Coaching Corner Takeaways
Six takeaways from Women in Product on finding your own path
One of the things I love about Women in Product as a community and as a conference is the focus on supporting women as they advance through their product management careers. At this year’s conference, I had the privilege of volunteering at the Coaching Corner, which was sold out! Senior leaders offered their time, perspective, and support to women navigating their careers.
Between talks, I met with 5 women - each brought their own question. I met women at very different stages of their careers: some early, some mid-career, some navigating big transitions.
The surface questions varied: How do I get promoted? How do I build influence? How do I translate my past into a product role? But underneath, the themes were surprisingly consistent.
Here are six lessons that came up again and again - lessons that apply no matter where you are on your career journey.
1. Reframe Your Impact in the Age of AI
One woman came in with a clear goal: she wanted to become a Director. She was financially comfortable, but carried a chip on her shoulder. Her age, her résumé, her sense of “not having gone far enough” gnawed at her.
She worried that the companies on her résumé were becoming legacy names, not the cutting-edge logos lighting up LinkedIn today. And she felt stuck in work that wasn’t obviously aligned with the externally-facing AI features she wanted to work on.
She specifically expressed concern that her company was slow-moving. We ideated on KPIs she could add to her resume, and her response was it could take a year for senior leadership to align around new KPIs.
What we explored together was reframing.
Turns out that her work was on the platform side, ensuring data consistency and availability that would enable AI feature development. By thinking of the AI App teams as her customers, she could build a narrative around how she built the platform features that powered AI innovation. AI apps are sexy. AI platform work is fundamental.
There was also an opportunity to demonstrate leadership as an AI PM not just through building AI features, but by being a savvy AI PM. By leaning into your AI playbook for how you use AI to build as a product leader, you will be leading AI transformation within your company.
Not all people are working in nimble forward contexts, but that doesn’t mean you lack the opportunity to stand out in the market with AI skills. Larger legacy companies will be needing both of these skill sets and it appeared as though she might have been better positioned than she originally thought.
The lesson: Look at your situation through different lenses. There may be a way to leverage your current context to your target advantage, if you look hard enough.
2. Influence Through Authenticity
Two women had access to senior leaders, but struggled with influence. Why did some peers seem to build authentic rapport so easily?
We talked about how influence isn’t just built in the boardroom or in presentations to senior leadership. It comes from human connection - those hallway conversations, mentorship coffees, shared moments that build trust.
I asked one woman how she built relationships with senior leadership throughout the organization and she quickly retorted, almost like a checkbox had been checked, that she pursued mentorship conversations as offered through a mentorship program at work. They didn’t result in much. Her response sounded almost transactional.
For her, we explored how not just seeking mentorship and advice on her career, but having conversations deepen the human connection could be an angle to try. The most successful leaders build relationships and rapport that transcend companies.
For another woman, communication was her superpower and she felt like she was just learning that she had some talent there and wanted to cultivate it. We explored how finding your authentic angle and repeating it until people associate you with it could be very powerful for personal branding and recognition.
But here’s the catch: it has to be real. People can sense authenticity. If you force a “hot topic” because you think it will play well, it won’t land. When you speak from true curiosity, it resonates.
The lesson: Influence isn’t performance. It’s authenticity, repetition, and relationship.
3. Position Yourself Where the Current Is Strongest
One product leader had been put up for promotion multiple times by her boss. Both times she was rejected. She wanted to know how to finally break through.
Her instinct was to push harder - deliver more, rack up achievements, and present them during review season. But here’s the reality: paddling harder doesn’t always get you to shore. You need to catch the current.
For her, that meant two things:
Rapport: Build authentic relationships with decision-makers long before promotion discussions. If you’re just a line on a review doc, you’re easy to overlook.
Positioning: Tell your story in the context of the company’s top priorities. Promotions happen when your work maps directly to what leadership cares most about.
We’re a family of surfers so I love a good surfing analogy. Two surfers can be on boards chasing a wave, paddling with the same strength and momentum. The one that is positioned correctly relative to the oncoming wave will catch it. The other will miss the wave and be at risk of getting clobbered. You can’t just focus on paddling your board well. You must look at the bigger picture of the company and/or the market and paddle in the sweet spot.
The lesson: Advancement isn’t only about effort. It’s about positioning yourself where you can merge your momentum with a greater force.
4. Look Inward, Not Just Upward
Another conversation centered on career direction. The instinct was to look up - toward what seemed socially accepted or prestigious: the next rung, the next shiny role, the “right” path. Senior PMs wanting to get to GPM. GPMs wanting to get to Director.
But external norms don’t always match internal truth. Titles and ladders may matter, but they don’t tell you what will feel fulfilling decades later.
The more enduring compass is intrinsic motivation: the problems that light you up, the kind of work that makes you lose track of time, the moments when you feel most alive. If you start there, the titles will come - but they’ll be in service of a career that feels authentic, not performative.
I asked every woman - when you’re in your later years, telling those around you about your life of which your career likely played a big role, will you be highlighting that time you finally got that promotion to Director?
Most women did not have a truly introspective response at the ready. There was a ladder before them, and the obvious answer was to climb it.
I’m a big fan of Cal Newport and his concept of “lifestyle centric planning” comes to mind. Possibly your career isn’t some idyllic result of finding out “What Color is Your “Parachute.” Our careers can be in service of our lives - and they can be built with pragmatism not just passion. But I didn’t hear any woman say, I want to get to X level so my compensation is Y so my savings is Z enabling me to pursue a remarkable life.
I hope that more women think about the full picture of their lives and how their career plays a strategic role in creating the larger vision.
The lesson: The most important career plan isn’t the one that impresses others. It’s the one that feels true to you.
5. Own and Craft Your Story
One woman had trained and worked in another demanding profession before transitioning into product. Her title didn’t translate well in the tech world, and she was struggling to tell her story.
We explored how titles can be reframed (with integrity) to better communicate skills.
For example, one time I was mentoring an early-career woman who had been a strategy consultant before her role in a start-up. She wanted to get into product. I had actually worked with her in an advisory capacity and recall she was doing a number of tasks that happened to fall under the umbrella of product (as can happen in small startups).
I suggested she might change her title on LinkedIn to “Associate Product Manager.” Now this may make some bristle if that weren’t the title in the HRIS at her company. So you must take this tip and apply it with integrity. In this case, I suggested she propose the idea to the CEO who I knew admired her and he gave his blessing.
Translating to this woman I was coaching, her title was strange but her tasks were all related to product marketing and market research. A reframe to “Product Marketing” felt like it would be aligned and make her brand story on LinkedIn more clear.
We also dug into her unique differentiator: she had deep operating experience in a booming industry. That wasn’t baggage - it was her superpower. Paired with product marketing experience, it gave her a story no one else could tell.
We brainstormed thought-leadership content she could create: lessons from the field, market analyses, insights bridging her original industry and technology. By owning her narrative, she could establish herself as the voice at the intersection.
The lesson: Your past isn’t a detour - it’s your differentiator. Own it and tell it with intention.
6. Choose the Right Kind of Support
One woman I spoke with already had a coach and wondered whether she should find a new one. Her current coach was ICF-accredited - which led us into a conversation about the different approaches to coaching.
ICF coaching starts from the belief that clients are resourceful and whole. The role of the coach is to help you look inward, ask powerful questions, and uncover your own path. The answers come from within.
But that’s not the only form of support. Sometimes what you need is someone who has “been there and done that” - a mentor or advisor who can help you see around corners, point out blind spots, or share real-world shortcuts.
Both are valuable. The key is to get clear on what you’re seeking in a given moment:
Do you need a mirror that reflects back your own wisdom?
Or a map from someone who’s walked the road before?
The lesson: Self-awareness isn’t just about your career path - it’s also about knowing what kind of support serves you best right now.
Closing Reflection
Five women. Multiple reminders that careers are not linear ladders to climb but lives to design.
Yes, titles, compensation, and promotions matter. But when we strip away the external “shoulds,” what’s left is our internal compass: authenticity, curiosity, alignment, impact, story, and the right kind of support.
And this is where the bigger question comes in. On your deathbed, you won’t remember the precise rung you reached. You’ll remember what those steps made possible - the freedom, the family moments, the risks you took, the people you mentored.
So here’s my invitation: The next time you think about the next rung on the ladder, pause. Ask your 90-year-old self: Will this matter? Chances are, the answer will point you back inward. And through that introspection you can craft an intentional career.
Note to Reader:
At Women in Product, Deb Liu acknowledged that there have been 140,000 layoffs in tech. This is a stark reality. For many, finding any job in this market would be a godsend. 1 of the 5 women I coached was in the market - but I spoke with other coaches where the ratios were flipped.
Even if finding any job would be helpful to pay the rent, put food on the table, and pay the bills, I hope some of what I share here resonates as you chart a forward path.
If you’re looking for support in finding that next step, I highly recommend leaning into the Women in Product community and Phyl Terry’s Never Search Alone book and community.
Further Reading & Viewing (if you want to go deeper):
How Cassie Built This (with me, ChatGPT):
Cassie voice-dictated her memories of five Coaching Corner conversations at Women in Product as the raw material for this piece. Those transcripts were the spark—messy, immediate, and authentic—capturing the questions, emotions, and themes from women navigating career crossroads.
From there, she shaped the draft directly in Substack: organizing anecdotes, weaving in her coaching voice, and layering in metaphors (like surfing the promotion wave) and references (Cal Newport’s lifestyle-centric planning). The through line—careers as lives to design, not ladders to climb—was all hers.
Where I came in: after the full narrative was on the page. Cassie handed over her working draft for refinement, and I helped standardize the “lesson” lines, smooth transitions, and sharpen the intro/closing arc so the structure landed cleanly. My role was editorial polish, not creation—ensuring the themes were crisp without losing Cassie’s human warmth and authenticity.
Cassie/ChatGPT Coefficient for this issue:
🟣 Origin: 9/10 — Cassie’s voice-dictated recollections and Substack draft built the foundation
🟣 Voice: 9/10 — unmistakably Cassie, from surf metaphors to coaching insights
🟣 Iteration: 6/10 — AI help in framing, pacing, and making lessons quotable
✅ Final Score: 85% Cassie / 15% ChatGPT
🟣 Overall Feel: Authentically human, editorially sharpened
If the reflections moved you, that’s Cassie. If the flow felt extra crisp, I may have helped trim the sails.
Valuable insights! I think it is hard to be in the working world right now especially tech. Having support and community is so valuable.