Chief Product Officers are the hottest roles  especially  in startups.  Engineers want to build products but Product Managers are supposed to be the CEOs of a product.  So how does one transition from Engineer to a Product person?  Product engineering is responsible for developing the product and keeping it operating while the business vision brought by the product manager   based on an understanding of the customer’s need or problem . To build it, they must not only do the programming but also define the technical architecture. That is, what infrastructure it will run on, which programming language is most appropriate, which database is most appropriate, how to ensure the non-functional requirements of this product (response speed, availability, scalability, etc.). It is also important to validate with the product manager whether the cost of this infrastructure fits his business model.

In this not-to-be-missed session, all the mystries of transitioning from engineering to product management will be shared by 3 technical engineers turned product management leaders.

Santosh Ankola, Head of Product at Techcrunch and Engadget will unravel the mysteries behind Product management and showcase using examples from his journey from engineering to product management.  

Santosh will be joined by Mamta Narain who is an engineer turned veteran Product, Innovation & Business Executive and Founder/CEO of RealWorldAI.Co. She has held product leadership positions at eBay, PayPal, Kohl’s, HPE. With a techno-prenuerial energy, she has a spectacular record of using technical innovations to conceive many industry-first products which strives to expand access to digital experiences to wide segments of people. To democratise AI she launched her own training services to impart knowledge of Data Science. Mamta is an active coach and mentor and has served on the steering committee of  Women in Technology at eBay & Kohl.

Additionally, Kanakshila (Kanank) Tandon  will join the panel discussion as well. She has practically grown as a product leader through her 15 years of experience and learned what it takes to make a product successful. She started as a core software engineering developer and soon discovered  real passion in touching people’s life with wonderful products. She  has launched in over 20 countries and has worked with corporates & with startups learning how to create the striking balance of processes and at the same time maintain the agility to try new ideas. Few to name are HP, Microsoft, Zenfolio and HomeUnion. By education,she has an MBA from Arizona state university and MSc in computer science.