Lessons in product management from big tech

Allan will be chatted to Arik Elberse, Founder and CEO of Ancient Oak Ventures, a business consultancy which helps scale tech companies through the development of their business strategy and product management skills and processes.

Arik has 35+ years’ experience in the ICT sector, incl. 20+ years’ in various senior global leadership roles in Cisco and Nortel. Key roles have included Global Director of Product Management and User Experience and Global Director of Solutions for a variety of Cisco product portfolios, incl. IoT SaaS offerings, Industrial Networking, Smart Cities and Connected Transportation, Collaboration Solutions, Video and Unified Communications, and CTO for Contact Center and Multimedia Applications with Nortel (now Avaya).

Allan is a former technology leader with a passion for unlocking operational value in organisations. With extensive international business development and operations expertise, he has held COO and executive sales roles at various high-growth scaleups. During his tenure at Amazon Web Services, he successfully led global improvement programs.

In 2020, Allan founded Saltwater, an advisory firm with a mission to helping businesses scale effectively. Leveraging his experience, he implements measurable business improvement operating systems and aligns executive teams to drive growth and success.