all?

28:50 And so customer support and customer client service is a huge area that I would look for, for P MS your integration managers, huge area where I would look for, for P MS, you, anyone who’s in a client facing role, who’s deeply interested in the technology or delivery component.

29:06 And oftentimes even operations like people who are looking for ways to streamline Treasury management fulfillment or what have you and a lot of folks become platform P MS those internal P MS of like, how can I take this experience?

29:22 That is 1 to 1 and make it 1 to 1 to many in a safe and cohesive way.

29:26 So a lot of times those folks who are solving problems internally are gonna be great candidates for bank P MS well captured.

29:36 I know when we start to talk through product generation in the next manifestation to hit market.

29:40 The first place that we stop is our customer service manager.

29:43 His name is Wendell and he has all kinds of insights in relation to things we could change, we could alter, we could improve upon.

29:50 You’re absolutely right because at the end of the day, back to one of your earlier opening statements, it’s about delivering value proposition in an easy way that the consumer wants to digest it.

29:59 Right?

29:59 Paraphrasing of course.

30:01 And you’ve been in the product space really for quite some time as it’s grown, it’s iterated.

30:07 One thing that I wonder is if you look in that crystal ball of yours, what is the next disruption to hit product?

30:16 Why don’t you just ask me, what are my thoughts on A I very broad question for crypto?

30:22 I mean, this, this was five years ago, it would be crypto but now it’s a I, so I I think generative A I is, is, is a thing.

30:29 I think also, you know, one thing that a point of view that I have that I don’t know if other people share is that like, you know, banks have been doing A I for a long time.

30:38 R P A like robotic process automation, underwriting modeling risk, all of L L L like all, all of the that type of of modeling is right now we’re focused on gen A I and like large language models and small language models.

30:52 But really like all of the work in credit and risk profiling was the early iterations of machine learning and A I and so banks and credit unions and financial institutions have doing this for a while now, they just have more open technology in which to do.

31:07 So I think in terms of what I think this is going to do for product management, going back to way in the beginning of our conversation.

31:13 When, when you asked me how how product management has changed the next day moving from outputs to outcomes.

31:20 I think that a lot of the tactical work of A PM could be automated away with A I I think that there are a lot of large language models that could help spawn tickets for engineers or reduce the amount of documentation that needs to happen and that A I could be a really good copilot to A PM.

31:39 What I don’t think it will ever do is replace the judgment, at least for now.

31:44 And the human and, and the more human centered side of like user experience research, what I do think it will do is really up the expectations of what it means to be a product manager.

31:55 It’s not going to be enough to be like, I know these things and I put together a great pr d you could, you could build a prototype like I, I use gen A I to help review queries that I write that I know are terrible but and then I know that they can, can, can optimize that that will be written in a much better way.

32:11 I use it to review code.

32:12 I use it to spawn code for me.

32:14 So like I actually think that this is going to be for, for P MS who they should think of A I as a way of augmenting their expertise and their experience and helping them get to a point of being able to literally prototype solutions without being dependent on, on other team members.

32:32 So I think it’s going to raise expectations dramatically for PM si don’t think it will replace A PM Colleen.

32:38 Clearly, you are passionate about product management and, and we so appreciate your perspective here on, on, on the topic.

32:45 What else drives you outside of work, a set of work?

32:50 What drives me?

32:52 I love, so I live in Chicago.

32:54 I love being outside.

32:55 I love, you know, just spending time with friends and family and, and, you know, just enjoying enjoying life.

33:03 But I think, you know, one of the things that has always driven me is I love technology, that’s what I do at night.

33:10 Or on weekends as I’m digging into, you know, new advances in technology and seeing how I can solve problems that I, that I enjoy and things that I worry about at the end of the day.

33:20 And so, you know, I, I, I love what I do, but the whole reason I, I do this is I love the type of leader that I can become, being a product manager, being able to solve problems for people, I think is truly one of the largest opportunities.

33:34 There are very few jobs that you can see a problem and you have the ability to go and solve it quickly for that person.

33:43 And that is, that is like the galvanizing force of why I love what I do.

33:48 And and I think like from a value standpoint, I love taking action on things.

33:54 And you know, I, I have little kids and so having them, you know, see how I solve problems and how I lead my teams is something that it’s almost like one of those things that when your parents used to tell you, like, you know, bind your manners because somebody’s watching you or like Santa’s watching you.

34:09 I mean, all I had to do was have, have a child and, you know, he’s watching me.

34:13 And so I think like it does really make you hold yourself to a higher standard in terms of how you work and how you live your life.

34:21 And he’s in this phase where he like parrots, every single thing he sees.

34:24 So it’s truly, it’s truly AAA fun experience.

34:28 So, yeah, that’s what I do in my life outside of work is education, curiosity, being outdoors, being with my family.

34:37 Well, what I just heard there describes the perfect product manager and you know, nothing is quite a mirror like having a little one around you and seeing that reflection.

34:47 It is a great contrast.

34:50 Colleen, you’ve been brilliant to have on the podcast.

34:53 We appreciate you joining social currency with us today and thank you for all the insight you shared, but all the work that you’re doing outside of just financial technology and product.

35:02 Thank you guys for having me.

35:04 I love conversations like this.

35:06 We appreciate you.

35:10 And that engaging dialogue was powered by Sunrise Banks member FDIC Equal Housing Lender.

35:16 Thanks for listening to the Social Currency podcast by Sunrise Banks.

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35:26 We’ll see you soon.