Our 2nd annual conference is now over. Thank you to all the attendees and volunteers for making this a success.

39 $
Ticket Price
Up to 1
In-Person Attendees
1 +
Speakers & Workshops

Building product in challenging times

This year’s conference theme is “Building Products in Challenging Times” which will focus on talks and workshops that can help with resiliency in the product craft during a year of difficult tech layoffs and downturn.

This conference is an amazing opportunity to network with other local product professionals and to attend talks, workshops, and fireside chats from various product leaders across a variety of product disciplines.

A big thank you to our educational partner, UBC Continuing Business Studies, for their sponsorship in providing the venue. Thank you as well to Productboard for your continued support and sponsorship of this event and community. We are working together towards furthering product excellence in BC.

Who is this for?

  • New in product or wanting to break into product
  • Experienced in or working in Product or product-adjacent roles
  • People managers or Product Leadership roles

ProductBC Conference Tickets

Ticket sales are closed. Thanks to all those who attended.
$49
$ 39 For ProductBC Members
  • Access to the Conference Talks (in-person only)
  • Networking with the local Vancouver Product Community
  • Lunch & Refreshments (throughout the day)
  • $10 Discount for ProductBC Members (emailed promocode to Members)

Conference Schedule

Doors to the venue (UBC Robson Square) will open at 9am. Please come to the front desk to check-in. We’re happy to answer any questions you have as well. Coffee and other refreshments will be available.

Hosts Jeanine Longley and Christopher Edwards will welcome us and provide an overview of what to expect from the day.

Building products in challenging times and executing great launches and campaigns in times of limited resourcing.

Presented by Cameron Uganec and Emma Shanahan.

From Crisis to Opportunity: A systems approach to building products in challenging times.

Presented by Ivana Ciric.

Room C420: How Agile Teams Hit Deadlines – Sunny Dhillon

If agile teams can choose how much work they take into a sprint, how can teams be sure of delivering pre-committed scope on time and on budget? There is clearly more to agile delivery than product owners ordering a backlog of work for teams to work on. Will it not be a relief if you as a Product Owner are able to steer the product across the line and deliver expected scope on time. This hands on and interactive workshop session, you will learn how Product Owners and their teams can work towards a fixed date or budget by applying double loop learning.

 

Room C440: Whatever The Weather, We Thrive Together: Understand People Better, Build Better Products – Shon Albanese

Are you working with a team (or looking to work) with people to make something better together?
Are you looking to increase product usage, satisfaction and overall company growth?
Are you equally passionate about the health of your product people & the products that the teams build?

In this workshop, we will put into practice practical ways to ask, understand and apply what we learn about each other to build successful products together.

 

Room C460: Taking Big Bets in Challenging Times: How Lumen5 Approached Product Development Post-AI Boom – Anne Hughes and Reese Patterson

With the explosion of widely accessible AI, the tech industry has undergone yet another shakeup in a few short years. Product teams are facing two competing paths: maintain low-cost, low-risk, but predictable roadmaps, or pivot to higher risk opportunities that have the possibility of launching their product from the early market squarely into the mainstream market.

In this interactive Q&A session, you’ll hear from one of Lumen5’s Product Managers, Anne, who will discuss how Lumen5 made the conscious decision to make a “big bet” on AI after ChatGPT took the market by storm, as well as what that meant for the wider product roadmap. She’s joined by Senior Product Designer, Reese, who will bring real examples of how the team explored and validated what AI actually meant to our users and what the ramifications were for our product’s perception and overall intention.

Attendees are encouraged to bring thoughtful questions on how their own organizations can take advantage of the current industry climate to make the leap from early PMF to mainstream staple.

We’ll have lunch and refreshments put out for attendees. Otherwise, feel free to take this time to mingle or grab food nearby.

The Product Mavericks: Unconventional Paths to Product Management.

Presented by Mikayla Stewart. Panel includes; Chelsey Foster, Ola King, Jen Reiher

Join us for a panel discussion on “The Product Mavericks: Unconventional Paths to Product Management” and hear from a diverse group of Product Managers who have broken into the industry from non-traditional backgrounds. Our panelists will share their unique journeys and insights on how to succeed in Product Management without a traditional background. This discussion is perfect for job seekers, recent graduates, and anyone interested in learning about alternative paths to success in Product Management. Gain valuable insights and practical advice from our panel of experts on how to navigate the industry and stand out in a crowded job market. Don’t miss this opportunity to get inspired and learn from the Product Mavericks!

Room C420: AI tools in Product: Helping or harming the field of Product Management – Maritza van den Heuvel

Format: An open forum discussion where product practitioners can get together to debate and discuss the impact of AI tools such as ChatGPT. From immediate practical tactics in the field, to existential interrogation of the long-term effects on the discipline of Product Management — let’s hear what people think!

Room C440: How Productboard can be used to help Product Managers and organizations more operationally efficient – Kirsten McDonald & Scott Baldwin

Come see a demo and learn how Product Board can help you and your organization build better products in challenging times, become more efficient in process and better support your customers.

Room C460: Going Back to the Basics – Product Portfolio & Prioritization – Sam Moradi

Economic uncertainties have created a new demand paradigm for technology companies. As product managers we need to align our decisions to this new economic reality.

How PM and UX can work closer together.

Presented by Jordan Girman.

Join us for the final thoughts and closing of this ProductBC Conference before we break for the After-Party.

Attendees will need to leave the building by 5:30pm.

Come join us for the ProductBC Conference after-party at the Mahoney Tavern (Conference Centre).

Appetizers will be provided and single drink tickets will be provided for the first 100 attendees to arrive (limit 1 ticket). 

6pm – Guests can arrive
9pm – Close

Mahony’s Tavern Convention Centre
Vancouver Convention Centre West Building, Burrard Landing, 1055 Canada Pl #36, Vancouver, BC V6C 0C3

This is about a 15min walk from UBC Robson Square.

Learn From The Best

Meet The Speakers

Cameron Uganec

Senior Vice President / GM @ Thinkific
Cameron has over 20 years of experience building category-defining brands & products. In leadership roles at Hootsuite and Later, his audience-centric approach to marketing drove products to hyper growth, attracting millions of global users. Now Uganec serves as the General Manager of The Leap, at Thinkific . The Leap is an independent media brand and platform dedicated to helping content creators transform their knowledge into digital products.

Ivana Ciric

Product Director @ Thoughtworks
Ivana is a Product Practice Director at Thoughtworks where she builds award-winning 0-1 software products including ML platforms, messaging, and immersive retail experiences. She is passionate about advancing Product practice through mentorship, thought leadership, and by fostering a culture of continuous improvement and learning. Ivana is committed to creating safe and inclusive teams and empowering others to become exceptional product builders and innovators.

Maritza van den Heuvel

Head of Product @ Stealth Startup
Maritza is a seasoned product and technology leader and has helped numerous organisations, teams and individuals in Africa, Europe and North America to achieve hugely transformational goals. Maritza started her career as a computational linguist researching and building cutting-edge machine translation and voice recognition systems. Maritza has held previous roles as the Innovation Lab Director at Pearson South Africa and Senior Director of Platform Partnerships at Thinkific.

Sam Moradi

Lead Product Manager @ Teck Resources Limited
Sam Moradi is a seasoned product management professional with a remarkable track record in delivering value to enterprise customers through the development and deployment of advanced analytics solutions. With eight years of experience, Sam Moradi has demonstrated expertise in applying advanced analytics to various business domains including industrial automation, human resources and finance.

Ola King

User Researcher @ Moz
Ola King is a User Researcher at Moz, where he also leads their DEI Council, hosts the annual MozCon SEO conference, and provides SEO insights through their Whiteboard Friday Series. Outside of his roles at Moz, he also helps businesses utilize Notion as an official ambassador & consultant, while operating multiple creative projects. His tech career began inadvertently in college, where he fused his Computer Science knowledge with his interests, leading to his first startup.

Emma Shanahan

Product Marketing Lead @ Shopify
Emma is currently a Product Marketing Lead at Shopify with over 8 years of experience working in the tech industry. She has a degree from the University College of Dublin with a major in International Commerce from which she went on to specialize in Marketing. She is a confident public speaker, an experienced B2B and B2C content producer, and is Pragmatic Marketing and Reforge Certified.

Mikayla Stewart

Founder & CEO of Atono, Director of Operations & Product @ Bit3 Consulting

Mikayla Stewart

In just three years of working, Mikayla has gained experience in operations and product management, leveraging her degree in International Relations from the University of Calgary and multiple certifications. Mikayla has worked on the Oscars digital ticket transition in 2022, several successful mobile apps, and more. She has helped nearly 30 startups refine and implement their product vision. Mikayla is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Ainembabazi Children's Project.

Kirsten McDonald

Sales Engineer @ Productboard
Kirsten McDonald is a Sales Engineer at Productboard, specializing in helping companies around the world build truly excellent products. With a background in business development in the Tech SaaS space, she excels at building relationships and ensuring customers receive the utmost value from Productboard services. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada and enjoys spending time outside in her free time.

Reese Patterson

Product Designer @ Lumen5
Reese is a seasoned product designer with over 8 years of experience in the Vancouver tech industry. Throughout his career he's shipped many successful products in the SaaS space for both B2B and B2C markets. His portfolio includes a range of projects, from event scheduling apps to online course creation and writing tools. His current role is as a senior product designer at Lumen5 where he is helping the company to pioneer AI technology for the next generation of online video content creators.

Jen Reiher

Product Manager, Design Operations
Jen Reiher is a Product Manager, previously focused on Design Systems at Benevity and Eventbrite. She will shortly be joining the BC Government Exchange Lab in Victoria, BC as the PM for Developer Experience. She is also the founder of Chaime Consulting, focusing on supporting community-minded organizations to leverage technology to change and challenge systems of all sizes. She helped start the YYJ Tech Ladies & YYJ Tech Slack groups to foster community and increase equality for members of the Victoria tech scene.

Jordan Girman

VP of User Experience @ LastPass
Jordan has worked for two decades in the fields of user experience architecture and interaction design. In the past, Jordan has managed large teams at award-winning agencies like Critical Mass and has lead UX for product development on triple-A titles at Electronic Arts. At LastPass, as VP of User Experience, Jordan is driving the strategic vision, perspective, and execution of LastPass's full product suite end-to-end, spanning consumer and employer facing products.

Sunny Dhillon

Enterprise Consultant @ Develop4Agility
Sunny Dhillon is an Agile Coach & Trainer with Develop4Agility, who is an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT), Certified Team Coach (CTC) with Scrum Alliance and an ICAgile Instructor with ICAgile. Sunny Dhillon has over 15 years of experience as a strategic Agile Coach enabling organizations to adopt Agile with the ability to guide and coach diverse teams through the integration of Agile methods, mindset, and best practices.

Anne Hughes

Product Manager @ Lumen5
Anne is a product manager at Lumen5, a video creation platform that democratizes video production for marketing teams. With an extensive background in Customer Success, Anne has a deep understanding of user needs and a passion for delivering exceptional experiences. Her team has historically focused on user experience and team collaboration features which require a high degree of user insight to anticipate future opportunities and needs.

Chelsey Foster

Solutions Designer @ Splice Digital
Chelsey is a solutions designer at Splice Digital. With a masters of science in computer science and a focus on social cryptography, she found her way to product through programming. As the eventual tech lead at Udutu she found her stride when helping the company turn their feature first prioritization process into outcome driven development. As a solutions designer she combines her broad technical knowledge with her passion to create digital solutions to human problems in a user-centric way.

Thank you to our Sponsors

UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies

Start, Advance or Change Your Career

Explore UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies innovative award-winning Certificates and courses that are widely recognized by employers in the local business community and beyond. Designed for early to mid-career professionals who are looking to start, change or advance their career with programs in Agile Leadership, Change Management, Data and Marketing Analytics, Project Management, NEW Product Management bootcamp and more!

Productboard

Productboard is the customer-centric product management platform that helps organizations get the right products to market, faster. Over 6,000 companies, including Toyota, Microsoft, Zoom, 1-800-Contacts, and UiPath, use Productboard to understand what customers need, prioritize what to build next, and align everyone around their roadmap. With offices in San Francisco, Prague, and Vancouver, Productboard is backed by leading investors like Dragoneer Investment Group, Tiger Global Management, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Credo Ventures.