Christine Itwaru
Product Operations Leader at Pendo
Long-time product ops leader at Pendo who transitioned from product management; pioneered the product operations function and helped define the discipline; known for giving back to the product community.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Christine Itwaru, a pioneering product operations leader at Pendo, explains the rising discipline of product ops — what it is, when to invest in it, and how it makes product teams more effective. Having transitioned from PM to product ops, she shares why direct customer observation remains essential even in an operational role, and how product ops serves as the infrastructure layer that enables better product decisions at scale.
Leadership Principles
- → Never give up spending time with customers and watching their pain — that's how you fall in love with product and stay connected to reality
- → Product operations exists to make product teams more effective — it's the infrastructure that enables better product decisions at scale
- → The best thing my first boss in product told me was 'you have to find a way to give back' — sharing knowledge strengthens the whole community
Notable Quotes
"Speaking as a former PM, I would not ever give up spending time with customers and watching their pain. That's how I fell in love with product — I saw my internal customer fighting with the keyboard, fighting with the mouse, and I was just like, 'Oh my gosh, what's this guy doing?'"
— On the importance of direct customer observation
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