Sunday Rewind: From PO to CPO: How to drive your product career by Namrata Sarmah

In this #mtpcon London keynote, Namrata Sarmah charts the course of her career, from her start in 2012 as a product manager at Truphone through to 2022 when she became CPO at INTO University Partnerships. She explains that her focus has always been on impact, never about how many people are managed, or job title. Many of her steps were also accompanied by an investment in study, she says, while working in B2C and B2B businesses, in startups, SMEs, corporations and in multiple sectors, allowed her to learn fast and face new challenges. 

She also offers advice on some of the career dilemmas that product people face.

Being an individual contributor, provided you’re a specialist, can allow you to shine in an organisation, Namrata says. Being an individual contributor can make you “recession-proof or reorganisation-proof”.

For management roles, she recommends people should focus on leadership and ensure that they build high-performance teams that are judged by their impact and not their size.

Large corporations are increasingly looking for startup experience, she says, while startups often want candidates from established businesses. But hiring managers can be risk-averse and want candidates who have worked in a similar business environment.

She recommends being ‘clever’ about breaks. You can use them to ‘work on some side hustle, maybe passion projects, business ideas’, a skill, language, or to engage in the community – something she did during maternity leave.

Namrata says she has found ways to integrate her work and life without making sacrifices. She recommends building a network, professional or personal, of people who support you. A mentor, she says, is ‘probably more important and useful than having a coach. 

Namrata closes her keynote by introducing some of the communities she’s founded outside work, such as a Facebook career mums club and a women in product group.

Watch the original talk: From PO to CPO: How to drive your product career by Namrata Sarmah