The Product–Engineering Alignment That Saves Millions (and Your Reputation)
Join Ron Lichty (Apple, Fujitsu, Schwab, Stanford) and Bruce McCarthy for proven frameworks that cut through chaos, focus priorities, and turn morale into measurable throughput.
Tuesday, October 29th, 2025
12PM - 1:30 PM ET (9AM PT)
Join us live on video
Only 25 seats available. Recording included in package.
Bring your most challenging real-world scenario.
This isn’t another webinar.
It’s a closed-door, 25-person roundtable where senior product leaders bring their hardest challenges into the room.
You’ll leave with more than just frameworks from Ron and Bruce— you’ll also get battle-tested approaches from your peers—what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how to adapt it to your org.
Limited seats → ensures you’re in the discussion, not in the audience.
Pre-submitted questions → the conversation starts with your problems.
Expert facilitation → Ron and Bruce steer it so you leave with clarity, not chaos.
TRUSTED BY COMPANIES PROTECTING ENGINEERING BUDGETS FROM $2 MILLION TO $29 BILLION
When Product and Engineering Misfire, Everyone Pays
Your engineering team ships fast, but customers don’t use the features.
→ You set priority, but engineering doesn’t seem to get it.
→ Your credibility tanks with your team—and your boss.
→ Features may be technically what you asked for, but don’t deliver customer delight
→ Engineers spin on “fix later” code until later never comes
→ Engineers are less than motivated to deliver customer delight
You know this isn’t a velocity problem—it’s an alignment problem.
And every month it continues costs you more than 100X this roundtable in wasted budget and lost credibility.
That’s why we’re bringing in Ron Lichty — the “product whisperer”— who’s spent decades fixing exactly what you’re facing at Apple, Fujitsu, and beyond.
He’ll show you how to reset alignment so you deliver what the business needs and your engineering team is proud to build.
Because every month you wait costs you millions in wasted budget, slipped deadlines, and credibility hits with your board.
VIDEO HERE (?)
Hear Ron Lichty and Bruce McCarthy unpack why alignment between product and engineering is the single biggest predictor of whether your org scales smoothly — or stalls out.
Seats limited to 25 registrants so we can workshop real solutions.
CPO Studio members get priority access.
Finally get the Product-Engineering partnership you’ve always wanted
You’re tired of battling over priorities.
You’re done waiting on half-answers from engineering. You want the partnership where you’re finishing each other’s sentences instead of fighting each other’s decisions.
Ron Lichty (Apple, Fujitsu, Schwab, Stanford, and a host of startups, and author of Managing the Unmanageable) will show you how to get there.
When you master true product-engineering alignment?
Decisions move faster
Delivery feels lighter
And you finally have progress you can show your board
With Ron’s guidance, you’ll see how to:
✔ Get engineering input early enough to avoid rework and delays
✔ Prioritize confidently without endless battles over “what matters most”
✔ Balance speed with sustainability so tech debt doesn’t strangle growth
✔ Finally experiment the “right way” like you’ve been wanting to do for years
✔ Catch cultural misalignments before they blow up into costly failures
✔ Leave meetings with stakeholders aligned, engineering engaged, and product momentum intact
Live, small-group roundtable
with Ron Lichty & Bruce McCarthy.
Zero slides. Real talk.
Peer problem-solving with leaders at your level.
Seats limited to 25 registrants so every leader gets focused time
Priority access reserved for members of CPO Studio.
What top leaders say after Ron steps in:
“You brought calm to the chaos.”
- LesConcierges (executive team)
“Ron’s influence transcended engineering—he lifted the whole leadership team when we needed it most.”
— Jonathan Evans, Founding CEO, Skyward (acquired by Verizon)
“We went from years late to shipping quality features on time.”
— Reid Hoffman ( Fujitsu)
“Ron helped us craft the product story, size and prioritize, and communicate schedule and costs.”
— Ken Kruszka (m-Via)
Ron literally wrote the book on managing engineers (Managing the Unmanageable)—and it shows in the results.
Yes, you can ship on time without burning out your team
You don’t have a skills gap. You don’t need another framework.
What’s breaking your delivery is misalignment.
You lose time in handoffs. You fight over priorities. You point fingers when deadlines slip. Your features ship without adoption while your engineers chase fixes that never end.
The cost shows up in your missed revenue and your burned-out team.
Ron has spent decades diagnosing these exact problems and prescribing the right solutions. At Apple, Fujitsu, Schwab, and a host of startups, he quickly assessed what was really breaking delivery, then gave leaders the specific frameworks to fix it—turning frustrated product leaders just like you into true partners with their engineering teams.
In this roundtable, he’ll diagnose the friction in your org and prescribe the exact steps to fix it—so you can ship on time, keep your team engaged, and show your board progress that actually matters.
“Each session centers around someone bringing a real problem and we discuss it”
“I love that each session centers around someone bringing a real problem, and we discuss it. Those conversations have three benefits: they’re stimulating and thought-provoking, it’s satisfying to help someone solve something real, and we all benefit from working through a problem together.”
- Anna Litvak-Hinenzon, AI Product Strategy Consultant & Georgetown Professor
MEET YOUR EXPERT
Ron Lichty
Consulting VP Eng | Advisor | Agile Consultant & Co-author of “Managing the Unmanageable”
Your engineers want to see their work matters.
Most leaders forget that.
That’s where Ron Lichty comes in. For more than three decades, Ron has been the leader executives call when product and engineering drift apart and motivation disappears. He’s rebuilt struggling teams at Apple, Fujitsu, Schwab, and Stanford — and coached leaders from startups to the Fortune 100 to turn chaos into clarity.
Why Ron gets results:
He knows what actually motivates your engineers:
Not perks or pizza—purpose. Ron helps you reconnect your team’s daily tasks with the bigger vision, so they deliver impact, not just code.
He’s walked in your shoes:
Ron has managed engineering teams, mentored product leaders, and worked alongside CEOs. This gives him a rare ability to translate between functions—so everyone stays aligned and no one gets left in the dark.
He makes the human connection:
Teams say he “brought calm to the chaos.” Leaders say his guidance “lifted the whole executive team.” His mentorship doesn’t just make you ship faster—it keeps your morale and trust intact.
Most importantly:
Ron doesn’t just calm chaos. He safeguards the millions you’re investing in product and engineering, ensuring they pay off.
Get proven guidance from the author who wrote the manual
Ron literally co-wrote Managing the Unmanageable (now in its extensively updated second edition)—the go-to guide for leaders who need to hire, motivate, and mentor engineers at scale.
His superpower: cutting through chaos. Ron connects the dots between your business priorities and engineering realities, so you stop firefighting and start shipping what matters.
“The thing that motivates engineers more than anything else is the opportunity to make a difference in the world.” – Ron Lichty
A Note from Bruce McCarthy
Ron stands out for one reason: he shows you how to unlock your engineering team’s full potential.
Most leaders think alignment is about process, tools, or frameworks. Ron knows the real unlock is helping your engineers see the impact of their work—on customers, on your business, on the world. When that connection is clear, everything changes. Your engineers get engaged. They get creative. They solve problems you didn’t think could be solved.
That’s why I asked Ron to lead this roundtable. He doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t drown you in jargon. He helps you draw the line from your lofty product vision to each and every story in Jira—and makes sure your engineers actually believe in it.
I’ve seen too many initiatives stall because leaders couldn’t bridge that gap. Ron’s gift is making that bridge solid—and teaching you how to walk it every day.
This roundtable isn’t your average “leadership coaching.” It’s protection for the millions your company is betting on your roadmap.
— Bruce McCarthy, Founder of Product Culture
Trusted by leaders protecting millions in engineering investment
Ron’s frameworks have been battle-tested everywhere from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 giants. He’s guided teams at companies you know, helping them ship faster, reduce chaos, and deliver products people actually love.
LOGOS
MEET YOUR MODERATOR
BRUCE MCCARTHY
Founder & Product Leadership Advisor
Product Culture
Bruce creates the structured environment where senior product leaders can tackle their most complex challenges. With over 20 years in product, and 12 years coaching CPOs and VPs of Product, he’s mastered the art of facilitating peer-level conversations that deliver real outcomes—not generic networking.
The Framework for Breakthrough Conversations
Bruce’s role is simple: make sure Ron’s expertise gets to the right problems and every participant gets the focused attention they deserve. His facilitation style ensures tough questions get asked, complex ideas get broken down into manageable pieces, and breakthrough moments actually happen.
“Bruce adds strategic insight, not just moderation. He helps steer conversations effectively, which isn’t always the case in other curated groups.”
The working session no lecture could ever deliver
This isn’t about following someone else’s playbook.
It’s about putting your real product–engineering roadblocks on the table—and walking out with practical ways through them.
You’ll be in the (virtual) room with peers from Toast, Flywire, 3Play Media, and other high-growth teams, alongside Ron Lichty and Bruce McCarthy.
In our 90 minutes together, you will get:
Unfiltered access to Ron – decades of leadership lessons, distilled into advice you can act on immediately.
Live coaching, not theory – bring your thorniest alignment challenges and workshop them on the spot.
Bruce’s facilitation edge – he doesn’t just host, he sharpens the discussion and pulls out the tactics that matter.
Peer-level candor – the kind of inside stories and “here’s what really worked” exchanges you won’t find in blog posts.
Answers to the unspeakable – the political, cultural, and people-side questions you can’t raise in larger forums.
Date: Tuesday, October 29th, 2025
Time: 12pm EST/ 9am PST
Investment: $400
Seats limited to 25 registrants so we can workshop real solutions.
CPO Studio members get priority access.
Your CEO sees credibility.
You feel supported.
Your team finally delivers.
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Jim Dyal
CPO at Vanderlande
“Practical advice I implemented immediately”
“The most memorable parts were the practical frameworks I could apply right away. The expert’s approach to handling complex challenges was incredibly useful—I’ve since started implementing several of the strategies with great success.”
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Pedro Miguel Girão
VP of Product Management at OutSystems
“Real-world applicability from experienced practitioners”
“What I valued most was the openness and real-world applicability. Hearing from practitioners sharing real experiences gave me insights I can’t get anywhere else. Not a lot of really experienced product leaders in my region, so this felt like a great opportunity.”
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John Slocum
CPO at 3Play Media
“Validated my approach and surfaced tactics I can use immediately”
“The roundtable validated much of my prior approach and surfaced tactics that will be helpful in the future to confirm our business model before it’s threatened. Exactly the kind of strategic insight I was looking for.”
Finally,
a place to ask YOUR real questions
The ones you can’t put in Slack channels or all-hands.
The ones about trust, alignment, and politics that feel too risky to air elsewhere.
Here, you’ll get straight talk from Ron, from Bruce, and from peers who know exactly what you’re navigating.
Seats limited to 25 registrants so we can workshop real solutions.
CPO Studio members get priority access.
Frequently Asked Questions
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This roundtable is for CPOs and senior product leaders who are responsible for driving strategy and defending roadmap decisions. If you're in the room when bets are made—and expected to justify them—this is built for you.
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Yes. This isn’t a passive webinar—it’s an interactive discussion. Bring your toughest roadmap-related challenges and get clear, actionable advice from Ron and your peers.
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To make sure every attendee has time to contribute, ask, and be heard. You deserve focused feedback—not another panel where you stay muted.
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You’ll get access to the full recording after the event. But we strongly recommend attending live if you want to actively participate and shape the discussion.
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You can request a full refund up to 3 days before the event. Because seats are limited and highly curated, we can’t offer refunds after that date.
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