Today, I'm connecting with Jackie Rabec, Product Manager at Google. Jackie’s product leadership story is all about transitions—from corners of the globe to non-linear career paths and reframing impact beyond just our work. In our conversation, we discuss: The importance of “doing your homework”; Growing up in South Africa and following her mother’s path into medicine; Definitive decision-making versus directional decision-making and how it guided her transition from medicine to tech and product; Visualising your career as a pond of lily pads; Her journey from being the first PM at Heidi Health to a non-health tech product role at Google; Moving from the balcony to the dance floor and back again as a product leader; Lessons from transitioning from a 40-person startup to a global corporation; How to avoid overcomplicating product by indexing on three things; Her vision to improve healthcare access and delivery in low-income countries and under-resourced communities in countries like Africa.
Today, I'm connecting with Jackie Rabec, Product Manager at Google. Jackie’s product leadership story is all about transitions—from corners of the globe to non-linear career paths and reframing impact beyond just our work. In our conversation, we discuss: The importance of “doing your homework”; Growing up in South Africa and following her mother’s path into medicine; Definitive decision-making versus directional decision-making and how it guided her transition from medicine to tech and product; Visualising your career as a pond of lily pads; Her journey from being the first PM at Heidi Health to a non-health tech product role at Google; Moving from the balcony to the dance floor and back again as a product leader; Lessons from transitioning from a 40-person startup to a global corporation; How to avoid overcomplicating product by indexing on three things; Her vision to improve healthcare access and delivery in low-income countries and under-resourced communities in countries like Africa.
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Connecting with Dr Jackie Rabec, Product Manager at Google:
Laura: Jackie welcome to the podcast
Jackie: Uh so good to be here Laura I'm very excited to be chatting to you today and sharing a bit more about my journey
Laura: we've both arrived in sunflower suits so we're bringing the joy
Jackie: for all future guests the status quo dress code is must contain sunflower
Laura: let's start from the very beginning Where did you grow up and what's your origin story
Jackie: I actually love sharing this because I think it goes to show that it doesn't really matter how quote on quote humble your beginnings are you will find your path I'm from a small town small farming town in South Africa called Vryheid which means freedom [00:01:00] in Afrikaans And yeah I grew up in a pretty independent childhood household My mom was a doctor in a rural hospital In the hometown that we're in my dad was a chef and my parents separated when we were pretty young So we all my brothers and I grew up pretty independent had a great childhood but would alternate between being with mom being with dad joining friends on family holidays So you kind of learn how to become somewhat of a chameleon I'd say probably quite a formative experience In my young adulthood was my dad passed away when I was 12 so that very much shapes your worldview And I'd say how long has it been 19 years later or whatever that is still very much forms a large part of my worldview so that's I guess a taste of like my origin story slash upbringing There's obviously a lot more to that but I'll just leave it at that
Laura: I'm so sorry to hear about your dad Actually my dad passed away when I was 16 and it's just past his 18 year anniversary So [00:02:00] it just doesn't get any easier
Jackie: Yeah yeah totally And so with that very deep start to the podcast
Laura: that experience obviously shaped who you are as a human being but are there any moments or key people that shaped who you are today
Jackie: Yeah definitely I think my mum is probably one of the biggest influencing and shaping factors or humans in my life She is an incredibly independent fierce woman she's European Belgium originally She was born in the Congo in Kinshasa when it was still a Belgian colony And then went back to Belgium grew up in Belgium and then came back to Africa as a young doctor And she always had this singular view on the world where she didn't really care what other people thought So she came into South Africa in like apartheid era when there was still racial segregation And for example when my parents got married it was the first time one that a [00:03:00] Catholic priest was in a Protestant church In my hometown which was a big deal And she also invited all of the African black nurses from the hospital to come to the wedding And that was unheard of at the time she just was steadfast in her belief that she did not believe in this thing And she didn't care what anyone thought of her And so she's been a incredible shaping force in my life and continues to be I obviously went down the medical pathway which is very similar to what she did and still does at 65 I think other shaping forces and influences I had an art teacher for 12 years that I did extracurricular art with and she was like my spiritual slash mentor in life As you're kind of growing up I'd say the third person that's probably played a really big part in shaping my life is my husband I got to know Darren when I was 17 and he was 18 And so we basically grew up together and I guess just his worldview his way of seeing situations asking the right questions at [00:04:00] different kind of bifurcations in my own pathway have played a massive role in me being who I am and having had the career and personal journey that I've had
Laura: I spoke to him before this call and what I really loved was just how much you've formed and shaped who each other are through life and moving across multiple countries but then also career
Jackie: I objectively would say that he is also one of the most impressive humans that I've met that sometimes has almost like posed a challenge to me where I would find myself comparing Myself to him we both entered quite taxing career paths He was a consultant with BCG I was working in hospitals during like pretty long shifts And so we were ships in the night I think until you develop a strong sense of self it is easy to compare and contrast yourself to the people that are in your life particularly when it's your significant other and it was both I guess a positive forcing function but I also had to learn to recognize that [00:05:00] I am different to him and therefore I will excel at things that are different to him and I can't compare myself to him so I've definitely come a long way with regards to that
Laura: That resonates with what he said He was like you've influenced him on the personable aspects So i.e you bring the sunshine and he's influenced you both on that rational logical thinking
Jackie: Yes absolutely I often say Darren I want to do X Y Z and he just makes it happen we've moved countries multiple times anything is possible because he will just break it down And be like we're doing this thing I guess everything feels achievable when you have a partner like that at your side So I'm very grateful for it
Laura: Which is a perfect segway So your story is one of transitions across A lot of angles in your life and as you mentioned you started in clinical medicine in South Africa and studied for your MBA in Sydney Then you had a stint in New York and now you call Australia home So that's quite a lot of cultural shifts and I'd love to know what's your biggest lesson that you've learned about [00:06:00] finding a sense of belonging in these new environments
Jackie: I think a lot of people feel very intimidated before they make their first international move And it feels like this big thing like Oh I'm going to move to another country But I feel like as soon as you've done it once you realize that it's very attainable and you can basically replicate the recipe over and over again I guess what are the components of that recipe when you land In a new environment one I think personally viewing it as an opportunity to redefine almost like how you perceive yourself but then how you engage with the world around you is a good mental framework slash baseline And what I mean by this is when you leave home and you're not surrounded by your family and friends and people that know you you can define who you are based on what you like and what you actually want without the presupposed conditions that are attached to you when you're still in the same city that you studied in or where you know all of your friends I think coming in with that open mindedness and both curiosity of [00:07:00] yourself and the world around you is helpful And then I think home is wherever you find a community of people that are like minded And so what are ways that you can shortcut creating a community We've found with A lot of the places that we've moved and we've also moved around in Australia quite a bit We did like 10 months of living in different cities to suss out where we wanted to live long term So we did like a month in Melbourne two months in Byron Bay a month in Adelaide et cetera is we would join a local gym that did like group fitness classes whether that's CrossFit BFT F40 like whatever insert class And suddenly you're seeing the same faces four or five days a week You have some similar values you start chatting and then from there in whatever way you're socially interacting and meeting people when you identify someone that you really like going the extra mile to connect with them Because as adults it's much harder to build meaningful and deep relationships and you don't have the luxury of time just spending lots of time with people to develop deep [00:08:00] relationships And so how do you enable that to happen I think vulnerability is one thing obviously with people that you feel like you could trust or be comfortable with So there is a bit of sense checking and it's got to be reciprocal You don't want to like meet someone and be like I'm gonna be your friend And then they turn around and they're like uh absolutely not and recognize that initially when you're the newcomer in town you're going to be putting more effort in and it may not feel reciprocal but you kind of have to do that until you find people then I think just getting out of your comfort zone immersing yourself in the local culture exploring we spent six months in New York and then six months in San Fran but in COVID So it was really hard to meet people Cause everything was shut down and we would just like climb on the equivalent of Lime bikes every Saturday and scoot off to some part of the city to do a urban hike or try some cool takeout restaurant bakery food or whatever it may be there are so many avenues to again meet the people that create the community that allow you to call the place home even if it's only somewhere that you're spending six months [00:09:00]
Laura: I've heard on a podcast before that you've Said that your directional set of values has guided you for your transition from medicine into tech and product Can you share more on that
Jackie: I often talk about definitive decision making versus directional decision making and I think that this is applicable to anyone looking to make a career transitional pivot So not just people moving from clinical medicine into tech or insert other industry when you're making a transition cannot define exactly where you're going to be in 10 years time because there are so many unknown variables between where you are at this point in time and the future states However what you can be certain of is a set of directional values that can help inform your next step So the way that I visualize that is that you're on a lily pad and you have a whole series of lily pads that you need to jump across to be able to get to some place in future so let's say first role so I went from medicine to doing an MBA MBA was a lily pad for me I didn't even know tech existed I hadn't owned a laptop until I started my MBA And my husband used to say it was like [00:10:00] watching a child figure out how to use a Mac for the first time that made sense for me because I was like it's going to teach me how the world works I'm going to meet people from lots of different industries I'm going to learn about all these things like corporate finance strategy accounting because I have this very niche narrow understanding of the human body and everything that can go wrong with it But don't ask me how a P L worked Completely clueless So that made sense for me at that point in time By the time I had completed my MBA I needed to have some sense of where to next and at that point I knew that I was interested in product I was interested in health tech So I needed to figure out what was my next lily pad and that was Early stage startup projects to develop a kind of repertoire of work to showcase that I could do this thing called product I also did non product roles just to actually get experience in the tech world after a couple of years reassess okay I want to really double down on this product skillset take on a bigger challenge join an early stage startup as the first PM hire build a product zero to one take it to market build out a team et cetera I [00:11:00] guess the lily pads are where you land And then what you're deciding when you jump from one lilypad to the next is am I taking the jump that's maybe a little bit further to the left and there's a risk that I might slip off or have to swim a bit to get to it Or do I take the one that's a bit closer or whatever I think that's maybe extrapolating the analogy a bit far but at any point in time You can optimize for what are the directional set of values that inform the next best step i e what's the compass So early on in my career transition I think learning experimentation exposure to new industries autonomy risk taking were higher up in my directional set of values and thus taking on product roles in early stage Startups was the right environment for me to be able to do that And then as you progress in your career journey and I almost like to recommend that every two to three years people do an intentional reanalysis of that directional set of values I.e what does my compass look like right now at this point in time Am I still [00:12:00] optimizing for learning and growth as my number one On the stack rank list or are there other things that I'd now like to prioritize that will help inform my best next step Because very few of us know exactly where we want to be in 10 years time I have so much respect and admiration for people that do but I just absolutely don't
Laura: Why do you believe tech is a space that you can make the most impact
Jackie: when I was doing medicine definitely felt really frustrated that my impact was limited to the patient that was on the other side of the bed table desk like whatever I was seeing it was always a one to one ratio So my time was severely restricted and limited particularly in South Africa where it's Overly constrained healthcare systems with minimal resources You feel that pain as a doctor that's trying to do more than you possibly can do in a period of time that you're at the hospital I definitely yearned to be able to feel like I wasn't just a little cog in a very big broken wheel there are so many different ways that you can [00:13:00] do that whether that's in policy or tech for example and I was definitely attracted to tech because I felt like this is a way in which we can deliver these modalities at scale at a lower cost and this is with a specific lens of healthcare improve access and delivery to patients that cannot otherwise Be able to ascertain this And I guess I've now leapt beyond okay we can make impacts to maybe thousands or millions of users to Google where it's in increments of billions and I have to wrap my head around like if I have to work on a feature and someone's like Oh this is projected to impact X million or billion users and then you're like this is very terrifying but I'd also say that my mindset has also shifted and evolved in the sense that I believe that Tech still holds a massive amount of potential to create impact but I think that individuals should never forget that impact exists outside of your career too a lot of people ask me don't you miss impact of seeing patients don't you miss the impact that you have on patients And my [00:14:00] conclusion is you can have a really really big impact on the people in your life in the person that you are in the way that you show up in your relationships in the way that you help people that are having a challenging time I think it's important to reframe impact beyond just what we do at work to how am I delivering impact in every moment and every interaction
Laura: Oh 100 let's get into your product journey So can you walk us through your journey from being the first product hire at Heidi Health to your first non health tech product role at Google
Jackie: at the point where I joined Heidi I had accrued some tech experience So a couple of years in data and partnerships role at a healthcare data analytics firm a few early stage product contract jobs that I had done for very very very early stage startups so going from zero to one slash concept stage I was really keen to just throw myself in wholeheartedly into this product thing and Go the journey so joined Heidi when it was still called Oscer [00:15:00] just post their seed round the funding had been raised and what a journey I feel like this is a whole podcast in and of itself cause we went from trying to define the product problem space Build that first prototype take it to market scale pivot iterate the entire gamut and like all these words that everyone on your podcast is probably saying often a real zero to one journey and all the trials and tribulations that that entails And I think some of the key learnings there or formative experiences was taking on ownership of like basically a lot of the different functions You're not just operating in the product realm you're taking accountability for your user research function You're joining and often informing pre sales conversations to understand what are our end users looking for Who are the key decision makers that will inform the commercial model so that we know what's viable to deliver At the end of the day all the way through to implementation [00:16:00] setting up our first customer success operations processes being the first customer success operations implementation human in addition to then slowly starting to be able to actually build the team each phase presented its own set of challenges Early on it's hustle to find a problem that people are willing to have solved and pay for at the essence of it and then find a way to scale that and then figure out how you're going to build your team so that you can deliver this and like really take it off and I think at the team building stage some of the challenges that come into play there is one you need to find the people that you can bring on and you can trust Cause you have been so in the weeds operationally doing the stuff You need to be able to find people that you can let go of components of what you're doing and elevate from that balcony to dance floor position because you're constantly having to like flick flack between the two and a startup What's our overall strategic direction long [00:17:00] term you know point that we're working towards versus I'm in the weeds I'm working on our backend integrations into practice management systems X Y Z and like insert task that you have to do there the challenge was more how do I ensure that I'm elevating Myself up onto the balcony appropriately to be able to give guidance Frameworks to the team that I have brought on so I can Let them be autonomous in the work that they do but feel like they still have the support and direction from me while still Dipping into the dance floor because you're generally in a startup always going to have to have execution mode that you turn on You need to be able to turn that on at any moment of the day if there's a fire that unfolds then I think just the privilege of being able to To work with the founders in defining a vision mission encouraging and getting a team to really buy into that And I think in healthcare inherently it's easier because a lot of people have some personal Story that relates to whether it's their own lives or [00:18:00] their family that relates to health care but that was really a privilege I Reached a point where I was sussing out so was my two to three year mark of what's the next Horizon of growth for me and felt like I was ready to take a leap into a bigger more established organization and really hone in on the product chops component of it I wasn't actually targeting Google at the time so was interviewing heaps sussing out what my options were And somehow the opportunity came across my path and I Was like this would be amazing I am not the most experienced person when it comes to payments and payments identity but I know that I can learn and so managed to make my way through what six seven rounds of interviews and I don't know luckily or I felt very lucky that I got the offer for the role and so here I find myself what I'm like four and a half months in to a totally new industry new space and just approaching it with a good curiosity and openness of mind taking on a completely new challenge which feels like the right [00:19:00] thing for me at this point
Laura: before we do get to Google I'd love to know during your time at Heidi was there a playbook or a tactic that you used there that leapfrogged your growth for the product at the time
Jackie: with product I think that there is a tendency to overcomplicate And over almost like framework-ize what it is and to me passing it back to what is the problem you're solving who's the end user that you're servicing that can be quite complicated in healthcare particularly because you often have multi-sided many stakeholders involved end user is different to the payer So you really need to be able to pass out who's the end user who the key decision makers are and what are the incentives at play And then finally is this commercially viable if you just indexed really focusing on those three things that will help you to be able to build a product that makes sense for the market at Heidi our own journey of like pivots and iterations started with a pretty lofty vision and [00:20:00] quite a big product that encompassed solving a lot of the pain points that we saw in primary care And it was a virtual care platform with a decision making support tool like AI embedded into parts of the workflows and realize in operationalizing it you're just taking on such a big part of the pie in healthcare change management is probably the hardest rather than other facets of going to market And so had to tweak and refine what was the value and the pain point that we really wanted to go after to provision the most value to end users and where we saw us having the highest likelihood of success Heidi now is an AI scribe that is focused on helping clinicians free up their day to day so that they can really be present with their patients And that was an iterative journey from a pretty all encompassing platform to where the team is today I think that kind of comes back down to the founders and everyone else that was within the product team including myself [00:21:00] honing in on users What is the pain point that you're looking to solve What is commercially viable to scale And then I think you plug in the frameworks to help you
Laura: For anyone else just slightly behind you on your journey if you've got that sussed as your core as a first product hire it almost sounds like that is your structure to build your function from and also mobilize a team around
Jackie: if you're looking at being the first PM in an early stage startup I probably say in that stage and life cycle of a company's journey you need to be happy to just do everything and go into execution mode quite hard even if you are not a self professed expert in that area You need to get comfortable diving into the data analytics for end users or even just setting it up like saying I'm going to define what do I actually care about measuring in whatever X user journeys that we're going to be shipping from an MVP that goes to markets you need to be comfortable getting in front of users [00:22:00] doing sales calls doing user research being the first person to do the thing I'm definitely someone that like I present myself at the competence or capability level that I am rather than where I perceive I have the potential to be And so as the first PM in a startup you will often have to do things that you maybe haven't done before And so the only way that you then achieve confidence in that skillset or niche of business building is by doing recognize that you might make mistakes You need to experiment You need to throw ideas around with whoever your counterparts are in the business whether that's founder slash founder trio other function like head of design head of marketing or like whatever you may have at the time and you are going into execution mode it's only when you actually have some degree of product market fit have some traction that you're able to get into that point where you build out your team And then that's almost like a totally different skill set To think about
Laura: Let's talk about your role at Google How would you describe your [00:23:00] work on the Payments Identity product
Jackie: it was a learning journey for me to be able to even figure out what I do I work as a product manager in the Payments Identity team we sit within the Payments Platform team within Google So we are essentially a platform team that provisions overall payment services to the whole Google ecosystem whether that's Play Pay Cloud Insert Google product And then our team specifically works on provisioning identity verification experiences to the broader Google ecosystem In other words a lot of countries will implement regulatory requirements to mitigate financial crime and money laundering And a big part that mitigation strategy is you need to ensure that you know That users are who they say they are So you don't have identity fraud that's pervasive and the identity fraud that results in financial fraud et cetera et cetera So we provision a lot of the identity verification experiences across the Google ecosystem in different jurisdictions aligned with the [00:24:00] regulatory requirements for each jurisdiction I found that transitioning from healthcare to payments identity although at face value I was like very different industries The fact that you're working in a highly regulated space with a lot of constraints is synonymous across the two So that's definitely helped me a part of me is kind of like I wonder what it would be like to do product in a non highly regulated department Liberating Do whatever you want experiment with whatever you want
Laura: So true you moved from a 35 to 40 person startup to a global corporation Can you share a story from your four months so far that highlights what you've learned about making that big leap
Jackie: big culture shock I'd say but in like the best possible way it is a much bigger organization and I probably interact with more people on a day slash week basis around like a singular project I'm working on than I did across an entire company for an entire product as a result I think [00:25:00] communication and the way that you communicate becomes even more important you need to take all of the various stakeholders on the journey So specific to our team we will be engaging with our what we call 1P integrators So in other words play pay like whoever the Google product is because they are product teams there that are defining the product roadmap You will have to work with compliance legal ops teams but then we have our own predefined roadmap So there are so many stakeholders that need to come along the journey and you're constantly weighing how do you quantify and communicate the trade offs at every point Because really like product to the point I raised earlier define an end user and the problem that they're experiencing whichever order like problem end user ensure that it's commercially viable but then be really clear on the trade offs and the prioritization half of what product does most of the time is Okay we have a whole bunch of things we want to do What's going to create the most value and how do we prioritize what we're doing And it's the same within Google there's probably [00:26:00] 10 ways to skin a cat you need to figure out what's the way that meets all of the different stakeholder requirements including regulatory bodies in our instance in a way that makes the most sense and there's always going to be a trade off like it's never going to be like a perfect solution the second thing that I have found to be quite an adjustment is it's a very complex environment to be operating in because the product is complex the team structures and how they interact with one another is complex The processes are significantly more complex than like 35 40 person startup and so I think it's important to level set your expectations I started working on a project and I was like Oh this looks really straightforward Little did I know it was not at all simple and so I think coming in with realistic expectations and the gem that comes out of that is I am in like prime PM problem solving environment like where you pull the worm from a count of worms and there's [00:27:00] just a thousand more that is what every single problem looks like because pull a thread and then there's another problem another problem another problem and that's what PM love of like how do I try and simplify synthesize and bring structure to something that is quite complex or messy whatever it may be
Laura: So now you've formed your map of the world What do your next 90 days look like
Jackie: I'm at the point where I will be able to hopefully execute and get some reps on the board of getting exposure to at least part of the product development life cycle which I think is gold like really critical particularly in a large organization like Google and I think this relates to early stage startups scale ups whatever it may be the more you expose yourself to the full product development life cycle and ship and get feedback from users and like go through that process again and again that is how you develop product intuition the cadence at which you do that in early stage is significantly higher And there's less complexity and less stakeholders but the lesson is the same And [00:28:00] so in a larger corporation like Google getting exposure to the full product development life cycle is what I want as much of as possible because that encompasses understanding who stakeholders are understanding how I can effectively communicate to get stuff done in a big behemoth organization et cetera et cetera et cetera So that's the North star that I'm looking to get as much exposure to
Laura: And were there any leadership or collaboration tactics that you adopted at a much smaller company that just didn't work at Google And how did you adapt
Jackie: One of the main ones that pops to mind is in an early stage startup you're often going to be in the weeds in execution mode and going quite deep in areas like doing the user research or digging through the data et cetera et cetera because you're resource constrained although that still exists in Google I have to remind myself that there are other people that I can ask questions and I actually cannot solve these problems on my own because There is too much underlying [00:29:00] context layers dependencies et cetera And so just going deep and doing stuff on my own does not translate well to a big behemoth tech organization So learning how to leverage the diverse skillsets that exist around me and ask the right questions rather than me trying to answer all the questions myself Because otherwise I end up just on a hamster wheel and I'm like Oh I'm digging really deep in the data but I don't even know if this is the right data for me to be looking at et cetera et cetera yeah so that's definitely been an adjustment for me and I think it will continuously be one that I have to work on So you're optimizing for what actually drives value
Laura: thinking through a people strategy lens and like building and growing teams what's your biggest learning so far around the people management piece
Jackie: it's so important to remember that humans are humans and every person that you bring onto your team has their own goals ambitions aspirations And so being able to really understand what are their [00:30:00] incentives and what are they looking to optimize for in their careers and then weigh that up in tandem to what are the business goals And what do I need you to do As a part of this team and make it really clear for any individual who's in your team how they're one contributing to the overall company mission so that they feel that sense of purpose and alignment and cohesion and teamwork And then secondly being able to also draw a really clear line as to how the work that they're doing is helping them achieve the personal career goals that they have set up for them because then you're bringing an additional layer of meaning Into the work that they're doing every person will know there's going to be some work that you don't love doing in your portfolio of work but that is critical then making sure that there's a slice of the pie that is that extra I'm wanting to learn more about data analytics or growth or user experience and affording your team the opportunity to do that finally I'd probably say check in with them at a human level how are you doing It's been a super [00:31:00] hectic couple of months We've launched a whole lot of features Implementations gone crazy How are you feeling about the work Even if you don't have a solution for whatever challenge an individual team member is experiencing creating a space where they feel psychological safety and that they can actually share what's going on for them if they're feeling uncertain or anxious or whatever about the work that they're doing I think goes a long way in creating trust with your team
Laura: both your ex colleague Yass and your husband Darren described you as a powerhouse both gave really specific examples around your level of focus and how you balance sharp intelligence with heartfelt openness So i.e the human piece How do you do that Whilst in the middle of a product challenge and problem
Jackie: I can probably draw an example to when we launched our first version of Heidi obviously like your first launch is always pretty terrifying and It had to coincide with a marketing launch because we had to get patients [00:32:00] on board get patients booking get clinicians on board get receptionists on board So both technically operationally from an implementation perspective from a customer success perspective there was so many pieces that needed to fall into place how we approached it and how I approached it was we had a really tight cadence of communication across the cross functional teams that were involved in the launch with almost like start of day update versus end of day update This is where we've gotten to These are the issues that we've encountered both from a technical slash operational perspective These are mitigation strategies here that keep persons of accountability and ownership so that everyone really feels like they're rowing in the same boat So that's the clarity of the sharp intelligence piece where you're prioritizing what is the highest leverage work that you need to do to achieve your intended outcome But then at the same time recognizing that once you've been doing this for a couple of weeks the team is starting to feel somewhat Demoralized potentially because they're like the finish line just never really appears [00:33:00] There's constantly just like new challenges and making the time to check in on a one on one level with individuals to be like how are you going I know this is tough I can see the effort that you're putting in And then at the same time making sure to actually recognize the wins it doesn't mean that you stop working It's not like hands down Oh we're done It's saying We are still going we're still forging ahead but I just like to call out XYZ for the heroic monumental efforts in fixing XYZ bugs etc Here's the impact So making sure to actually call out individuals that are going above and beyond because I think recognition goes a long way and I think that's the kind of human touch to it
Laura: What do you think are your standout strengths or genius zones
Jackie: I guess a high degree of empathy and that is both for whoever your end users may be but then for the people that I work with cause at the end of the day every corporation slash business is comprised of humans you can only really make an impact through the people that you're working with and then secondly I would say is getting [00:34:00] shit done I think that I'm quite good at just breaking down tasks and giving people a really clear line of sight as to what they need to do And then also for myself breaking down something that feels monumental and focusing on getting the work done and so there's a bias to execution that I sometimes have to train myself out of particularly when like growing a team you're like Oh can't be in execution mode all the time let's level up let's level up
Laura: And just knowing where that balance is what advice would you give aspiring product leaders
Jackie: Focus on getting out there and getting some reps on the board If you've identified that product is something that you're interested in stop hypothesizing stop reading articles about it Stop listening to podcasts about it Find someone who's willing to let you do whether it's a pro bono project hopefully you can be remunerated and there's like a fair value exchange a lot of my first product projects were pro bono I identified a friend in South Africa that was building a ward task management app Peter Ann We'd gone to med school together and I was like I'm going to help you do your first [00:35:00] product stuff And so we worked together for six months until she had her first minimum viable product that she then went to market with that's how you one test Is this actually something I want to do Cause you might not that's the reality of it and two get reps on the board to actually say I am competent able and have the skill set to be able to apply myself to this thing called product and so it's just like getting yourself out there
Laura: So we're going to look ahead to the future now What emerging trends do you see shaping the future roles of operators and how can we best prepare for those changes today
Jackie: from both a you are an ICPM within a bigger corporation or you're a PM leader that has a team that you're orchestrating I think that we are going to have to move from the perception of doing like we are the doers of things to you are the orchestrator of things And what I mean by this is and a lot of your guests I'm sure will have been mentioning AI more and more is going to become the [00:36:00] doer of things But you need to ensure that you're answering the right questions that you're pursuing the right goals etc the analogy that I think is useful here is you can have a host of instruments which is all of your AI tools processes humans teams interacting with one another and they can all be doing their own thing and it's a cacophony of noise or you can actually orchestrate People teams processes and the tools that they're using which will be AI or insert tool then you end up with music to your ears essentially and so whether that's at a team level whether that's just your Focus area If you're a PM that's responsible for executing X set of product features for your business I think taking that step back and saying are we answering the right questions How are we leveraging tools processes people to be able to maximize value is probably the biggest change that I see Emerging
Laura: Totally And such a practical question to be asking every single [00:37:00] day of you and your direct reports And then on a personal note what's your vision for the future
Jackie: I have no idea where I'll be in 10 years as I already alluded to earlier But I think continuing to do meaningful work where I feel like I'm challenged and I'm learning and I'm growing then driving impact not just in My workplace but also in my personal life is always something that's important to me I'm very passionate about global health so improving healthcare access and delivery in low income countries and under resourced communities that's something that I'm engaging with outside of work particularly like in Africa and places like that Cause that's obviously where we're home is and what I care about and I think just like building an interesting wide ranging and expansive life with lots of interesting experiences is probably what I want
Laura: Wonderful you touched on some frameworks earlier but do you have any tactics frameworks or people in the industry who have been your north stars
Jackie: I can definitely speak to people that have shaped a large role in my product [00:38:00] journey a couple that come to mind is obviously I've mentioned Darren my husband but then also Kirsten Mann at Prospection which is the healthcare data analytics firm that was one of my first non clinical roles together with Peter Cronin who's the founder at Prospection Paul Redfern who's currently at Big Picture has been amazing and guiding me along so many different tactical strategic career decisions In the kind of product world phenomenal kind of person And then I definitely also call out the founders at Heidi Waleed Mussa Dr Tom Kelly and Yu Liu a absolute dynamic trio not really duo who I definitely learned a lot from in my time that I was there and then probably a shout out to Trung Ton So he is a doctor who went to McKinsey and then went to public health and did his own digital health startup has been in like VC and then most recently in venture building for health tech But just an absolute bomb when it comes to operating and [00:39:00] executing in the health tech space a lot of people that have been formative in my journey And then again Lenny's podcast is a great resource and I've personally been a massive fan of Tim Ferriss so that's less career but more personally oriented the last 14 years So I kind of like dip in and out
Laura: actually already quite a lot of operators there But if you were to call out one or two operators in the ANZ ecosystem who would they be
Jackie: Yeah I think definitely Paul from a product perspective So I feel like I'm going to vouch for the product community in this call out and then from a design perspective I'd actually call out head of design that I worked with at Heidi Her name is Eliza Hillary Just an absolute gun and like the best sparring partner I could have asked for and I mean that in like the best way when you have a really healthy tussle to get to the best outcome for end users if I had to start my own company i'd be like come on board come on board
Laura: eliza and paul you are the ultimate sparring partners [00:40:00] Yes Awesome So we're on to our last question I'd really love to touch on mental wellness to round this out can you share a piece of advice or a tactic that's helped you stay grounded through this journey
Jackie: I laugh because I have a piece of advice that I was prompted to give when I was like 17 And I feel like I'm just rehashing the same thing now I'll maybe give the prelude story and then I'll give the advice when I finished high school I'd obviously been studying to get into medicine so I worked quite hard cause it's hard to get into medicine And I was invited to go to this like prize giving ceremony at the end of the year in the big smoke like the city that was like five hours from my hometown Had no idea why And so I went and eventually it turns out like I'd gotten like highest academic achievement in the province they then asked me in a little interview on the stage you know what advice would you have For students that also want to achieve this and all I could think of saying because I had zero preparation was Do your homework that is not the advice that I'm giving but I've workshoped the similar [00:41:00] sentiment and I'd probably give the same advice now where I think bringing mindfulness and presence into the small things compounds into the big things that's really what it means When I say do your homework it means if you're struggling with a subject at school or if you're struggling with A area of work that you don't know much about in product apply yourself to learning the small things and that compounds to the big things set yourself ambitious goals when it comes to your career or to your product or your company or the features that you want to ship and then break it down and really focus on executing with presence because it's only through executing with presence and also interacting with your team with a presence of mind that the results come naturally because You're focusing on the work and so I guess by proxy of that something that's been really important to me is mindfulness and meditation And I've really worked to cultivate that practice over the last couple of years and that kind of spills into every aspect of your life And so my advice is do your homework but focus on doing the small things well [00:42:00] and the rest will evolve and unfold
Laura: Good for you And it makes such a difference
Jackie: Absolutely underrated
Laura: Jackie Thank you so much for bringing some sunshine to my day Where can people find you
Jackie: on LinkedIn Jackie Rabec would be the best place to ping me