Trailblazing Women in Product Management: Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta

For our next installment of our Women in Product Management Series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta. 

To read the entire series on Women in Product Management make sure to sign up for our newsletter.  

TL; DR

• Kax found herself in product management by accident after spending time working alongside engineers at an e-commerce startup.
• It’s important to make product management fun and to be intentional about it.
• The promise and purpose of product management is to provide value to users, and providing that value can mean solving a problem.
• Women in Product Management, at times, need to remove “internal emotional and mental barriers that they put in front of themselves that prevent them from doing things they actually want to do. I love to coach women around that and help them go for what they really want.”

Nicole: Kax, thank you for contributing to this series where we magnify women’s voices and their contributions to Product Management leadership.   

Kax: Thanks, I’m happy to have this opportunity.  

I’d love to start with our first question because it is so interesting to hear everyone’s unique background. What led you to Product Management? 

My path to Product Management is fairly common, which is to say it was purely by accident. I graduated with an engineering degree and a computer science degree. But after 6 months of coding, I didn’t want anything to do with a single line of code. I knew I wanted to stay in tech. Back then in the Philippines, in 2005, the common, if not only tech path was to go into engineering at a telco, or work with the big consulting companies. I wanted to look for something else, something cool. I tried different things. For example, I was an SEO specialist and a business analyst.  

Eventually I got into an e-commerce startup, where things started changing for me. I joined as a project manager, as employee number one. It was only me and the CEO. I was doing everything from working with the outsourced engineers to customer service to content management to a dispatcher. My favorite was working with the engineers, especially as the product evolved and we became a full-fledged e-commerce platform. And that’s when we realized, I’m not just doing project management here. This started the conversation of what is my role? What is my trajectory? I wanted to keep doing this, whatever “this” is, but I needed a title that I could latch on to. We literally searched on Google, “What are the top titles in Silicon Valley right now?” We had to see what was going on elsewhere in the world. Product Managers were not common in the Philippines in 2010, but when we found a Product Manager job description, I really liked the sound of it because it was so open. We decided that will be my title, and the rest is history. After I officially became a Product Manager, I posted on job boards and companies outside the Philippines really resonated with the title, I was surprised to see there really was a market for it. That is how I became a Product Manager. Thank you, Google. 

“It’s important to be flexible and curious.  You need to be resourceful and adapt to do the job properly, but with curiosity to improve the situation.  Instead of being stuck with limitations, be open to opportunities.”

– Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta

That is the best accidental Product Manager story I have heard. And while it started off by accident, I’m sure there was a lot of intentionality, especially since you were looking for a career trajectory. What are some lessons you learned along the way once you intentionally decided to commit to a career in Product Management?  

After doing this for the last 10 years, I’ve learned there is more than one way of doing Product Management. The fact that there are so many frameworks and tools out there reflects the many ways that you can build products and do Product Management. It really depends on the organization and the kinds of products you’re building. Industries are different. Policies are different.  

It’s important to be flexible and curious. You need to be resourceful and adapt to do the job properly, but with curiosity to improve the situation. Instead of being stuck with limitations, be open to opportunities. There’s also a balance between not taking yourself, and the job, too seriously, and having a sense of humor. The job comes with many challenges and conflicts. The job involves managing different resources, different personalities, and demands from different people at all levels. It can be a high stress environment if we let it. You need to be able to take things in stride and find humor in the ups and downs. Otherwise, it is going to be stressful all the time.  

It sounds like you lead a very fun work environment, Kax. I love your intentional commitment to not take things so seriously and how you have a sense of humor even through the challenges. That must provide some perspective for your team. 

I think it comes with experience. I went through many challenges that I did take too seriously. I got stressed. I forgot to put boundaries between myself and the problems I was experiencing. It impacted me personally, mentally, and emotionally. It challenged my own values which have always been about fun. If something wasn’t fun, then I would move on. But I realized that fun is what I put on the table. I cannot rely on external factors to make things fun for me. I need to define what is fun and create a fun environment. This can be going out for beers outside of work, grabbing lunch after a meeting, or simply laughing and connecting with my team. Conflict is already part of the job, so it is a choice to make it fun and to distance myself from the stress. 

“If something wasn’t fun, then I would move on.  But I realized that fun is what I put on the table.  I cannot rely on external factors to make things fun for me.  I need to define what is fun and create a fun environment.”

– Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta

That is a great lesson. What does this help you appreciate most about Product Management? 

I like the promise and the purpose of Product Management which is to provide value to users. Providing value can mean solving a problem. It’s so rewarding. It feels like, in my own small way, I am saving the world when I am intentional about the products I work on, and the problems I solve. I think that’s one reason why I stayed in Product Management.  

Growing up, I thought that I would save the world by becoming a doctor, a human rights lawyer, or a rocket scientist. Product Management helps me live that dream in a way. Another cool aspect of Product Management is when I realized that millions of people are touching and using products I worked on. That is still mind blowing. I love that I am impacting people all over the world who I have never met or seen. Not only that, but I also get to work closely with all kinds of people every day. It’s all about people. It’s talking, influencing, and communicating. For me that is fun as well.  

It sounds like the people really make it fun, which goes back to what you value about your work. But what do you find challenging about Product Management?  

The most fun part is also my most challenging part, especially if you’re in a diverse environment, and that is navigating different cultural norms. It’s a gift and a challenge at the same time. I am Filipino. I grew up in a society that is very quiet and very conflict averse. In a Western environment, conflict is pretty much expected as is straightforward conversation. That was a hard adjustment.  

Navigating social norms also means allowing an extrovert and an introvert in the same meeting to each have space. They both need to be able to communicate and not overpower each other. Managing up is challenging as well, especially coming from a boss-led hierarchical society. To walk up to my manager and say, “hey, you’re wrong,” was a huge thing to get over. I also work in a multinational company where language can be a barrier. I can speak English well, but not everybody that I work with can. But my Spanish is bad. So how do we make sure that we understand each other? How do I make sure that I am clear as I lead my team? How do I help my team grow with their different personalities and their diverse ambitions? Yes, people are the best part, but they are also the most challenging part.  

It’s so important to help your team manage these potential conflicts as you recently wrote about in an article about empowering your product teams. Tell me what you look for when you’re hiring Product Managers. 

It depends on if I’m looking for somebody with more experience or a more junior candidate. But something that is common for all of them is hunger for learning. We work in a European marketplace, so for example, be hungry to learn the differences between the Spain market and the Italy market.  

Regardless of your experience, being open to new experiences is really important. I especially like when people who don’t have any experience yet building products try to get experience outside of their work, even if it’s a book club or a hobby they are proud of. I want them to have a life outside of work because experiences outside of work make the talent richer. I would love for them to have a work life balance. I always look for people who are good communicators, not just with their words, but with their body and tone of voice. This will vary by seniority, but even junior people need to show that they’re excited. A person who is skilled will be great to work with, but someone who is excited about what they’re doing and can communicate why will have more influence. 

“I like the promise and the purpose of Product Management which is to provide value to users. Providing value can mean solving a problem. It’s so rewarding. It feels like, in my own small way, I am saving the world when I am intentional about the products I work on, and the problems I solve.”

– Kax Uson, Head of Product at Adevinta

That makes sense. Being good at what you do and great to work with is one thing, but a Product Manager who can communicate with influence is at another level. Let’s talk about women. Is there any specific advice that you have for women considering a career in Product Management?  

I work a lot with women. I even teach a Product Management boot camp course here in Barcelona, for women by women called “All Women.” I love mentoring and coaching women Product Managers. Something I see common across the board, regardless of years of experience is always this phrase, “I’m not”. For example, “I’m not senior enough”, or “I’m not ready.” This stops them from applying for roles, asking for a promotion, or trying out new things. I always say, “Who defines senior? What does ready mean?”  

The more important questions are, are you interested? Does this excite you? What’s the worst thing that can happen? Because the worst thing that can happen, I think, is that they are the ones preventing themselves from moving forward with whatever it is. There are internal emotional and mental barriers that they put in front of themselves that prevent them from doing things they actually want to do. I love to coach women around that and help them go for what they really want.  

That’s great. I love how you help them with that introspection and self-reflection. It sounds like your coaching helps women put themselves out there and show that hunger for wanting to learn. To your point, that might be exactly what their next hiring manager is looking for.  

At the end of the day, we cannot control whether a hiring manager will hire us. We cannot control whether our manager will promote us, because there are so many factors to consider. But we can control how we show up for these things. Do we feel proud of what we’ve shown and said? Did we ask? One reason we may not be promoted to a senior role is because we didn’t say that we wanted it in the first place. Which is worse between the two? We didn’t get the role because of something that we cannot control, or we didn’t get the role because we didn’t ask? 

I love that. That is so inspiring, and really brings all your advice together. Thank you so much for your time, Kax.  

To read the entire series on Women in Product Management make sure to sign up for our newsletter.  

About the Author

Nicole Tieche

Nicole was born and raised in Michigan; she received her Bachelor of Arts in French and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.

After Nicole spent time studying and traveling through Europe, she moved out to California and discovered advertising was a great way to use her creative skills. Not as a writer but as an Account Executive. Nicole is most creative in working with people: building relationships with clients and teammates, learning about them, and supporting them – even in ways they didn’t know they needed.

280 Group is the world’s leading Product Management training and consulting firm. We empower Product Professionals with the knowledge and tools to create products that matter.