Part 1 - From Product Manager to CEO | Ft Deepak Singh, CEO of PMCurve

[@winvibes]

Keep it up

[@sugatnayak]

Thank you

[@Hardwood119]

Thank you sugat sir for this video 🙌🏻

[@sugatnayak]

Thank you :) Glad you find it useful.

[@pmcurve]

Good to be here ❤

[@sugatnayak]

It was a great discussion, thanks for sharing the insights.

[@abhishekpuvvada6730]

Very interesting journey! Lot to learn 😄

[@sugatnayak]

Glad you find it helpful.

[@manutyagi9385]

Amazing! Hey Sugat, after becoming a Group PM or a director/VP, what pivot provides a path to CEO in a big organisation? I have seen mostly Strategy or Sales folks reaching to the top. Very less do we see PMs in top CEO role. Is it a good idea to move to a Product strategy role? or a Sales role say after 10-12 years of PMing?

[@sugatnayak]

I will let @pmcurve/Deepak chime it here. My 2 cents here - Sudar Pichai/ Susan Wojcicki are great examples of PMs becoming CEO

[@manutyagi9385]

@@sugatnayak I agree about these two but they are like exceptions. You pickup 90%+ CEOs and they will be from Sales/Strategy. PM Path mostly(my personal experience) gets saturated after a while and you have to figure out what next? There is no proper career progression. Let me take an example. If you consider a bank, they also hire PMs. Most of those hired will get promotions - AVP --> VP --> SVP and then group executives (Maybe CEO). So they are doing the PM job i.e., managing the digital transformation of banks and at the same time have a set timeline of promotions. I have seen them rise up the ladder every 2-3 years. It motivates a person. But it is only in the case of banks and they also handle other responsibilities including P&L. You can take another example of enterprise sales. People have risen to Country Heads and CXOs. In case of a big tech firm, you join as a PM, then you become SPM, GPM but what after that? Even this path takes a lot of time. Is this a function of performance? I don't think so because good performing PMs also have not been able to rise up. I think this has to do with open positions or existnce of such roles. Another reason can be lack of P&L responsibilty. But I believe usually at or below GPM level, one does not get to do that. Some VPs also have limited P&L resp. Since PM is a relatively new phenomenon(although its old but lets consider that these jobs became commonplace recently) so maybe people will realise this in coming decade or so. There will be lot of supply of PMs seeking promotions and there will be less positions/promotions available. Will it lead to alienation/status frustration? Not sure. So that's why I asked, how many people have risen to the top of the leader through the PM path in the 'Indian' context. @pmcurve would love to hear your valuable insights. @sugatnayak if you could take up this question in any upcoming videos, it would be great to hear Deepak's inputs too.

[@BrokenRecord-i7q]

great job :)

[@sugatnayak]

Thanks Shivay