How can product leaders navigate product leadership in a regulated healthcare industry? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Carelon CPO Gautam Shah discusses his approach to product leadership in a highly regulated healthcare industry. He explains how understanding regulations and prioritizing user needs affects product development. Gautam also shares stories about high-impact products he’s worked on, including an unlimited telecommunications product and a product supporting vulnerable mental health patients. The discussion provides insights into navigating complex priorities, using customer journeys and personas, and leveraging AI to improve product management effectiveness.
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Show Notes:
- Consider regulations at every step of product development in healthcare.
- Understanding regulations and their importance is critical for product teams.
- Processes should reinforce regulatory compliance.
- Prioritization requires balancing strategic alignment, capability, customer needs.
- User journeys and personas guide product strategy and development.
- Serve both internal and external customers holistically.
- Reducing handoffs through team structure supports integration.
- We need deep subject matter experts alongside portfolio-level views.
- Direct customer engagement is invaluable for product insights.
- Mission-driven products can have high societal impact.
- Vulnerable populations deserve holistic product solutions.
- Storytelling brings strategy and development to life.
- Efficiency gains come through synthesizing information.
- AI assists with insights product teams can’t find alone.
- Documentation tasks may be automated to free up time.
- Insights at scale come through AI-powered data connections.
- Quality and speed will improve through leveraging AI.
- AI adoption is necessary to avoid falling behind.
- Customer needs must remain front and center.
- Leadership requires navigating complex priorities effectively.
About the speaker
Gautam (G) leads product strategy, lifecycle management, and customer success for a clinical, behavioral, care management, and financial healthcare solutions portfolio for Carelon, a health services brand under Elevance Health. A veteran product leader and digital transformation expert, G has spearheaded product and business evolution across multiple regulated industries in the United States, Europe, and Asia for companies including Sprint, Cisco Jasper, and Apollo Group. He is an award-winning communicator who has spoken at conferences worldwide, advancing the use of experience-centered approaches to build products and services that meet user needs. Prior to joining Carelon, G was Change Healthcare’s Vice President of Platform and Marketplace Strategy. While there, he led product, technology, business transformation, and market advocacy for the company’s provider, patient, and payor financial and care management products portfolio. As an executive-in-residence at the Center for Digital Health Innovation at the University of California, San Francisco, G successfully created and commercialized innovative clinical and operational workflow, patient experience, financial management, and next-generation diagnostic solutions. G also served as Vice President of Products at Stryker Vocera and as a product management leader for Cisco’s portfolio of emerging healthcare products. G earned an engineering degree from the California State Polytechnic University and holds a Presidents and Key Executives Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University. He has been awarded several patents in areas ranging from advanced data analytics to consumer mobile applications.