Products That Count Podcast

Can AI truly be your co-founder, or is that a role only a human can fill? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, KC Advisors Executive Leadership Coach Keith Cowing will be speaking on what AI still can't do when it comes to building companies and teams. Drawing on his experience as a former CPO at LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flatiron Health, Keith shares a framework for what makes a great co-founder and whether AI, or an alternative profile, could ever step into that role.

How can product and engineering leaders actually prove the ROI of AI adoption when everyone is being asked to justify the investment but few teams have a clear measurement playbook? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Pensero AI Co-Founder Bernardo Hernandez will be speaking on how to measure productivity gains from AI in a way that is rigorous, practical, and useful for annual planning cycles. As tools like Cursor and Claude Code promise 3 to 10× productivity gains in engineering, leadership teams are moving quickly to allocate budgets and set expectations, while product leaders are being asked to benchmark progress and quantify impact without clear precedents. This conversation explores how experienced operators are approaching that challenge and what it takes to turn AI productivity claims into measurable results that teams can confidently use for planning and decision-making.

How are Chief Product Officers redesigning their org charts and ways of working to build truly AI-native product teams? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Monumental Chief Product Officer Pawan Gaargi will be speaking on how product leaders are transforming their teams to operate in the AI era. As organizations move beyond using AI as a feature-level tool and begin rethinking how products are built, shipped, and managed, product leaders are being asked to reshape processes, decision-making, and collaboration across their teams. Drawing from his experience scaling teams and rebuilding workflows through acquisitions at Monumental and from his early product leadership roots at Zynga, Pawan shares how experimentation, hypothesis-driven thinking, and hands-on leadership are helping teams become AI-native while keeping core product fundamentals like retention, player motivation, and growth metrics firmly in focus.

How can companies stop losing revenue because marketing, inventory, and operations are working from disconnected data? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer Justin Leibow, Conative.ai Founder Mike Le discusses how AI-driven demand forecasting helps organizations align teams, improve decision-making, and increase cash-flow efficiency. He also explores why clean, connected data matters more than models alone, and how AI agents are reshaping the way product, marketing, and inventory teams collaborate to act faster and smarter.

How can sustainable feedstock materials reshape manufacturing while accelerating climate progress? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Mothership Materials CEO & Co-Founder Jo Marini to discuss producing sustainable feedstock materials, the importance of customer discovery and building stakeholder relationships and finding joy in product development. 

How can enterprises unlock AI adoption while keeping sensitive data secure? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Polygraf AI Head of Product Anar Bayramov discusses how organizations can manage AI risk, protect data flows, and build governance into their AI strategy from the start. He shares lessons from building in regulated environments, explains why visibility into AI usage is the foundation of trust, and explores how product leaders can shift the conversation from fear-driven security to enabling responsible AI at scale.

How do product leaders decide what AI should automate and what should stay human-in-the-loop? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis VP of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Level AI Head of Product Sirisha Machiraju will be speaking on how teams move AI from experimentation to strategic priority while balancing trust, adoption, and risk in enterprise environments. She also shares a practical playbook for evaluating assistive vs. agentic workflows and explains how conversation intelligence is reshaping customer experience across industries, including healthcare.

How can product leaders cut through AI hype to build products that actually deliver value? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Former Amazon, PayPal & Target Product Leader West Stringfellow will be speaking on how to apply AI with a product-first mindset. Drawing from decades of experience scaling global platforms, he shares how to balance innovation with discipline, avoid overestimating AI capabilities, and focus on what truly drives customer impact and business growth.

What does it take to build AI-powered products that customers actually trust? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer Justin Leibow, Unit21 Sr Product Leader Dhiraj Bhat will be speaking on how product leaders can design systems that leverage AI effectively. Drawing from his experience building fraud prevention products, Dhiraj explores the shift from feature-driven PM to systems thinking, and why implementation and trust will define the winners in AI.

What does it mean to prompt AI the product manager way? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Ridge Ventures Venture Partner Akriti Dokania will be speaking on how product leaders can approach AI prompting with a product mindset. Akriti brings a rare perspective, having worked as an engineer and product manager at Amazon and Microsoft and now serving as a venture partner and board member to several successful B2B startups. The conversation was sparked by an article Akriti recently published on how to prompt AI models the product manager way, an idea that reframes the current AI conversation. While much of the industry focuses on what AI models can do, Akriti argues that the real variable is the person using them: how the problem is framed, how the conversation is structured, and whether the user knows what kind of help they are actually looking for. Together, they go deep on practical frameworks product builders can use immediately, th

How can product leaders navigate the shift from product-centric to platform-centric strategies in financial services? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer within the Financial Services Organization Justin Leibow, Tavant Associate Director of Product Management Sandeep Shivam discusses the evolution of lending experiences through a platform approach. They explore the role of user research in product development, the impact of AI on customer expectations, and the importance of building trust in AI systems. Sandeep shares insights on optimizing operational efficiency, the challenges of regulatory compliance, and the significance of creating real value for users. This episode offers practical guidance for product leaders aiming to enhance user experience and leverage AI effectively in their strategies

How can AI eliminate one of the most frustrating parts of knowledge work: tracking and reporting time? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP Product & Engineering Nacho Andrade, Laurel Chief Product Officer Jiaona Zhang discusses how AI can automatically capture and classify how professionals spend their time, turning everyday activity into structured insights. The conversation explores how AI agents can automate tedious workflows like timesheets while helping product teams move faster, stay grounded in user problems, and rethink leadership in an AI-native organization.

 How can enterprises harness powerful AI responsibly? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis VP of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Giggso Co-Founder Ravi Venugopal speaks about operationalizing AI safely and responsibly in regulated industries. He shares how governance, security, and observability form the guardrails for enterprise AI, why "AI must be farmed, not left to run wild," and how leaders can balance experimentation, innovation, and compliance while upskilling their workforce in an AI‑native world.

What does it take to build AI for customer service that improves real customer outcomes instead of just sounding intelligent? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Microsoft Product Lead Madhuri Somara shares how her team is building AI-powered case management solutions that automate routine work while keeping humans in the loop for judgment and empathy. She discusses designing AI systems that increase resolution speed, surface transparency in decision-making, and elevate the overall customer experience in complex service environments.

Can product management be fully automated with AI, and what happens if you try? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Descript CEO Laura Burkhauser shares how her team experimented with automating nearly 100% of the product management workflow using AI. She discusses the surprising results of that experiment, how AI is changing the role of product managers, and why the future of product work may look very different from the processes teams rely on today.

Can design thinking and partnerships accelerate climate solutions at the pace the world now demands? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing PolyGone Systems CEO & Co-Founder Nathaniel Banks to discuss the use of design thinking and partnerships to remove and recover microplastics across bodies of water, the balance of product iteration and customer testing, and and importance of education of a problem and relevant solutions to facilitate adoption

AI isn't breaking work, we are. So what actually needs to change? In this episode of the Product Talk podcast, host Denise Hemke sits down with product leader Sriram Iyer to explore why today's workplace crisis has less to do with AI and more to do with culture, trust, and leadership clarity. Drawing on decades of experience across platforms, AI products, and scaling organizations, Sriram unpacks how product roles are collapsing, why durable careers now require lifelong learning and generalist skills, and how a growing trust deficit is undermining teams. From the "70/70/70" career framework to practical ways leaders can rebuild trust and clarity, this episode is a must-listen for product managers and leaders navigating change without losing their humanity.

What does it really take to shift from shipping features to driving measurable outcomes at global scale? In this podcast hosted by EY Platform Operations Lead Justin Leibow, Walmart Principal Product Manager Parul Jain shares how she approaches product strategy, innovation pipelines, and AI-enabled product operations. She unpacks how outcome-based planning reshapes team behavior, how to structure innovation as a repeatable system rather than a one-off event, and where generative AI can meaningfully elevate product decision-making without replacing human judgment.

Why do 85% of AI projects fail, and how can product leaders beat the odds? In this episode of the Product Talk podcast, host Denise Hemke sits down with Greg Nudelman, product and UX leader and creator of the Snowball Sprint, to unpack why AI initiatives break down and what it really takes to build AI products that succeed. Drawing on real-world examples from cybersecurity, enterprise AI, and IoT, Greg shares practical frameworks for framing the right use cases, thin-slicing real data, escaping POC purgatory, and redefining success beyond accuracy. A must-listen for product managers and leaders navigating AI-driven product strategy.

How can product leaders turn today's climate urgency into scalable hardware and software solutions that attract capital, unlock long-term energy storage, and build the diverse teams needed to make it all work? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Terrament Co-Founder & COO Eric Chaves to discuss leveraging existing technologies to generate sustainable energy and enable a long-term storage solution, as well as the importance of diverse experiences to identify a co-founder and future hires.