In this episode, I speak with Jessica Hall. Jess is the Chief Product Officer at Just Eat Takeaway, a global leader in the on-demand delivery space. With a professional pedigree that includes leadership roles at UK retail giants like Tesco, Argos, and Sainsbury's, Jess brings a wealth of experience in navigating complex, high-stakes consumer environments. Our conversation delves into the "big idea" of managing a massive three-sided marketplace, balancing the needs of consumers, partners, and couriers while transitioning from a food-centric brand to an "everything delivered" platform.

We cover a lot, including:

• Navigating the Three-Sided Marketplace - Jess describes the Just Eat Takeaway product as a complex ecosystem connecting 60 million active customers with nearly 400,000 partners and a vast network of couriers. The core insight here is that the "product" isn't just an app; it is the seamless orchestration of these three distinct groups, where a failure in one branch inevitably disrupts the value for the others.
• Scaling Global Platforms with Local Nuance - Despite operating a global tech platform, Jess emphasises the importance of "optionality" to respect regional differences, from currency formatting to cultural preferences like cash usage. This approach allows the company to maintain a unified technical infrastructure while remaining flexible enough to adapt when a specific market, like the UK or Canada, leads the way in new category demands like grocery delivery.
• The Power of Customer Closeness - Moving beyond data and reports, Jess advocates for getting "on the ground" to talk to couriers and visit partner restaurants. By understanding the physical realities, such as a busy kitchen staff finding a feature too cumbersome to use during peak hours, product leaders can solve real-world friction that data trends alone might overlook.
• Cultivating Dual-Track Career Paths - Recognising that not every brilliant product mind wants to manage people, Jess champions the value of senior Individual Contributor roles. She highlights that technical and strategic mastery is just as vital as people management, and providing high-level growth opportunities for ICs ensures the organisation retains its most creative and experienced problem solvers.
• Leading Through Influence and Commerciality - Jess argues that the best product leaders act as "first-rate business partners" rather than just a bridge between engineering and the business. By focusing on "win-win" outcomes and deeply understanding commercial metrics like order volumes and market trends, product teams earn the credibility needed to influence strategy at the highest levels.

Check out Just Eat Takeaway's website: https://justeattakeaway.com, or their careers page: https://careers.justeattakeaway.com.

You can connect with Jess on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicalrhall.

In this episode, I'm joined by the returning Michele Hansen, co-founder and CEO of Geocodio and author of Deploy Empathy, now out with a second edition. Michele brings deep experience as a former product manager turned founder, and has spent over a decade helping teams understand customers through rigorous, human-centred research.

We explore what customer research looks like in an AI-accelerated world: where AI genuinely helps, where it falls short, and why talking to real people remains irreplaceable. Along the way, we dig into interviewing craft, curiosity, synthetic users, and some enduring myths that still undermine product discovery.

We cover a lot, including:

• Why customer interviews still matter in the age of AI - why large language models can accelerate research workflows but cannot replace the insight, judgement, and transformation that comes from engaging directly with customers.
• AI as a research intern, not a strategist - AI performs well in certain tasks - transcription, tagging, and basic analysis - but prioritisation, interpretation, and strategy must remain human responsibilities.
• The neuroscience of listening and curiosity - both interviewees and interviewers experience genuine pleasure when curiosity is satisfied, reframing interviews as a mutually rewarding process rather than a chore.
• What AI misses in real customer conversations - considering the "spiky", unexpected insights that emerge in interviews - and why these often get lost when teams rely too heavily on automated summaries.
• Synthetic users, digital twins, and their limits - breaking down different types of simulated users, where they can be useful, and why they depend on high-quality human research to be credible at all.
• The problem with the "faster horses" myth - dismantling the misattributed Henry Ford quote and exploring how it's often used to avoid engaging with customers rather than to encourage innovation.
• Research as a way to change teams, not just products - how involving teams directly in research builds shared understanding, alignment, and better decision-making across organisations.
• Why AI accelerates confusion without product clarity - AI only compounds impact when a clear product vision and customer understanding already exist - otherwise, teams simply move faster in the wrong direction.

• Learn more about Michele's company, Geocodio: https://www.geocod.io/
• Check out the new edition of "Deploy Empathy": https://deployempathy.com/.
• Connect with Michele on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjwhansen/
• Meet Michele at the pub in London! We'll be there on Jan 15th 2026: https://luma.com/xyqi9e2z

On this episode, I speak to Tim Herbig, long-time product management coach, speaker, and author of the new book "Real Progress". Tim has worked with companies like StepStone, Chrono24, Deutsche Telekom and Specsavers, and has spent years helping product managers stop hiding behind frameworks and start making a meaningful impact. His work focuses on helping teams connect product strategy, OKRs and discovery without falling into the trap of rigid process correctness.

• Alibi Progress vs Real Progress - how teams hide behind "the right way" of doing things, obsessing over methods and templates instead of asking whether any of it actually works
• The Progress Wheel - Tim's diagnostic loop that ties strategy, OKRs and discovery together so teams can see where they're actually stuck and what to do next
• The three attributes of good product strategy: Decisiveness, Layering and Executability
• How to handle OKRs when leadership gives you metrics you can’t influence using zones of control and contribution
• How to sell discovery to sceptical stakeholders - by framing it as "protecting the company's investment", not a fluffy UX ritual
• Reverse-mapping discovery when you're handed a solution - even if you have to build it, work backwards to define the outcome
• Why frameworks should be starting points, not destinations - and why Tim would be disappointed if anyone adopted his wheel dogmatically

... And much more.

You can grab a copy of Real Progress here:

• Tim's site: https://herbig.co/real-progress-book/
• Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/398275190X

• Website: https://herbig.co
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herbigt/