Umbrex is pleased to welcome Benjamin Becker.  Ben spent two years at McKinsey based out of Taiwan serving clients across the Greater China Region. Afterwards, he stayed in Asia to help run procurement and supply chain strategy at Dell before moving back to California in 2016. He has since run strategy and operations teams in technology firms across product, sales, and corporate strategy functions. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two kids and enjoys playing tennis and…

In this article, Tirrell Payton shares why simplifying the features in a product is a smart step in both design and sales. The product was falling under its own weight. It was bloated and didn’t really solve a key problem for the customer. I talked to the lead product manager about some of the issues with the product, and he relayed that the previous product manager pushed the team to add these features. He was looking for the “one magical…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Jan Starrsjö with Jan Starrsjö Advisory. Jan Starrsjö spent 7 years with McKinsey in the Scandinavian office and 1 year in Los Angeles, CA, USA. The work included corporate strategy, profit improvement programs, sales effectiveness, and product development. Since then, Jan has spent 23 years with PostNord holding senior executive positions whereof the last 6 years as member of the Group Executive team with group strategy as key role. Jan spent much time on developing…

Tirrell Payton shares an evergreen article that explains why fewer features are better in product design and how product managers can guide the development in the right direction. The product was falling under its own weight. It was bloated and didn’t really solve a key problem for the customer. I talked to the lead product manager about some of the issues with the product, and he relayed that the previous product manager pushed the team to add these features. He…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Rob Mann with MilestonCVC. Having worked across the globe, Rob has over 20 years of consulting and industry experience focused on growth and innovation, product development and related operations. He previously worked at McKinsey as a Senior Expert in Product Development & Design. He led North Highland‘s Growth & Innovation Practice which became an ALM Top 10 practice under his leadership. While working at PwC (PRTM), SapientRazorfish and Kearney, his work entailed growth and innovation,…

  Rahul Bhargava takes a look at thriving startups and shares the key factors that led to their success.  Recently, one of the startups I am working with, asked to ‘decode’ a post by Michael Stewart he had read about success factors for a startup. This post itself was a further assessment based on the TED talk by Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, given in March, 2015 on the topic. The talk and further assessment by Michael assessed 5 factors…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Wayne Patten with Innovation Strategies. Wayne has over 30 years of experience in consulting to senior leadership in companies of all sizes. In 2000, Mr. Patten founded Innovation Strategies, LLC to focus on helping clients achieve significant organic growth and operational excellence. Prior to founding Innovation Strategies, he co-founded Prism Consulting International, and helped grow the firm to over 25 consultants. He also worked as a strategy consultant for Booz-Allen & Hamilton. Mr. Patten has…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christoph Traxler with Dr. Traxler Consulting.  Chris has more than 15 years experience as an executive board member within Centrotec, a European group of companies active in many fields including medical technology/ in-vitro-diagnostics, precision engineering, HVAC, solar and plastics technology. Centrotec has 600m revenues, is publicly listed at the Frankfurt stock exchange, but majority-owned by a family, so Chris also knows the world of a family office. Before Centrotec Chris spent four years at McKinsey…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Suheb Ahmad with Digital. Suheb is an entrepreneur and an ex-BCG consultant. He was one of the few associate consultants hired specifically for digital practice in BCG. He is particularly good at building long-lasting client relationships and has a knack for product development and problem-solving.  With over 4+ years of experience and his background, surely sets him apart from others….

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Gennadiy Goldenshteyn with First Principles. Gennadiy Goldenshteyn is leveraging almost 20 years consulting and progressive line leadership experience to launch his own consulting firm, First Principles, in September 2019. First Principles breaks down seemingly complex strategy and operations problems down to their foundational basics (i.e., first principles) and creates implementation programs to systemically drive improvement. Areas of Gennadiy’s expertise include: Product-driven and customer-focused innovation and growth strategy, based on principles of Design-to-Value and Design Thinking…