Built the org
behind every
other case study.
Stepped into Associate Director and built the operating system the growth org runs on: OKRs, prioritization rituals, accountability structures. Then hired and coached into it.
Faster delivery across the growth org, achieved through AI integrations and workflow automation. Without compromising security or architectural integrity.
When I stepped into Associate Director in Q1 2024, growth at Gemini was a collection of individual PM heroics. The shipped work was strong, the case studies elsewhere on this site are evidence, but each one ran on the spine of one person making it happen.
Velocity ceilings, prioritization debates, and re-litigation of decisions consumed more energy than the work itself. The org had no operating system. To compound the wins, the wins had to stop being individual.
The choice was the obvious one: hire, then build, or build, then hire. I picked the harder one.
Frameworks before people. Five operating principles, set in sequence: experimentation as the default mode of work, business-goal alignment as the prioritization gate, metrics review and VOC as recurring rituals, AI layered through every workflow, and high ownership as the cultural floor.
Then hire into the framework, not around it. Each new PM stepped into a defined surface with defined success metrics on day one. Coaching focused on expanding scope and elevating ownership rather than handholding through repetitive decisions.
And throughout, the partnership with the VP of Product on quarterly and company-level strategy tied the org’s output back to executive investment decisions, so the work always pointed at outcomes leadership was already optimizing for.
Experimentation
Every initiative runs as an experiment. Clear hypothesis upfront, dashboard owned by the PM, results owned end-to-end. Hypothesis to analysis is the work, not a layer on top of it.
Goal Alignment
Roadmap and business-goal alignment as the prioritization gate. If it doesn’t ladder up to a company goal, it doesn’t ship. Sharper tradeoffs, fewer debates, no orphan work.
Metrics + VOC
Metrics review and Voice of the Customer as recurring rituals everyone joins. Bring perspectives, not just consume readouts. The team stays grounded in numbers and in user reality at the same cadence.
AI-Native
AI layered through every workflow: enterprise licenses across the team, Linear MCP for AI-driven project management, AI wireframing for faster design and engineering iteration. The team ships at a different speed.
Ownership
High ownership as the floor, bias to execution as the ceiling. Decisions get made and shipped, lessons get captured, nothing waits on permission. The job is owning the outcome, not orchestrating around it.
The four other case studies on this site, Recurring Buy, Credit Card Cross-Sell, Referrals, and the Experimentation Platform, are the visible output. The less visible output is that any one of them is now reproducible by the next PM in the seat, on the rituals and frameworks the org runs on.
Cumulative business impact across the growth portfolio sits at $75M+ and continues to compound. Engineering delivery velocity is up 50%. Time-to-market is down 30%. And the partnership cadence with the VP of Product means the org’s work is consistently tied to the company-level KPIs leadership is already optimizing.
Strategically, this is the work I point to when someone asks what changes when you go from senior PM to leader of PMs. The answer: you stop shipping the product. You start shipping the system that ships the product.