Executive Altitude: How Product Leaders Get the Yes from Execs & Boards
Elena Leonova
ex-Product Exec @Spryker, Commerce, eBay
Your strategy is sound. The room still didn't get it. This workshop fixes that.
You can build a sound strategy and still lose the room.
Most product leaders aren't unclear. They're at the wrong altitude. They lead with user workflows when the board wants market opportunity. They walk in with 30 slides when the CEO has 5 minutes. They explain why the work matters when executives are deciding how much it's worth.
The cost isn't a bad meeting. It's a worse career trajectory. Decisions move forward without you. Headcount goes elsewhere. Roadmaps get rewritten by people closer to the money.
This workshop fixes one thing: how you communicate product strategy when the room is deciding whether to fund it, defend it, or push it back to next quarter. Four hours, hands-on, with live coaching from Elena. You leave with a rewritten exec update for a real situation in your own work — pressure-tested by your peers and critiqued live.
This is not communication theory. It is what gets the yes.
What you’ll learn
Translate product strategy into the language executives decide in — capital allocation, risk, market opportunity. Land the yes.
Score your most recent exec update against three altitude markers — capital signal, risk signal, decision-rights signal.
Spot exactly where it loses the room.
Identify the PM-default language patterns that cost you credibility with executives.
Lead with the three questions boards ask: market opportunity, capital efficiency, risk profile. Everything else competes for slide budget.
Compress a 30-slide deck into 3 slides that get read in 5 minutes.
Defend the cut to your CEO before the meeting — the hard part nobody trains for.
Map the four stakeholder types in your decision room and how each one decides.
Build the Yes Staircase — the 1:1 sequence that wins the decision before the group meeting.
Most yeses are made before the room convenes. Learn the conversation that closes the deal.
Apply each module to your real exec update — draft and rework in real time alongside peers.
Selected participants get hot-seat critiques from Elena live in front of the room.
Watch the framework applied and the failure modes corrected in real time.
Workshop agenda
Drop your stuck exec update and start the diagnostic
Bring the one-line exec update you can't land. The workshop opens with a 5-minute self-audit — your real situation becomes the case study for the next four hours.
Diagnose where your update loses the room
Score your exec update against three altitude markers — capital signal, risk signal, decision-rights signal. Spot the PM-default language patterns your executives translate around.
Architect your update around the three executive questions
Rebuild your exec update around market opportunity, capital efficiency, risk profile. Compress 30 slides into 3 that get read in 5 minutes. Practice the CEO-defense for the cut.
Map your decision room and build the Yes Staircase
Identify the four stakeholder types in your decision room. Sequence your 1:1s before the group meeting. Walk out with a pre-wire plan for the next executive decision you need to win.
Pitch your real proposal and absorb the critique
Apply the workshop's frameworks to your real exec update alongside peers. Selected participants get a live hot-seat critique from Elena. Everyone leaves with a sharper proposal.
Lock the post-workshop plan
Walk out with: a rewritten exec update, a stakeholder pre-wire plan, the diagnostic scorecard, and Elena's read on your refined proposal within 7 days.
Learn directly from Elena
Elena Leonova
Founder & CPO, OneRank.io, ex-CPO @ Spryker, VP of Product @ BigCommerce
Who this workshop is for
Senior & Principal PMs whose strategic proposals keep getting translated, redirected, or politely ignored by the exec team.
Group PMs, Directors, VPs of Product who've lost — or nearly lost — a critical decision because the room didn't land as expected.
Product consultants and advisors who coach senior PMs through executive presentations and want a sharper toolkit for the altitude shift.
Prerequisites
A real exec update or stuck proposal you need to nail.
This is hands-on. Bring an actual situation from your work — board deck, exec update, strategy ask. No fictional case studies.
Senior PM level or above.
No prior coursework required, but you should already be operating in rooms where executives evaluate your judgment. This is not a foundation
Four hours uninterrupted.
Block the calendar. The practice + critique element only happens live. Showing up at minute 30 will cost you the value.
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Elena Leonova in a real-time, interactive format.
Pre-work: bring a stuck exec update
You'll receive a pre-work prompt 7 days before the session. Come with an actual proposal or update you need to land. No homework beyond your own work.
The Altitude Diagnostic + 3 Questions Architecture
A reusable toolkit you can apply to every exec update for the rest of your career. Includes the diagnostic scorecard and the slide-budget framework.
Live practice on your real proposal
Apply each module to your real exec update — draft, rework, and pressure-test your proposal in real time alongside peers. Not a hypothetical case.
Live hot-seat critiques from Elena
Selected participants get their proposal surgically reviewed by Elena in front of the room. The whole cohort sees the framework applied — failure modes corrected live.
Elena's read on your post-workshop proposal
Submit your refined exec update within 7 days. Elena returns written notes or a short recorded video — a private read before you ship it.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
Your purchase is backed by the Maven Guarantee.
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Testimonials
It helped sharpen my thinking around financial realities, prioritization, and... how to communicate product strategy in a way that resonates with executive leadership.
Vova Lunov
Senior PM, Spryker Systems · Cohort 1Elena will help you see the obvious gap between 'product strategy theater' and real strategy... grounding decisions in defensible thinking that holds up under executive scrutiny.
Mathias Holmgren
Product Coach, mathiasholmgren.com · Cohort 1Elena teaches something much more rare and I'd argue important: how to decide what to build in the first place... I feel more confident in strategic conversations and have so many ideas about how to apply this in my current role.
Stephanie Neave
PM, WeVideo · Cohort 2Elena Leonova draws students deep into the executive mind... [she] challenges students to frame product decisions in the language of business drivers, strategic bets and forced trade-offs... and cultivate trust with their executives.
Travis Fell
Senior Technical Product Owner, Texicare · Cohort 1
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