At VivaTech 2024, Adrienne Jan, Chief Product Officer at Scaleway, shared invaluable insights on Product Management in AI. From her international career journey to leading a diverse team and tripling product development velocity, Adrienne’s experience offers a comprehensive view of the evolving landscape of AI and product strategy. Her expertise highlights the importance of innovation, pragmatism, and creativity in successfully managing AI products in a competitive market.
Journey to Becoming a Chief Product Officer
Adrienne Jan shared her career trajectory, starting from Orange to becoming Scaleway’s Chief Product Officer. Her journey took her from France to California and back, working with startups and major companies like AEG. She emphasized the importance of international experience, saying, “Go work abroad. It gives you a lot of interesting insights on cultural differences and how they also affect the way our products are used.”
The Role of Diverse Teams in Product Development
Adrienne highlighted the significance of her diverse team at Scaleway. The team consists of product managers, designers, tech writers, product marketers, and UX researchers. She explained, “Product managers are in charge of implementing the product strategy and working with the engineering team to build the product.” She stressed the importance of each role in creating successful products.
Triple the Velocity in Product Development
One of Adrienne’s notable achievements at Scaleway was tripling the velocity of product development. She explained that this rapid development is crucial for competing with major American cloud providers. “We’re going to probably launch 30 new products this year,” she stated, emphasizing the need for speed and efficiency in bringing products to market.
AI Innovations and Partnerships
Adrienne discussed Scaleway’s partnership with the French AI company H, providing a supercomputer of GPUs for training large AI models. She noted the importance of European innovation, stating, “Not all of AI is American or Chinese. There’s a lot of opportunity for Europe to have a strong positioning with great engineers and a lot of innovation.”
The Future of AI in Product Management
Adrienne is optimistic about AI’s role in product management, believing it will automate routine tasks and allow for more focus on creativity and innovation. She advised future product managers to be pragmatic and take risks, saying, “Our job is creating products, and that requires human intelligence in terms of strategy and positioning.”
Find Adrienne on:
- LinkedIn: Adrienne Jan
- Twitter/X: @Scaleway_fr
Find Ben on:
- LinkedIn: Ben Costantini
- Twitter/X: @bencostantini
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