Product Network Europe organized the first CPO conference in Sweden, and I was thrilled to share the stage with some of the brightest product minds in Stockholm.

We discussed many themes connected to product leadership, from mixing data with gut feelings in decision-making, scaling teams, and the game-changer: people’s skills. It was a great opportunity to share my thoughts, but most importantly it was an opportunity to hear some brilliant product leaders and their take on product management. This is what I take with me from the evening:

Product leadership = people’s leadership

We came back to this concept multiple times during the evening, and I believe that the common view of all the speakers was that success as a CPO depends on your people’s skills.

Whether it involves delegation and coaching, avoiding becoming the bottleneck or creating bonds in the leadership team to ensure a unified view of priorities, these skills are a must.

The above is true for any leader, but those skills become fundamental in product management, where the essence of the job is about prioritizing effectively and getting people behind the prioritization.

As I often say, and it is worth repeating - we are in the people’s business.

Data will help you, but cannot guide you all the way

How to make decisions is definitely another critical skill for any product leader. And during the evening we had some interesting discussions about balancing a pure data-driven approach and intuition.

My take on this is that the sweet spot is often in the middle. Data should inform your goals and highlight opportunities, but exclusively relying on data can lead to analysis paralysis or excessive lead times for decision-making. This is where product intuition comes into play—your knowledge of the industry, users, and stakeholders fills the gaps data cannot address.

No matter the industry, the challenges we face are really similar

The conference brought together CPOs from diverse sectors—banking, electric scooters, e-learning, marketplaces, and electric vehicles. Despite this variety, the challenges discussed were strikingly similar. It is about communication, decision-making clarity, understanding data and people, and, fundamentally, building trust.