A VP of Product is the senior leader responsible for a company's product strategy, roadmap, and the product management function. They own the product vision (in collaboration with the CEO and CTO), define what gets built and why, manage the product management team, and are accountable for product-market fit and feature adoption. The VP of Product role at a B2B SaaS company differs significantly from the equivalent role at a consumer product company in terms of required skills and orientation.
What a VP of Product Owns
A VP of Product's core accountabilities include: setting the product strategy and roadmap (in alignment with CEO/CTO), managing the product management team, driving the discovery process (understanding customer problems), prioritising the backlog, and measuring product outcomes (adoption, retention, feature utilisation, NPS).
In companies with a separate design function, the VP of Product typically partners with a VP of Design. In companies without, the VP of Product often owns UX/design as well. The strongest VPs of Product maintain a customer-obsessed orientation while operating effectively in the organisational and technical context of the engineering team.
VP of Product — Role at a Glance
VP of Product vs CPO
The VP of Product and Chief Product Officer (CPO) titles represent a similar scope difference to VP of Marketing vs CMO: the VP of Product manages the product function operationally, while the CPO is a board-level strategic partner to the CEO on product vision and direction. A CPO is appropriate at larger companies (post-Series C) with a large product organisation; a VP of Product is the right hire for most Series A–C companies.
In many growth-stage companies, the CEO serves as the de facto CPO until the product is well-defined and the PM function is large enough to require dedicated leadership. The first product management hire is often a VP of Product who builds the function from a small team, not a CPO who oversees an existing organisation.
“The VP of Product is the role where credentials mislead the most. Working at a great product company doesn't make someone a great product leader. The question is what they shipped, what problem it solved, what the metrics showed, and whether they can hire and develop a PM team.”
What Makes a Strong VP of Product
The strongest VP of Product candidates at Series B–C SaaS companies have: deep experience in B2B product management (not only B2C, which has different skills requirements), a track record of shipping products that drove measurable business outcomes, the ability to manage and develop product managers, and strong cross-functional credibility with engineering and design.
Red flags: VPs of Product who can only articulate vision and not process (great at inspiring direction but ineffective at managing delivery), VPs of Product who have only worked on consumer products (different skills, different discovery methodology), and PMs promoted to VP without team management experience.