One Knight in Product15 Touko 2025

CPO Stories: Debbie McMahon - The Financial Times

Welcome to CPO Stories!

In this new "podcast within a podcast", I'll be speaking to executive product leaders from the UK's biggest companies as well as up-and-coming stars of the future. I'll be digging into how they approach product management within their organisations, how they approached the leap into executive product leadership and trying to get some deep insights into how they view product management practices and culture. If you're a CPO and would like to come on, drop me a line! Or, forward this episode to your CPO and tell them you want them to come on 🙂

About the Episode

In this episode, I speak with Debbie McMahon, interim Chief Product Officer at the Financial Times, one of the UK's most well-known and distinctive newspapers. Debbie started out working at the Department for Work & Pensions, moving into a product strategy role there before spending time at the BBC and onwards to the FT.

We cover a lot, including:

All about the FT and its move away from being "just" a newspaper
How the FT structures Product; size, scope, dependency management and whether they have product owners
How to advocate for the value of product management with non-tech leaders and editorial stakeholders
Balancing product management idealism and book principles with the real world of the FT
The importance of being honest upfront about your organisation's context when hiring people
Making the jump to CPO; what was different, what was the same
How CPOs can avoid being seen as ivory tower thinkers or, worse still, "poop and swoopers"
Why product people should work at the FT

Check out the FT

Check out the FT's website: https://www.ft.com, or their careers page: https://aboutus.ft.com/careers.

Connect with Debbie

You can connect with Debbie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmcmahon/.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(278)

Jeff Patton: AI Doesn't Change Product Management Fundamentals

On this episode, I speak to Jeff Patton, Chief Troublemaker at Jeff Patton Associates. Jeff is a product management consultant, coach and trainer, and the author of User Story Mapping, a book that has...

21 Loka 1h 7min

Simonetta Batteiger: Product Managers Need to Understand the Financials... Not Just the Users

On this episode, I speak to Simonetta Batteiger, a product leadership coach, trainer, speaker and co-organiser of ProductTank Cologne. Simonetta began her career in accounting and finance before movin...

10 Loka 1h 6min

Rich Mironov: AI Should Change Product Management... Just Not The Way You Think

On this episode, I speak to the returning Rich Mironov, longtime product management consultant, product leadership coach, and founder of Mironov Consulting. Rich has spent decades working with product...

18 Syys 1h 1min

Eric Ries: From Corrupted to Incorruptible - How to Build Mission-First Companies That Last

On this episode, I speak to Eric Ries, entrepreneur, multiple-time founder and bestselling author of The Lean Startup. Eric has spent years working with founders, leaders and organisations on how comp...

28 Elo 1h 5min

Barry O'Reilly - How to Keep the Humanity in Artificial Organizations

On this episode, I speak to Barry O'Reilly, entrepreneur, executive adviser and author of Lean Enterprise, Unlearn and his latest book, Artificial Organizations. Barry works with senior leaders around...

18 Elo 1h 6min

Pavel Samsonov - AI Can Build the Solution... You Still Have to Design the Problem

On this episode, I speak to Pavel Samsonov, Principal UX Designer at Justworks and author of The Product Picnic newsletter. Pavel has spent his career working across UX, service design and product man...

25 Heinä 1h 9min

Be Kaler Pilgrim - Where Does Product Go Wrong in PE-Backed Firms?

On this episode, I speak to Be Kaler Pilgrim, founder of Smithfield Search and original founder of Futureheads Recruitment. Be has spent more than three decades helping organisations build technology ...

2 Heinä 57min

Petra Wille - Strong Product Leadership in the Age of AI

On this episode, I speak to the returning Petra Wille, product leadership coach, author of Strong Product People, and founder of the Product at Heart conference. Petra has spent years helping product ...

19 Touko 1h 5min