ANDREW TOKELEY

As my product career grew it became clear that while this role was well recognised in the US and Europe, it was only just getting off the ground in New Zealand. There was an increasing awareness amongst business leaders of the terms Product Manager or Product Owner, but very low understanding of the roles themselves, what they actually did or how to find them. At the same time, the number of people interested in pursuing a career in product leadership was growing. In 2015, I started the first New Zealand ProductTank Meetup and we now have over 1700 members, sharing our learnings and becoming more effective product leaders... But I also learnt I was interested in more. I cared just as much for the people I worked with and the customers we were building solutions for as I did for software we were building. I discovered the human element of software creation and design, that being a good listener, empathetic, pragmatic, resilient and articulate were as critical to the success of a..