Introduction
Jeetu Patel, Chief Product Officer at Box, talks about making an impact at best scale through product development. With more than 20 years in the tech industry, Jeetu shares his experience in creating products that inspire users to integrate their features into everyday life and how the creation of a memorable user experience makes it all possible.
Making An Impact with Product Management
Everyone needs to think about what gets them most motivated. More than anything else, I am motivated by making an impact at best scale. The decisions that we make as product managers have a ripple effect across the entire company.
When you think about building at best scale, you can make an impact at the retail level with one or two customers. But when you think about reaching hundreds of millions of people and making an impact on a daily basis, that is very fulfilling – and there are very few fields that give you the ability to do that.
At Box, we try to pick the right problems to solve within the market. You want to be in the business of building painkillers instead of vitamins.
Most tech companies are product-centric and I believe that the origination of value for any business begins with product. For me, the most interesting problems that you can solve for a company will come developing products. I have felt this way since I started in tech 20 years ago and will probably feel the same way 20 years from now.
About the speaker
Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration. He leverages a diverse set of capabilities to lead the strategy and development for these businesses and also owns P&L responsibility for this multibillion-dollar portfolio. Jeetu combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor, and innate market understanding to create high-growth Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. Prior to joining Cisco, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He also created the Box Platform business unit where he led product strategy, marketing, and developer relations – driving products from the incubation stage to mature offerings.