Product as a Boardroom Agenda
Why product belongs on the board agenda — and what to do about it
Product has historically been an undervalued topic in boardroom discussions. Strategy, finance, and commercial expansion usually take the spotlight, while decisions around product portfolio, team structure, and product vision are often seen as purely executive matters. But this separation is risky — and, as Thalita Ligeiro highlights in an excellent recent article, it’s also a strategic mistake.
This theme has resurfaced strongly for me recently, as I joined the VAB (Virtual Advisory Board), a community of board members with hands-on experience in technology and innovation. It made me reflect on how many times, throughout my career, product should have been — and sometimes was — a central topic in boardroom conversations.
As Thalita rightly points out in her article, product is a direct extension of business strategy. You can’t talk about a company’s future without understanding (and influencing) where the product is headed. While the board is not responsible for execution, it has a crucial role in asking the right questions, offering strategic provocations, and helping align priorities.
Throughout my journey as both an executive and a board advisor, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of bringing product to the center of strategic decision-making. Here are a few experiences that illustrate this across different company contexts.
Locaweb: leading Brazilian hosting and cloud services company serving SMBs with a broad portfolio of digital solutions. In board meetings, I would present product results and future plans. One of these discussions led to a temporary committee with Gilberto Mautner (CEO at the time), George Kadifa (from Silver Lake), and me to rethink our product strategy. The outcome was a clear directive: to be first or second in market share and revenue in every product category we operated in. Products outside this scope had to be reviewed, discontinued, acquired, or repositioned. This vision brought alignment between the board and the executive team, and I can still see its impact on the company’s decisions today.
Conta Azul: A Brazilian SaaS platform that helps small businesses manage their finances and operations. At Conta Azul, we tracked product engagement metrics alongside financials in our board meetings. When we developed our product vision, it became clear how much we still had to build. We presented this vision to the board, and it served as the foundation for our Series D funding round — a $30 million raise that allowed us to scale our product team from 60 to 150 people.
Gympass: A global corporate wellness platform that connects employees to fitness and wellbeing partners and is now known as Wellhub. At Gympass, both the product vision and marketplace expansion strategy were key to defining the use of proceeds for our Series C round, which raised $300 million and turned Gympass into one of Brazil’s early unicorns. From that point on, all board meetings included follow-ups on the execution of that vision. In one meeting, we received a key challenge: to start using AI in our products, for example, to recommend new gyms to our users. That provocation became a real initiative.
Lopes: At Lopes, the digital transformation I led was approved by the board, centered around what we called the tri-match — the ideal meeting point between client, property, and broker. Through technology, we helped people find their place by connecting them to the most suitable property through the best broker. As soon as I joined the company, I presented these plans to the board, including the product vision below, and held regular meetings with funds that had already invested in the company or were interested in doing so. This proximity to the board was essential to secure institutional support and accelerate the transformation.
footbao: its purpose is to democratize football talent through technology. I served as interim CPTO for 9 months, and one of the first initiatives I led was defining the product vision. As a startup in a pre–product-market fit stage, the way we pursued that purpose evolved as we learned more about the market dynamics. When we presented the product vision in a board meeting, we received the following feedback: “This is the best slide I’ve ever seen about footbao.” Shortly after, one of the founders told me: “I just got off an investor call and they got very excited! The product vision work you did was a real game-changer for us — thank you!” These reactions make it clear how valuable it is to bring product discussions into the boardroom, even in early-stage companies.
My role today as a board advisor
Today, I serve on the advisory boards of Inteligov and Verzo. In both companies, we have regular space to discuss product vision, team structure, and strategic evolution. I’ve also participated in other boards with a clear goal: to bring product into the boardroom conversation.
These experiences taught me that, for product to be a productive topic in board discussions, a few conditions must be met:
Clear product vision and strategy: It’s the responsibility of the senior product leader (CPO, CTO, CEO, or Founder) to define and communicate a clear product vision and strategy. This strategy should include key topics such as team structure and size, as well as the product portfolio. Portfolio discussions often involve a “build vs. buy” evaluation, where the “buy” path may trigger mergers and acquisitions (M&A) conversations. If there’s limited internal experience in crafting a strong product vision and strategy — and in framing these topics for board-level discussion — it’s worth bringing in external support, which may or may not come from the board itself, or from experienced product coaches.
Annual strategy review: The product vision and strategy should be reviewed at least once a year by the board, ideally at the end of Q3 or, at the latest, the beginning of Q4. This review should also cover the team structure and size, as well as the outlook for the product portfolio and its priorities. These conversations are essential for aligning investments and informing next year’s planning.
Quarterly execution updates: During regular board meetings throughout the year, the product leader should report on the strategy’s execution. The board should follow not only what was delivered, but also the results achieved, and provide support on any impediments that may be slowing progress. Updates may include changes in team structure, key learnings from portfolio evolution, and strategic pivots based on product performance.
Creating a Product Committee: Just as boards often have Audit or Compensation Committees, a Product Committee with regular monthly meetings can be a valuable space to delve deeper into vision, strategy, team structure, and portfolio management.
Product in the Boardroom: a Strategic Responsibility
Boards should not treat product as just another revenue line. Product is where strategy becomes reality. Boards that overlook this miss the chance to contribute with strategic questions, direction, and alignment. A mature board understands that it’s not enough to approve investments — it must also follow through on the execution of the vision that will shape the company’s future.
One final question for reflection: in your board, is product treated as a strategic asset? Or as a black box that just generates revenue and costs?
Workshops, coaching, and advisory services
I’ve been helping companies and their leaders (CPOs, heads of product, CTOs, CEOs, tech founders, and heads of digital transformation) bridge the gap between business and technology through workshops, coaching, and advisory services on product management and digital transformation.
Digital Product Management Books
Do you work with digital products? Do you want to know more about managing a digital product to increase its chances of success, solve its user’s problems, and achieve the company objectives? Check out my Digital Product Management books, where I share what I learned during my 30+ years of experience in creating and managing digital products:
Digital transformation and product culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy
Leading Product Development: The art and science of managing product teams
Product Management: How to increase the chances of success of your digital product
Startup Guide: How startups and established companies can create profitable digital products
