Start with the problem.
Understand the business need and the user’s situation. Make the assumptions clear. Use research and prototypes to learn what deserves more investment.
Product discovery · Strategy · Delivery
Keep business decisions connected to the work.
I’m Chris. I work across product discovery and delivery, helping connect what a business needs, what people need, and what it takes to build something that works.
How I think about product workA little about me
From the business problem to the person using it.
I’m a product leader, a managing consultant at IBM Consulting, and a co-founder of OmniMint. My background includes financial services, software delivery, and working with data science and engineering teams to bring machine learning into real products.
I’ve worked with executives making investment decisions and with teams figuring out how to deliver them. I’m interested in keeping those conversations connected: what we expect, what we’re learning, and whether the product is helping.
My point of view
Make the connection clear.
A goal can pass through a lot of conversations before it becomes work in front of a developer. I care about preserving its meaning along the way, and making sure what the team learns gets back to the people making decisions.
Keep the reason visible.
Connect strategy, product plans, and features so a team can explain why the work matters. Give leaders a clear view of the decisions, constraints, and tradeoffs involved.
Find out what changed.
After something ships, look at what people actually do and experience. Use that evidence to revisit the plan and the expectations behind it.
What I’m building
Putting these ideas to work at OmniMint.
I’m a co-founder of OmniMint, an early-stage software product for investment advisory firms and their advisors. I lead product discovery, strategy, and the work of turning our initial product idea into something we can build and evaluate.
I also coordinate AI-assisted work across research, design, engineering, and quality. That gives me practical questions to explore: where does AI help, how do we check its work, and which decisions need a person’s judgment?
Experience behind the perspective
A career across different kinds of organizations.
My career started in the infantry. Across roughly a decade in technology since then, I’ve worked in large consulting programs, a credit union, startups, and global banking. Each setting has given me a different view of how decisions become work, and how that work affects people.
- United States Marine CorpsLearning to lead under pressure
I started as an infantry Marine and became a squad leader. Being responsible for people at a young age, in stressful situations, shaped how I think about preparation, clear communication, and the consequences of a decision.
- AccentureUnderstanding a large program from the inside
I began my civilian technology career on an insurance program involving roughly 400 people. My work in program operations and reporting gave me an early view of the coordination it takes to keep people, plans, costs, and decisions connected at that scale.
- Firstmark Credit UnionConnecting digital banking to members and staff
At a credit union, I led mobile banking modernization from discovery through launch and feedback. The work included the experience of members using the software and the frontline staff helping them when they needed support.
- VinliBuilding useful products from vehicle data
At a digital mobility startup, I worked across data science, data engineering, and software delivery. We used large volumes of vehicle telemetry to develop products for insurance risk and fleet management. Making that data useful meant connecting model development to the everyday needs of the people managing vehicles.
- DialexaTesting ideas through engineering
I then joined Dialexa, a more established product engineering business that was acquired by IBM. Its engineering-first approach matched how I like to work: examine the hypothesis, build something we can learn from, and carry that learning into the product.
- IBM ConsultingWorking across products, portfolios, and global organizations
At IBM, my work has included product discovery, banking operations, software delivery across multiple teams, and portfolio planning for payments and cash management. It has brought me closer to how large organizations make investment decisions, and what teams need to turn those decisions into useful products.
Questions I keep coming back to
The conversations worth having.
These are some of the questions that shape how I think about products, teams, and the people they serve.
A prototype gets approved. What did we actually learn?
A useful prototype starts with a question. Can someone complete the task? Does the solution address the problem? What remains uncertain? I want those answers to be part of the decision to keep investing.
The team delivered what was requested. Why is someone disappointed?
I’m interested in the expectations behind a request: what each person thought would happen, what was written down, and what changed along the way. Getting those expectations into the conversation earlier can change the work itself.
The payment went through. How did the experience feel?
Someone might still have worried that they paid twice, missed an important message, or needed help to finish. The person using the product has a perspective we need to understand when we decide whether it worked well.
Get in touch
Let’s talk.
If you’re working through a product decision, thinking about how your teams use AI, or have a different perspective on something I’ve written, I’d like to hear from you.
Email is the best way to reach me.
You’re also welcome to connect or message me on LinkedIn.