our team
The best companies go about building great products differently. Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) was created to share lessons learned and best practices about how to build innovative products customers love. We are industry veterans who have each held executive level positions at major Silicon Valley firms where we have been instrumental in the development of leading products. We know how great products are built. And we can help you build them, too. Read our manifesto.
Marty Cagan
Founder, Partner – Product
Before founding the Silicon Valley Product Group to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, advising and coaching, Marty Cagan served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, and eBay.
Marty began his career with a decade as a software developer at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories conducting research on software technology, and building several software products for other software developers.
After HP, Marty joined a then young Netscape Communications Corporation, where he had the opportunity to participate in the birth of the Internet industry. Marty worked directly for co-founder Marc Andreessen, where he was vice-president for Netscape’s platform and tools, and later e-commerce applications, and worked to help Internet start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike to understand and utilize the newly emerging technology.
Marty was most recently senior vice-president of product and design for eBay, where he was responsible for defining products and services for the company’s global e-commerce trading site.
During his career, Marty has personally performed and managed most of the roles of a modern software product organization, including product management, software development, product marketing, user experience design, software testing, engineering management, and general management.
As part of his work with SVPG, Marty is an invited speaker at major conferences and top companies across the globe.
Marty is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz with B.A. degrees in Computer Science and Applied Economics (1981), and of the Stanford University Executive Institute (1994).
Marty Cagan can be contacted at: cagan(at)svpg(dot)com or on Twitter at @cagan
He is also the author of the book INSPIRED: How to Create Products Customers Love.
Lea Hickman
Partner – Product
For over 25 years, Lea has been leading product teams to deliver world class products used by millions of people. Starting her career at IBM where she was building applications for Fortune 500 companies, she went on to lead product teams at Netscape, Macromedia, Adobe and InVision.
Her work in technology evangelism, partnerships, product marketing and product management give her insights on how product can drive the entire business. At Macromedia she worked directly for the President of Products and the CTO on the New Business Opportunity team responsible for new products and businesses that leveraged the Flash Player. At Adobe, Lea led Product Management for all of the Design, Web and Interactive tools including Dreamweaver, Flash, Indesign and Illustrator. Lea was responsible for the product vision and strategy of the Creative Cloud, working with hundreds of colleagues across Adobe to transform Adobe from boxed software to one of the most successful SaaS services in the industry. After her work on the Creative Cloud, Lea went on to manage the consumer business at Adobe where she had responsibility for all marketing, product and engineering.
After Adobe, Lea led product at InVision, a startup focused on design collaboration where she built and designed best practices for the product team.
Lea has deep passion for product and mentoring product teams regardless of where they are in their own transformation.
Lea is a graduate of Lehigh University with a B.A. in Sociology (1989) and of the Stanford University Executive Institute (2000)
Lea can be contacted at: lea(at)svpg(dot)com or Twitter @leahickman
Christian has been a product leader for over 15 years, building teams and developing enterprise and consumer products that have shaped companies such as CareerBuilder and Merrill Corporation as well as clients such as Starbucks, CarMax, and Macy’s.
Christian is passionate about helping companies implement the discipline of product management to build world-class products and new technologies. At CareerBuilder, Christian founded and managed CareerBuilder Institute, the industry’s first combined human capital and consumer training platform, creating a new stream of revenue for the company.
As VP of Enterprise Product at Snagajob, Christian conceptualized a new-to-market solution and led the discovery, development, and successful launch of the ReadyHire business line. He designed and led the B2B product strategy for IdentityForce, a leading provider of identity, privacy, and credit protection for individuals, businesses, and government agencies. He then founded Firtsi, a product consulting company that has overseen the product development lifecycle from ideation to launch for over 120+ new products.
Before joining Silicon Valley Product Group, Christian was the Global Head of Product for Merrill Corporation. Christian built the company’s product organization and led them through a transformational, large-scale industry launch of the first SaaS app for due diligence in the finance industry.
Christian teaches product management and innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. He also gives back to his local product community each year by supporting and advising two student-led startups from conceptualization to product delivery.
Christian graduated from Emory University with a B.A. in Psychology and Community Building and earned a dual MBA and MPM from Keller Graduate School of Management.
Christian can be contacted at: christian(at)svpg(dot)com or Twitter @cidiodi
Chris has spent over 25 years building and leading product teams that defined new product categories at startups to F500 software companies including Lookout, Symantec, and Vontu. A holder of multiple patents, he has discovered and developed new products in consumer and enterprise mobile, web, data, and platform services.
Since joining SVPG, Chris has worked directly with over 90 companies ranging from startups to very large enterprise across a wide variety of technologies, business models and industries. Chris has worked directly with leadership and operational teams at these companies to better align their organization, process, tools, and culture with modern product best practices.
Before joining Silicon Valley Product Group, Chris was the VP of Product for Lookout and the Head of Product for Vontu (acquired by Symantec). At both companies, Chris built the product organizations from the ground up and led the effort to discover and deliver multiple category-leading products. With Vontu, the product established a new category in security and has been a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP) every year since coverage began in 2006. WIth Lookout, the company grew the user base for its consumer mobile security product customer base from 300k to over 60MM in 4 years under Chris’s watch.
Earlier, Chris founded and ran Medicineman Product Design, which provided product discovery, design and implementation services for nearly 50 consumer and enterprise software companies, including Netscape, Tibco, Hewlett-Packard, and JP Morgan.
Chris graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in Computer Science.
He can be reached at: chris(at)svpg(dot)com or Twitter @chris_svpg
Martina Lauchengco
Partner – Product Marketing
Martina Lauchengco advises companies on how to use marketing and products to meet their goals. Her multi-disciplinary approach pulls from over 20 years of experience in executive positions in product marketing and product management, corporate marketing, and as a chief-of-staff to the CEO at companies including Microsoft, Netscape, AOL and Loudcloud/Opsware.
Martina has helped contribute to several iconic industry products, but she is best known for her leadership marketing Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, and later Netscape’s browser, some of the most successful software products of all time.
She began her career as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office back when Word had less than 50% market share. She left to join Netscape in its early days, doing product marketing for the Netscape browser, leading the product management team defining Netscape’s client apps, and eventually, leading product marketing for the entire server line. Her final role there was heading up its consumer channels for Netcenter. Martina then followed Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz to Loudcloud/Opsware (acquired by HP) where she led the marketing team prior to becoming the CEO’s Chief of Staff.
As a partner with SVPG, Martina has provided strategic advice to companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to start-ups. She is also an Operating Partner at Costanoa Venture Capital, on Advisor Boards of early-stage startups, and a Marketing Lecturer for the UC Berkeley Engineering Leadership Masters Program.
Martina earned her B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University.
Martina Lauchengco can be contacted at: martina(at)svpg(dot)com or Twitter @mavinmartina
Jon Moore
Partner – Product
Over a 20-year career, Jon has built and scaled high growth product teams across multiple different consumer verticals, including communications (Skype, MSFT), media (Guardian and BBC) and marketplaces (Trainline, Hailo).
Prior to joining SVPG, Jon was most recently Chief Product Officer at Trainline, a PE-backed business, where he built and led Product, Design, Data Science and Research to secure significant consumer growth. Trainline floated on the London Stock Exchange in June 2019 in one of the UKs biggest IPOs of the year
At Skype, Jon led the organization’s highest profile platform, helping to grow the mobile user base from 10 to 100 million as part of a transformational era, during which Skype was sold to Microsoft for a then-record $8.5B.
His product career started in media at the BBC, where he was exposed early to the disruptive possibilities of the internet. He led digital teams across all areas of the organization and his work helped to re-position the BBC as a new relevant, global, digital business.
Recognizing the power of mobile channels, Jon achieved similar success at the Guardian, where he created and operationalized the organization’s first mobile strategy. His products achieved enormous consumer growth, were personally selected by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and received multiple nominations at the British Design Awards.
Jon has also scaled product within numerous high-profile start-ups, including Hailo an early entrant into the e-hail space backed by USV, Wellington, Atomico and Accel.
He continues to advise multiple organisations, both big and small, and coaches the next generation of product leaders and businesses to strongly embrace high velocity outcomes via discovery-led, hypothesis-driven techniques and processes.
Jon is a graduate of the University of Nottingham (BA, Literature/Economics/Politics) and University of Cardiff (Masters, Journalism).
Jon can be contacted at: jon(at)svpg(dot)com or Twitter @moorej