Decibel Chief Product Officer
Built an empowered product organisation and a dual-track discovery and delivery model. The company was acquired by Medallia.
Product Leadership Advisory & Coaching
For 20+ years I've built and led product - as CPO, VP and co-founder. I help B2B SaaS scale-ups turn product from a delivery function into a strategic, outcome-driven force - usually within six to twelve months.
The shift
Delivery is now close to solved. Specs become designs become production code, with very little human review in between. The hard part was never shipping a lot of stuff - it was shipping the right thing. AI didn't create that bottleneck. It just exposed it.
Individual productivity is up. Team judgment is not. Closing that gap is the work of product management - and it keeps getting more valuable, not less.
Who I work with
It usually starts with a quiet conversation. The leadership team, or sometimes an investor: "Can we talk? Our product management isn't really working. They need someone to help them get their work under control. We are frustrated, and out of ideas to be honest."
Then I go in, and I find the same frustration on the other side. The product leader and the team feel that nobody understands their work, or how it gets done. Half-baked ideas get thrown over the wall, and they are quietly treated as slow, inefficient, and siloed. In truth they are at their limit, working incredibly hard, and still getting little done: they never get the room to do the right things.
Two frustrated sides, each certain the other doesn't get it. That is the room I walk into.
What I do it for is what comes after. The numbers move, clearly and measurably. And the people change: the team and the leadership see what product is really for, and what it can do. Individuals thrive, take ownership, and start to move things they did not think were possible before. Watching that happen is why I really enjoy this work.
Track record
From the first product hire to a public company - here is where it counts most.
Built an empowered product organisation and a dual-track discovery and delivery model. The company was acquired by Medallia.
Took responsibility for the Digital Suite and grew it to nearly $100M ARR in a year.
Led the Contractor product to the fastest growth in the company - more than 600% in two years.
A four-week diagnostic became a full product rebuild. On the way out, I was offered the Co-CEO role.
I started out in large corporations: AOL Germany, eBay Europe. Then built my own: bellicon Home, bellicon Studio. Now I focus where it has the most leverage - B2B SaaS scale-ups ready to make product a strategic force.
How I work
Success is the day your team runs without me.
I sit inside the product organisation, talk to your people, and come back with an honest assessment: where product stands, what is in the way, and the first moves. Useful whether or not we continue.
We rebuild how product works: a seat at the executive table, goals aligned to the business, empowered teams with a real mandate, and discovery owned by the team.
We put it into practice and make sure it works well. Then I hand the team to a named successor and step back. Redundancy is the goal, so you can thrive independently.
About
Twenty-plus years in product - CPO, VP, co-founder - mostly B2B SaaS in the phase where a company is scaling faster than its product organisation can keep up.
Empowered-teams school (Cagan, Torres, SVPG), grounded in what works inside real companies under real pressure, not only in theory: teams that own outcomes, discovery that changes decisions, product with a seat at the leadership table.
Based in Berlin; I work across DACH, the UK, and wider Europe and the US - a few engagements at a time, most six to twelve months, by design.
Let's talk
The best first step is a short conversation. A few lines about your company and what's prompting the call is plenty - I'll come back to you.