Whatever your take on today’s economy, one thing is clear: business as usual just doesn’t work anymore. With rising interest rates and the highest inflation in over 40 years, few experts seem able to agree on how the US economy will respond. Because of this, product teams are left somewhat floundering – if no one knows how the market will respond, how do you produce what the market will want? One thing is for sure, building digital products is not easy and must remain a top priority for all businesses and industries.
How do we process the flood of media reports, mass layoffs, and keep product development going? Our industry experts will lead us through a discussion on how recent market shifts have led to huge disruptions, and how leading teams are adapting to stay competitive and innovating during times of economic uncertainty.
- Common roadblocks to product innovation
- Updating legacy delivery behavior for today’s framework
- What is product culture and how it’s changing the way we innovate
- How product roadmaps are determined and how to engage in the GTM cycle
- Remaining value-centric and focused on customers’ needs
- The uncertain economy’s impact on product funding
- How teams are staying nimble while working with less
Ka-Fung is a seasoned professional with 15+ years of experience building and executing a diverse range of programs & operational strategy (NPI initiatives, product development and global launch, M&A integrations, strategic planning & risk analysis). His blend of business and technical acumen has helped his clients realize multi-MM ROI in new revenue and cost-savings. At present, Ka-Fung manages the Presales GTM Scale Programs portfolio where he oversees global program operations, strategy, and services for the Shared Services division at Okta – the publicly traded market leader in Identity and Access Management. Over a 4-year span, in roles across Product & Engineering and Presales, Ka-Fung has been directly responsible for driving the end-to-end delivery of Okta’s most successful and complex cross-functional initiatives in GTM and R&D.
Tony Shawver is a Director within the National Agile Practice at Motion Consulting Group (MCG). His background includes design engineering, software application development, consulting, and coaching. Currently, Tony’s consulting focus is split between transforming organizations into more adaptive, collaborative, better places to work through consulting, training, & coaching, and coaching product leadership, and teams to be more effective and responsive by utilizing agility holistically across their product development approach. Tony currently lives in the northwest Atlanta with his wife and 3 boys and has BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida, and an MBA from Georgia State University.
As the Founder of merKata.io, Christine Puccio plays the dual role of technology entrepreneur and thought leader. She is a seasoned leader in the technology industry and a champion for diversity and inclusion. Over the past 25 years, Ms. Puccio has led high-performing sales teams and has built strategic partnerships for Fortune 500 and SaaS companies such as JFrog, F5, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, AT&T and Lockheed Martin. Her recent focus was serving as JFrog's Global Vice President, Cloud Alliances, Marketplace Strategy & Go-To-Market (GTM) Programs. In this role Ms. Puccio was responsible for partnership expansions with global cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft and Google. Prior to her work with JFrog, she led negotiations with AWS to close the first ISV strategic collaboration agreement, a custom "first party like" offer for F5 NGINX on Azure with Microsoft and led the cloud marketplace strategy that resulted >65% growth Y/Y and received Commercial Marketplace Partner of the year from Microsoft. Ms. Puccio also served with distinction and recognition as the Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Red Hat. In her work with SAP, she negotiated, managed and led the team at Red Hat to close the largest software agreement for the company and received the Chairman’s Award, Red Hat's highest award, given annually to 12 employees who have made outstanding contributions. In 2017, she successfully launched neurodiversity at Red Hat — the first diversity and inclusion program in the company’s history. Currently, Ms. Puccio is a strategic advisor to Women in Cloud, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to bringing $1 billion in economic access to women-led STEM businesses by 2030.
She has been featured in the media by Bloomberg, NBC15, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the US Chamber of Commerce, to name a few. She has successfully completed multiple marathons including the elite Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco. In 2020 Ms. Puccio was named a Top 10 Most Influential Women In Cloud, The 5 most innovative leaders revamping the future in cloud computing 2021, CIO View and The top 20 female cloud leaders in cloud 2021, The Sociable. She and her daughter live in Oakland, California.
Lonye Nicole Ford is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Arlo Solutions, a minority/veteran/8a/HUBZone owned and operated business headquartered in Washington, DC. Arlo offers Intelligence, Cybersecurity and a full range of cutting-edge Program Management and Strategic Communication solutions to the United States Government. The combination of these service offerings allows Lonye to lead Arlo into new frontiers capturing significant market share as a small business.
With over 10 years of duty in the United States Air Force, Lonye acquired a love for, and ultimately the expertise in, Cybersecurity and Information Assurance. Through her expansive involvement in these disciplines, she gained an in-depth knowledge of information technology, and began her career as an Information Technology Specialist. At the age of 21, as a young professional exuding exemplary leadership quality, Lonye was hand selected to lead a 24/7 helpdesk operations servicing 7,000 customers.
As a government contractor for 20+ years, Lonye led large teams and managed projects and portfolios ranging from $2M to $1.5B. She developed a myriad of innovative solutions and policy that were implemented at the highest level in the government, including co-authoring the Air Force Fast Track process, and assessing, developing and streamlining the United States Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Framework process. Lonye’s strong work ethic afforded her numerous outstanding performance and leadership awards. Her quick wit to identify and solve complex problems, and her positive and astute business acumen, deems her a highly sought-after tech executive and teaming partner.
Lonye is a Hampton University graduate. She holds a master’s degree in Business Administration and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Known for being honest and forthright, Lonye is well respected in the business community. She has an amiable and genuine persona, and a passion for mentoring youth in underserved communities. As part of her outreach, she partners with UrbanPromise, a nonprofit youth organization in Camden, NJ, to equip children and young adults with the skills necessary for academic achievement, life management, spiritual growth, and Christian leadership. She gives unselfishly of her time and resources to underprivileged communities also in the Washington, DC and Chicago metropolitan areas. Lonye’s desire to one day organize a legacy nonprofit of her own is beyond a mere thought, but rather a life goal she undoubtedly will achieve.
Lonye’s commitment to Arlo, family, and community is none other than paramount!
John Hurney has spent the last 15+ years leading business transformational efforts in the financial services industry for companies such as Early Warning/Zelle (R) and Wells Fargo. John has diverse experience leading agile and product transformation, developing and executing business strategies, managing products and growing product teams from the ground up. He is passionate about understanding customer problems and working hand in hand with technology to bring products to market that solve them. John received his BA from the University of Minnesota and went on to study at Harvard Law School. He resides in San Antonio, where he lives with his wife and 3 children. In his free time he can be found experimenting in the kitchen or devouring Roman history.
Vish leads product for Evidation's consumer platform with the mission to measure and improve health in everyday life. Prior to this, he built zero-to-one ventures at BCG Digital Ventures in healthtech, fintech, and social impact. He is deeply passionate about building products and teams that make the world a better place. Vish lives in sunny Los Angeles, and has degrees in Psychology, Business, and Design Engineering from Michigan and Harvard.
