2026 ProductBC Board Elections: Voting is Now Open!

Voting for the 2026/2027 ProductBC Board is officially underway. Make your voice heard and help shape the future of our community!

Deadline: Voting is open until July 21.

Eligibility: Voting is exclusive to paid ProductBC members. (Become a member now and vote!)

How to Vote: Keep an eye on your inbox! A digital ballot is being sent directly to your email.

Questions or missing your ballot? Reach out to the team at elections@productbc.ca.

Akash Aggarwal

Running for: Vice President

Linkedin

Bio:

I’m a Product Leader with 8+ years shipping products across enterprise SaaS, mining, hospitality, and land title technology industries where the stakes were high, the domains were unfamiliar, and there was rarely a playbook. I’ve owned and built products from zero, owned P&L across $25M+ in initiatives, led platform modernizations across agile teams, and delivered measurable outcomes. 

But what draws me to this board is less about credentials and more about timing. The Vancouver product community is navigating something genuinely hard right now. AI is reshaping what it means to be a PM, and the job market is shifting faster than most of us can track. I’ve been living inside that shift for the last three years: building AI products, and helping teams understand what production AI actually looks like versus the hype. I want to bring those real-world perspectives into ProductBC programming practical, honest, and grounded in what members actually need to know to move forward with confidence. My goal on this board would enable real conversations about what’s changing, what skills matter, and how to move forward with clarity and confidence.

ProductBC is already the home of BC’s product community  and I want to help make that connection even deeper and more personal. My goal on this board would be to strengthen what already exists and build a community that feels like a genuine support system especially during a moment as uncertain as this one.

On the community side: I co-founded Belongst back in 2021, a community for minorities in tech that grew from 3 to 150 members in four months. That experience taught me that the most valuable thing a community can offer isn’t content but it’s belonging and access. I’d bring that same instinct to ProductBC, I don’t have all the answers. I do have genuine commitment to showing up and doing the work.

Bio:

I have been a part of BC technology scene for over 2 decades, and part of Product BC Community since 2019. I have volunteered at Product BC conferences in the past and have been a part of the Board of Directors as a member at large since 2025.

My educational background includes both technical and business studies, and early experiences in journalism and education.

I worked at several different local startups, mid-size businesses as well as global companies, and have a diverse set of experiences to share with Product BC board and our members. I am currently working as Sr. Director of Product, Global Customer Integration Platform for First Advantage, overseeing a complex ecosystem of more than 100 HR Technology partners and with an annual revenue impact of $1B US.

During my career, I have worked in various different technology and product areas. My industry and domain experience covers most major Business Verticals. I have built products and services for Canada, US and global audiences, working for organizations serving more than 200 countries in the world. Even though I have built some consumer products, my expertise has mostly been focused in Enterprise B2B.

Outside of work and Product, I am a proud dad of two teenagers, hiker and walker (10K steps a day, no exceptions), sci-fi & fantasy geek and fan of Whitecaps and Canucks.

My longstanding connection with ProductBC, continues to drive my desire to step up and give back to the community through this opportunity. I see this role as an opportunity to leverage my extensive experience to support Product BC’s mission, including strategic direction, asset management and community advocacy. I hope Product BC community will give me a chance to continue to serve the community for another year to the best of my ability and help with the transition to new Board leadership.

Aleks Pamir

Running for: Technology Infrastructure

Linkedin

Alexandre Morin

Running for: Vice President

Secondary: Partnerships
+ Technology Infrastructure

Linkedin

Bio:

A native of Montreal, I spent a decade in Silicon Valley, spent 14 years at Apple, and the last few years at a couple of startups. That exposed me to radically different Product organizations.

But now, I’ve come home to Canada. I am thoroughly in love with Vancouver and have been busy making connections through coffee chats and events with ProductBC, the AI collective, and PM Hive. The main thing I want to do is give back: I’ve been fortunate in my career, and now I work to share with others everything I can. I am especially focused on the next generation of Product Managers, who do not have a clear path to get into the job market. Working with UBC PMC, I have done multiple mentorship activities and events, been on a panel, and so on. Yet, I feel like I can do much more: with Product BC being such a fantastic group of seasoned PMs, we have an opportunity to not only mentor, but to open doors for those students. Let’s work closely with them, on scholarship opportunities to attend the Product BC conference, for example.

To engage and widen our current membership, nighttime social events and coffee meetups are great, but we can go further with outdoor activities like PM Walk and Talks. What if we had a multi-week meetup where we progressively walk/roll/shuffle all the way around the Vancouver seawall while networking and nerding out on AI Product Building?

We must cater to varied interests and age groups. This is where I take exception with the description of this role that asks someone to host space for “local product pros”. If we only attract people that identify as such, we won’t grow. Let’s make sure we attract those starting out that may not feel like this description applies to them yet, that might be intimidated by it. This is what PMHive does well: they attract a younger, very diverse audience with all kinds of backgrounds and experience. That’s a good thing!

So yes, I have plenty of ideas, let’s go!

Bio:

I found my people at ProductBC’s first-ever Build-a-Thon, where strangers became my teammates and we took EasyQueue from discovery interviews all the way to a live pitch, placing second out of around twenty teams. What stayed with me wasn’t the placement. It was watching people who arrived alone leave the Build-a-Thon as friends. A few PMs shared with me that they were absolutely thrilled to have found such an incredibly supportive community, and that’s the moment it clicked for me: this is a place PMs can call home. A home with open doors, for soon-to-be PMs finding their way in, for seasoned PMs looking to level up, and most importantly, for PMs supporting each other and bettering the PM craft across BC. I envision ProductBC as the central hub for PMs and more: project and program managers eager to lean into the product mindset, designers and engineers eager to extend their horizontal reach, and everyone who proudly calls themselves a product builder.

If I have the honor of serving this community, here are my priorities:

  • Run a monthly newcomer orientation for ProductBC, turning new Slack joiners into new faces at our events, and before long, new volunteers.
  • Turn Slack energy into real life. You know that triumphant moment when the girls’ trip finally makes it out of the group chat? Our ideas deserve the same. I’ll run a monthly cycle that turns the best ones into meetups, socials, and workshops, and I’ll bring my product training with me: measure what makes members come back, lovingly retire what doesn’t.
  • Partner with PM-adjacent communities to bring more diverse skillsets and backgrounds into our own, because a central hub for product builders should draw from every discipline that builds product: designers, engineers, project managers and program managers included.
  • Expand mentorship programs by connecting our seasoned PMs with the people who need them most: students, career-changers, and the members who are active in Slack but haven’t yet found their way into the room.

Community building has never felt like work to me; it’s where I come alive. I’m a strong executor, and I do this work with passion and pride: bringing people with shared interests together and building a community they can call home. That is what I would be genuinely honored to do for ProductBC. Thank you for your consideration. Come say hi at the next event. I would love to get to know you, and I’d be even happier to introduce you to someone amazing for you to chat with!

Allison Lee

Running for: Community Engagement

Linkedin

Ben Reuhman

Running for: Vice President

Linkedin

Bio:

I’m Ben, a Kiwi transplant who’s called Vancouver home for almost a decade now. I’m a transformation and delivery executive, which mostly means I spend my time helping technology organizations figure out how to work well together, at scale. My path there ran through BC Hydro and Seaspan before landing at STEMCELL Technologies, where I built a PMO from scratch. These days I run my own transformation consultancy, focused on how teams build, ship, and improve together.

Most of what I care about, at work and outside of it, comes down to helping people get better at what they do. I started coaching water polo as a teenager and I’ve basically been coaching in some form ever since, delivery teams, mentees, whoever’s in front of me.

I think there’s a real opportunity for Product BC to lean further into that: helping members develop the underlying skills that make someone good at delivering value, things like how work actually flows through a system, how to test an idea before betting six months on it, and how to lead people through change. I’d like to see more structured skill-building in the community that members can grow into over time rather than one-off events.

I’ve stuck around this community because of how generous people here are with what they know. I’ve been a Product BC mentor for a while and spoke at ProductCamp this year.

I am running for Vice-President because I think this kind of thing, building both individual and organizational capability, is exactly the work I want to help do here.

 

Bio:

Chang Han is a prominent figure within the Vancouver startup and investment community. He serves as the Executive in Residence for Intellectual Property at AccelerateIP, the B.C., Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut Territories regional arm for the federal Elevate IP program. He has been on the External Advisory Circle for InBC, B.C.’s $500million strategic investment fund, and is a faculty member at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), teaching courses in the Technology Management program including Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Law in Technology-Based Business. Through his firm, Strategy Matters, he operates as a fractional Chief Strategy Officer for startups and business owners and Boards. With a former corporate career as a litigation attorney and later specializing in intellectual property as in-house counsel for an international bank, Chang is also an active entrepreneur and angel investor, having co-founded, invested in, and worked directly for startups across a diverse range of industries. He is a trusted advisor to crown corporations and business owners, serves on numerous Boards of Directors. He is driven by a passion to help solve the hardest problems and make a lasting difference for the planet.

Chang Han

Running for: Secretary

Linkedin

Krishna Vittala

Running for: Vice President

Linkedin

Bio:

I’m the founder of Small IT Co., where I help organizations modernize complex systems, operationalize AI safely, and build workflow‑driven products that scale. My background spans 17 years leading product and platform transformation across healthcare, insurance, and enterprise technology — environments where reliability, compliance, and execution discipline aren’t optional.

Before launching Small IT Co., I led product strategy for GenAI conversational platforms, unified enterprise data through Apollo GraphQL, and modernized billing systems serving 14M+ Medicare members. My work consistently sits at the intersection of product, engineering, operations, and governance — bringing clarity and alignment to deeply fragmented, high‑stakes ecosystems.

What excites me about ProductBC is the opportunity to bring this experience into the community — elevating product craft, strengthening cross‑functional leadership, and helping the next generation of product builders in BC navigate complexity with confidence.

Bio:

I’m a freelance digital product lead/project manager with 20+ years working on client projects in media, marketing, and digital experience design, with a particular passion for solving problems with purpose-driven organizations. I built my product experience during tenures with Knowledge Network, NGX Interactive, Corus Entertainment, and Denman Digital. While I have a BA from UBC in Film, I most recently earned my PMP (Project Management), CCMP (Change Management), and CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner), as well as completing first-year coursework in Behavioural, Cognitive, and Social Psychology at Langara. My passion is the people and systems side of product development. As a former film/TV producer and people manager of large teams, I know it takes vision, dexterous task management, and strong team leadership to bring a great program into being.

In 2022, I joined the former Vancouver Digital Project Managers group and ran their speaker series. An active member of Athena Collective, Toast, and Vancouver Women in Tech, I love meeting new people, exploring their goals and context, and connecting people to do the work they are meant to do. I am also an active mentor with MentorCruise and a former mentor with SCWIST (the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology). I’m particularly interested in how we build culture and learning as drivers of innovation — through building programs, systems, products, and spaces that allow us to live our values and deliver the change we want to see in the world. At Web Summit this year, I’m proud to say I facilitated more tangible connections for others than for myself. I see opportunities and feel driven to match the opportunity with those who fit. I learn best relationally. I have learnt so much meeting individuals active in Product BC at events, but even more so in 1:1 coffee chats. I would be honoured to help Product BC build its connections, profile, and community within the local tech ecosystem.

Laura Grieco

Running for: President

Linkedin

Bio:

I am Sandeep a software developer tech enthusiast passionate about tech,AI. I would love to contribute in any capacity to ProductBC as it helps grow a community of passionate PMs to learn and share information,resources, and updates with the community. Streamlining processes and making systems more efficient either with AI or with software is what I do so I would love to understand the day to day workings behind the scenes and see if it is possible to make it even better or adapt new techniques to make the working of ProductBC better.

Sandeep Bhatula V

Running for: Technology Infrastructure

Linkedin

Yue Yuan

Running for: Treasurer

Linkedin

Bio:

As a PMP and Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certified Product and Project Manager with over seven years of cross-functional leadership, my career has been mission-driven and centered around human connection. With a Master of Public Health, I have spent years navigating complex institutional environments across health authorities, managing multi-million-dollar portfolios and building consensus among diverse clinical stakeholder groups. Currently, as a Product Manager in the Vancouver-based wellness beverage space, I lead end-to-end go-to-market strategies and drive high-impact B2B activations with major community hubs.

My desire to join the Product BC Board came from a passion to contribute to a larger community that can further encourage mutual professional growth. The product community thrives on knowledge-sharing, and I look forward to bringing my background in multi-stakeholder governance, partnership activation, and process optimization to support the board’s strategic goals.

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