Interim Product Leadership

Make the Changes
Your Team Needs

Building and scaling products with a mature team requires different skills than transforming how teams think and operate. When you need to shift from feature factory to value delivery or establish product-led culture, you need someone with a specialized transformation expertise.

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Internal vs External

Why External Interim Leadership Works

An external leader is not a part of the system that's trying to change. This creates unique advantages that internal leaders simply can't access. It allows for teams and leadership to experience an external expert as neutral and therefore listen with more ease and clarity.

You know how sometimes an external expert comes in and says exactly what you have been saying, but somehow their word holds more weight? It's not that you were wrong. It's because what you said might have been received as loaded - as a part of the internal hierarchy and politics.

Internal vs External

Why External Interim Leadership Works

Internal vs External

Why External Interim Leadership Works

Internal vs External

The Symptoms
of Struggling
Product Teams

What you'll get

Interim in a Nutshell

The Symptoms
of Struggling
Product Teams

🎯

Impartial
Advice

When I say "this process isn't working," it's heard as expert assessment you're paying for - not internal complaining or politics.

⚡

Urgency
& Focus

There's a built-in deadline. Everyone knows I won't be here forever, so there's genuine urgency to make progress quickly rather than "we'll get there eventually."

🌟

Permission to
Challenge Status Quo

"We've always done it this way" doesn't work as pushback. Instead, there's genuine curiosity about what works elsewhere and why change is needed.

🚫

No Hidden Agendas

Suggestions for change aren't seen as power grabs or departmental politics - they're viewed as impartial recommendations from someone with no skin in the game.

💪

Amplify Internal Champions

I work closely with your internal change agents who already know the way - they just need someone with authority to help clear the path.

Product management Audit in Product Organisations - Report

Symptoms

When You Might Need Help

🤔 Authority vs Accountability Gap

You need PMs to drive results across engineering, sales, and marketing, but they struggle to influence teams they don't directly manage. Everyone is pointing fingers.

🔄 Roadmaps Keep Getting Derailed

Your PMs create plans, but urgent sales requests and changing priorities constantly disrupt the planned trajectory, frustrating your engineering team. Deadlines are often missed.

🏭 Agility Without Results

You've encouraged teams to be more agile and responsive, but somehow you're still not seeing the customer-focused flexibility and value delivery you expected.

🎯 Reporting Without Impact

Your PMs provide status updates and reports, but somehow important information isn't translating into the strategic discussions you need to have. Business impact of new developments are hardly felt.

How it works

How Interim Leadership Works

Empowering you to take charge of your financial future with intuitive tools and personalized insights.

Step 1: Product Management Audit

Understand the real gaps before jumping into solutions

Key Steps:

Stakeholder interviews with PMs, engineering, support, and leadership

Current process and workflow analysis

Product maturity assessment across 18 dimensions

Identify root causes vs. symptoms

Learn more about the Audit

Step 2: Strategic Roadmap & Quick Wins

Create a detailed transformation plan with immediate improvements

Key Steps:

Present audit findings and gap analysis to leadership

Develop 0-3, 3-6, 6-12 month transformation roadmap

Implement quick wins that demonstrate immediate value

Establish success metrics and accountability systems

Step 3: Execution

Drive systematic change while building internal capabilities

Key Steps:

Coach existing PMs on strategic thinking and modern practices

Lead implementation of new processes and frameworks

Establish product-led culture and cross-functional collaboration

Support permanent leadership hiring and smooth transition planning

"Anna-Liisa has created a structure, strategy and a clear focus as an interim CPO. We have improved our output and increased the transparency across the entire company. Our product vision has become much clearer."

Richard Vähi

Product Owner / Analyst @ Werk

Richard Vähi

Product Owner / Analyst @ Werk

Richard Vähi

Product Owner / Analyst @ Werk

"Anna-Liisa has helped us to create the backbone of a functioning product team. With that in place we were able to work more efficient and focus on our product vision."

Marko Zechlin

Head of Underwriting @ INZMO

"Anna-Liisa has helped us to create the backbone of a functioning product team. With that in place we were able to work more efficient and focus on our product vision."

Marko Zechlin

Head of Underwriting @ INZMO

"Anna-Liisa has helped us to create the backbone of a functioning product team. With that in place we were able to work more efficient and focus on our product vision."

Marko Zechlin

Head of Underwriting @ INZMO

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Empowering you to take charge of your financial future with intuitive tools and personalized insights.

But I want to hire a Product Lead. Isn’t an interim person unreliable?

My appointment lasts as long as it needs to - based on what we both agree upon. In some ways, it’s even more reliable than a permanent employment contract. Think of the times you hired a junior because you didn’t have the budget for someone senior, and the results took a long time to materialise — if ever. Sometimes a part-time senior is far better than a junior without in-house mentorship. My clients often say that although I’m part-time on paper, they never feel my absence.

What does a Visiting Chief of Product do?