Debbie
Widjaja
Chief Product Officer
Zero Gravity
Debbie is a product leader, operator, and coach with over 12 years of experience in the tech industry. She currently serves as the Chief Product Officer at Zero Gravity, a mission-driven tech startup that propels low-income students into great unis and careers. Drawing upon her wealth of experience, she has honed her product principles through influential positions at big tech like Meta and Shopify, and other tech unicorns across Europe and Asia.
16 May 2024 09:15 - 09:45
PM as a GM: Bringing product management back to its first principles
In the recent months, there has been a lot of negative talks about the importance of product managers. Some tech companies even go as far as citing "No PMs" as a selling point on their hiring post. As a product leader, I could actually see their point. The influx of new PMs coming out of bootcamps in the past few years brought people who often care more about the process and methodology compared to the actual business outcome they're trying to deliver. PM as a GM is a model implemented in many teams I've been a part of, including at Meta and Bulb (once dubbed as the fastest-growing startup in Europe in 2021). I'm now implementing the same model at Zero Gravity. PM as a GM means that the PM is fully responsible for business outcomes, and in some cases, also manages the non-engineering parts of the product.