Chief Product Officer, Executive Coach

Google

Stripe

Anthropic

Instagram

Amazon

Yue Zhao

Chief Product  & Technology Officer, First PM @ Thumbtack, Ex-Instagram & Meta

How High Performing Execs Manage Their Time

Thumbtack

Handshake

Sequoia Capital

Intuit

Chief Product Officer turned Career Coach; Ex-Meta, McKinsey, Thumbtack

Allyson Letteri

VP Marketing at Handshake, Startup Advisor

Our calendar dictates how we spend time. Putting thought and effort into it ensures priorities are truly priorities

Calendar management to enforce prioritization

How calendar planning is done differs by horizon. Learn what to look for and why.

Build the quarter, 2-week, daily plan

Allyson will discuss how priorities change for a PMM, VP of Marketing, or startup advisor.

Learn how priorities vary by role

Learn actionable specific standards by which executives are selected and how to manage your promotion process to show you meet them. 

Former Amazon VP; 70+ patents; led 800+

Ethan Evans

Former Amazon VP; 70+ patents; led global teams of 800+

Cohort 11

Cohort 12

WHAT TO EXPECT:12+ total hours of content: 7+ hours of core lecture material video recordings for self-learning followed by 5+ hours of live sessions (Q&amp;A, implementation advice, and peer networking). All live sessions are video recorded so you can catch up and revisit. Scope, team size, and consistent high-impact results are important...But are not enough. I will teach you specific actionable steps on how to prioritize the things that matter to executives.MANY ALUMNI GOT PROMOTED / LANDED NEW JOBS:<ul><li>"Happy to share that due to executing some of the tactics shared in the program (taking action for one), I have been successful in getting myself promoted." — Promoted to Director</li><li>“I give so much credit to the Level Up: Breaking through to the Executive course and getting a front seat to Ethan's coaching and wisdom.” — Promoted to Director</li><li>“Leadership was seeing the adaptability that I exhibited in continuing to add business value and I got positive feedback from the VP on my flexibility." — Promoted to Director</li><li>“What was key was that I actively participated in the live course AND followed through with some participants afterwards to talk shop and build relationships.” — Landed FAANG Role</li></ul>

Level Up from Senior Manager to Executive

The Standards of Executive Performance: Your Personal Performance

The Standards of Executive Performance: Your Team Performance

The Standards of Executive Performance: Your Company Performance

Great Executive Performance (additional content)

Manage Your Promotion Process to Win

Ambitious Senior Managers from all disciplines at startups and large companies who want to become true executives.

Those managing large groups, managers of managers, including Amazon and Google L7, Meta M2, and Microsoft 66/67.

Also applicable to Senior Individual Contributors (ICs).

Build AI tools that scale your coaching, sharpen your own work, and reclaim hours for what actually matters - all without writing code.

Product Leader (Whoop, Dropbox, Nike)

Microsoft

J.P. Morgan

NBCUniversal

Visa Inc.

Hilary Gridley

Head of Product | WHOOP, Big Health, Dropbox

May 2026

July 2026

NOTE: THE JULY COHORT IS SELF-PACED AND FULLY ASYNCHRONOUS. You'll get access to all four weeks of recorded content, interactive build guides, and the full course site on day one, and you work through it at whatever pace fits your life.There are optional office hour where Hilary will answer questions and help you work through any issues you're having.--Most managers are drowning. There's not enough time to coach everyone, review everything, and still do your own job. AI doesn't fix this by making you faster. It fixes it by making your team better - and by handling the work that drains you so you can focus on the work that matters.This course teaches you to build AI systems that scale your coaching, sharpen your own thinking, and get smarter the more you use them. You'll learn to separate what deserves your full investment from what deserves to be automated - and use AI to get better at both. By the end, your team will have access to your standards and judgment without waiting for your next 1:1, and you'll have a system that makes your own work clearer and less draining.

AI can do more than save you time. It can make you and your whole team better.

Automate the work that drains you and build tools that make the rest better

Learn to delegate to AI the same way you delegate to people

Turn your standards and coaching into tools your team uses 24/7

Build real applications for your team, without writing code

Build AI systems that knows how you work and who you work with

Get your whole team fluent in AI

Team leads, directors, and VPs who are the quality gate for everything their team ships and want to stop being the bottleneck.

People managers with IC responsibilities who don't have time to coach their team the way they want to and can't scale by working more hours.

First-time managers who are overwhelmed by the volume of feedback needed and find themselves lowering the bar just to keep up.

Build great relationships with bosses and key stakeholders

Walmart

Capital One

OpenAI

Former Amazon VP (15+ years); 70+ patents; led global teams of 800+

Cohort 1

Most high performers don’t stall from lack of skill — they stall because managing up and across is messy: a boss with a different style, shifting priorities, unclear expectations, and peers who don’t align. The result is great work that is misunderstood, under-credited, or derailed by surprises and politics.This workshop gives you specific, ethical, repeatable steps to build high-trust relationships with your manager, skip-level, and key peers — so you execute faster, reduce friction, and increase your influence.You’ll learn how to understand your boss (preferences, pet peeves, strengths/weaknesses) and communicate upward with clarity, brevity, and the right timing. You’ll run better 1:1s, ask sharper questions, separate fact vs. opinion, and give upward feedback without triggering defensiveness.When things get tense, you’ll handle conflict, emotion, and tough decisions without breaking trust: avoid surprises, manage expectations, set boundaries, and “quit and commit” when needed.You’ll also leave with tools to drive your growth, navigate remote work and frequent boss changes, and spot when managing up crosses into manipulation — so you stay effective and principled.

Specific actionable steps to create effective and ethical relationships with your manager, skip level, and peers.

How to work better with your boss and build a high-trust relationship

How to handle tricky (tough) situations without damaging trust

How to drive your professional development and create upward momentum

How to manage up to your skip level and peers to increase your span of influence

How to navigate office politics ethically

High-performing IC: Delivers strong work but struggles with alignment, visibility, and no-surprise updates across boss + partners.

New or stretched people leader: Needs a clean system to manage up, set expectations, give feedback, and navigate conflict without politics.

Cross-functional driver: PM/ops/finance/sales/eng partner who must influence peers + skip-levels and get decisions without burning trust.

Your strategy is sound. The room still didn't get it. This workshop fixes that.

ex-Product Exec @Spryker, Commerce, eBay

Spryker Systems

BigCommerce

eBay Inc.

PayPal

Elena Leonova

Founder & CPO, OneRank.io,  ex-CPO @ Spryker, VP of Product @ BigCommerce

Cohort 0

You can build a sound strategy and still lose the room.Most product leaders aren't unclear. They're at the wrong altitude. They lead with user workflows when the board wants market opportunity. They walk in with 30 slides when the CEO has 5 minutes. They explain why the work matters when executives are deciding how much it's worth.The cost isn't a bad meeting. It's a worse career trajectory. Decisions move forward without you. Headcount goes elsewhere. Roadmaps get rewritten by people closer to the money.This workshop fixes one thing: how you communicate product strategy when the room is deciding whether to fund it, defend it, or push it back to next quarter. Four hours, hands-on, with live coaching from Elena. You leave with a rewritten exec update for a real situation in your own work — pressure-tested by your peers and critiqued live.This is not communication theory. It is what gets the yes.

Translate product strategy into the language executives decide in — capital allocation, risk, market opportunity. Land the yes.

Diagnose the altitude of your last exec update

Architect every update around the three executive questions

Pre-wire your decision room before the meeting starts

Pitch your real proposal under live pressure 

This is hands-on. Bring an actual situation from your work — board deck, exec update, strategy ask. No fictional case studies.

A real exec update or stuck proposal you need to nail. 

No prior coursework required, but you should already be operating in rooms where executives evaluate your judgment. This is not a foundation

Senior PM level or above. 

Block the calendar. The practice + critique element only happens live. Showing up at minute 30 will cost you the value.

Four hours uninterrupted. 

Senior &amp; Principal PMs whose strategic proposals keep getting translated, redirected, or politely ignored by the exec team.

Group PMs, Directors, VPs of Product who've lost — or nearly lost — a critical decision because the room didn't land as expected.

Product consultants and advisors who coach senior PMs through executive presentations and want a sharper toolkit for the altitude shift.

Agentic AI

Coding with AI

AI Workflows

Claude Code

OpenClaw

Vibe Coding

AI Evals

AI Transformation

RAG & Search

AI for PMs

AI for Engineers

AI for Designers

AI for Marketers

AI for Founders

Product Sense

Product Discovery

User Research

Prototyping

Growth

Analytics

Tech Foundations

Strategy

Influence

Leadership

Career Growth

Machine Learning

LLM Ops

Context Eng

Security

System Design

Figma

Design Systems

Visual Design

Design Strategy

Automation

Content Marketing

Demand Gen

Go-to-Market

Product Marketing

Positioning

Social Media

Brand

B2B Marketing

SEO & AEO

AI for Leaders

AI Governance

Communication

Management

People Operations

Exec Presence

Storytelling

Goal-setting

Personal Brand

Fundraising

Everyone

Operators

Data Scientists

Business Analysts

User Researchers

Customer Success

Project Managers

HR Professionals

Sales People

Lawyers

Finance

Investors

Real Estate

Educators

Creators

Introduction to Time Management for Executives

Allison's Career Journey and Background

The Power of Time Blocking and Proactive Planning

Aligning Time Blocks with Energy Levels and Priorities

Planning Across Different Time Horizons: Quarterly, Two-Week, and Daily

The Ripple Effect of Executive Calendar Management

Adapting Time Management Strategies to Different Career Roles

Acknowledging and Working Within Career Constraints

Three Key Takeaways for Effective Time Management

Q&A: AI Tools, Work Boundaries, and Flow State

Executives and senior leaders who set strategy, lead teams, and drive organizational outcomes.

Developing leadership skills — inspiring teams, building culture, navigating organizational complexity, and driving results through others.

Day-to-day people management — 1:1s, feedback, performance management, hiring, and team operations.

How High Performing Execs Manage Their Time

What you'll learn

Why this topic matters

You'll learn from

Yue Zhao

Allyson Letteri