Demystifying the Roles and Responsibilities of Product Professionals

Roger Snyder is a Principal Consultant and Trainer at Productside. He has over 25 years of experience in high technology, first working in development, project management, and business development before finding his true passion – product management.

Before joining Productside, Roger led product management teams for over 15 years, serving as Sr. Director or Vice President of product management at multiple firms. He was a pivotal contributor to the success and growth of Openwave, increasing revenues in the core infrastructure business to over $100M in 3 years.

At Danger, Roger led the PM team to expand the successful Sidekick product line from a single product to multiple products across multiple manufacturers, leading to the acquisition of Danger by Microsoft. At both Savi and Immersion, Roger rebuilt the product management team, hiring top talent to drive better communication and collaboration processes that created product roadmaps that were innovative and predictive.

Roger has been involved in many facets of the mobile industry, from infrastructure products that pioneered accessing the Internet from a mobile phone to complete smartphones, to mobile cloud services, to mobile applications across iOS and Android. As a consultant and trainer, Roger has worked with companies in various industries, including consumer products, technology, SaaS, mobile, health insurance, and professional services.

He has used his experience to help companies improve their product strategy development, product lifecycle process, full product considerations, competitive and market research processes, and roadmap development and evolution.

Roger is a member of the Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM), a Certified Product Manager (CPM), and an Agile Certified Product Manager & Product Owner (ACPMPO). He has a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Santa Clara University with concentrations in Leadership and Marketing.

Ken Kranseler is a Principal Consultant and Trainer with Productside and Instructor for the Product Management certificate program at the University of Washington. He was a Principal Product Manager at Amazon, where he drove product strategy for the Kindle ecosystem – hardware, software and services – to enhance student learning in higher education markets.

Prior to Amazon, Ken drove product strategy at a number of Seattle area startups, including INRIX, which went from a 15-person startup to a 300+ person pre-IPO growth company that leverages big data analytics to reduce the individual, economic and environmental toll of traffic.

Before his work with startups, Ken spent 10+ years at Microsoft launching new consumer and business software initiatives including developing Microsoft’s initial entrance into the CRM business. Ken has many entertaining stories from his time working as a brand manager introducing new products and concepts for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Ken is a Certified Product Manager (CPM), and member of the Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM). He holds a BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School and began his business career as a consultant at Bain & Company.