From Senior PM to Executive Product Leader: Executive Judgment & Decision-Making
Elena Leonova
ex-CPO Spryker | VP Product BigCommerce
The Skills Product Leaders Need to Break the Execution Ceiling
At senior levels, product leadership stops being about having good answers. It becomes about being trusted with decisions.
You’re expected to weigh strategy, revenue, cost, and risk - and influence outcomes without full authority or information. When your thinking isn’t clear or defensible, you lose influence - even if you’re right.
Decisions move forward without you - while others with less context, but stronger framing, gain influence and scope. Not because you’re wrong, but because your judgment isn’t landing.
This is a 6-week, high-touch course where your judgment is tested the same way it is in exec rooms - under ambiguity, constraint, and scrutiny.
This is not a lecture-based course. You will practice executive decision-making through real scenarios - framing strategy, navigating financial tradeoffs, shaping KPI narratives, and making judgment calls under constraint. You’ll apply the work live and receive direct feedback on how it holds up.
The goal is not polish. It’s judgment that holds when the stakes are real - and the room is evaluating whether to trust you.
If you want to be trusted with bigger decisions, not just deliver on them, this is where you earn that credibility.
What you’ll learn
You will learn how to make, frame, and defend decisions the way executives do - with clarity, tradeoffs, and confidence under pressure.
By Week 1: You’ll stop framing product decisions as delivery tradeoffs and start framing them as executive judgments - a critical shift.
By Week 2: Build a defensible Point A business assessment - revenue, costs, and pressures - you can use in real executive discussions.
Start translating business realities into strategic opportunities using executive-level frameworks
Build a mini financial model linking product decisions to revenue, margins, and cost structure
Apply ARR, NRR, CAC, LTV, EBITDA logic to justify prioritization
By mid-course: You’ll justify priorities using ROI, unit economics, and tradeoffs in a way executives recognize and reward.
Turn insights into a sharp Point B vision with 3–5 defensible strategic bets
Use an executive-ready prioritization method tied to business goals
Produce a strategy executives take seriously - grounded in evidence and economics
Craft a cohesive narrative executives immediately understand
Handle CEO/CFO-level questions in a way that builds trust - not defensiveness
Build a 1-page strategic brief & board-style narrative
Tie product strategy to revenue, pipeline, customer experience, and retention
Create cross-functional alignment plans executives expect
Communicate in the language GTM teams trust
Run a quarterly operating rhythm like a real product executive
Grow your influence across engineering, finance, and GTM
By the end of the course: You’ll have a 1-page executive strategy brief you can reuse for promotions, exec reviews, or interviews
Learn directly from Elena
Elena Leonova
Founder & CPO, OneRank.io, ex-CPO @ Spryker, VP of Product @ BigCommerce
Who this course is for
Senior & Principal PMs
who already deliver at a high level and want to be trusted with larger, riskier decisions - not just executionGroup PMs, Directors, and above
who own strategy, make real tradeoffs, and defend decisions under executive scrutinyProduct consultants, coaches, and advisors
who want to bring executive-level judgment to their client work and recommendations
Prerequisites
Strong Product Execution Fundamentals
You already operate as a Senior or Principal PM or Product Lead. You don’t need help shipping, running discovery, or managing teams
Comfort Making Decisions with Imperfect Data
You’re used to making calls with partial information, competing metrics, and real tradeoffs. You understand the importance of judgment
Accountability for Strategic Decisions
Your judgment is - or soon will be - evaluated by executives, boards, or clients. You’re responsible for explaining why a decision is right
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Elena Leonova in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime Access to All Materials
Every lesson, slide deck, template, and recording is yours forever - build a repeatable strategic operating system for your career.
Executive Playbook Projects (used in promotions & exec reviews)
Produce real deliverables product executives use: business assessments, strategy drafts, financial justifications, executive briefs, and KPI maps.
Weekly Office Hours & Coaching (decision review & pushback coaching)
Bring your toughest PM → executive challenges. Get direct guidance and personalized feedback.
Private Community of Experienced Product Peers (pressure-test thinking)
A cohort of handpicked peers growing into VP/CPO roles - a network you’ll carry long after the course ends.
Capstone: Deliver Your Strategy Like an Executive
Deliver a polished strategy and executive brief in a live showcase, building confidence and executive presence. Your thinking will be challenged in real time - the same way it is in exec rooms.
Certificate of completion
A credential that reflects your strategic, financial, and cross-functional leadership capability.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund through the second week of the course.
Course syllabus
13 live sessions • 21 lessons • 10 projects
Week 1
Mar
2
LIVE: Why Execution Excellence Stops Working - and What Replaces It
Mon 3/26:00 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)Mar
4
(Optional) Weekly Office Hours
Wed 3/45:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)Optional
From Product Manager to Product Executive: A Shift in Responsibility
Week 2
Mar
9
LIVE: How Executives Diagnose the Business Before Setting Strategy
Mon 3/95:00 PM—6:30 PM (UTC)Mar
11
(Optional) Weekly Office Hours
Wed 3/114:30 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)Optional
Reading the Business Like an Executive (Point A Assessment)
Free resources
Schedule
Live sessions
2 hrs / week
Weekly deep-dive live session (~45 min content + ~45 min Q&A), designed to simulate real executive reviews, strategic discussions, and boardroom-style communication. Plus optional 30 mins weekly drop-in coaching for personalized feedback, Q&A, and support on your strategic deliverables.
Mon, Mar 2
6:00 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)
Wed, Mar 4
5:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
Mon, Mar 9
5:00 PM—6:30 PM (UTC)
Projects
1-2 hrs / week
Weekly strategic assignments (Point A Assessment, Strategy Draft, Financial Model, Executive Brief, Alignment Plan, etc.). These are concise but high-impact deliverables.
Async content
1 hr / week
Short pre-reads, frameworks, templates, and video clips that prepare you for the live session and project work.
Testimonials
Working with Elena sharpened my strategic thinking at a crucial stage of my career. Her approach to pricing, P&L-driven prioritization and portfolio rationalization pushed me to operate with greater financial clarity and stronger executive judgment.
What I appreciated most was her ability to turn complex product strategy into actionable decision frameworks that improved how our team delivered outcomes.
Her coaching challenged me in the right ways and helped me elevate my impact as a product leader.
Ángel Hita Albarracín
Principal Product ManagerElena gave me the ability to think and communicate like a product executive. She breaks down complex decisions with clarity, connects product work to real business impact, and teaches the strategic mindset PMs need to rise. Her coaching reshaped our entire product organization — and my own career trajectory.
Volodymyr Lunov
Senior Product ManagerI realized I was missing strategic thinking until Elena taught me how to develop it. She gave me frameworks to decompose problems, see the bigger picture, and operate like an executive — not a product manager delivering features. Every conversation shifted how I approached my role. Elena didn’t just change my skills; she changed my mindset
Andrew Chekanov
Head of ProductElena transformed our product organization into a strategic, outcome-driven team. She taught us how to align roadmaps with value, use customer insights effectively, and think like executives. Her clarity, strategic depth, and leadership built the strongest product culture I’ve seen. Anyone wanting to become a stronger product leader should learn from her.”
Vasiliki Chatzivasileiou
Product LeaderElena is one of the most exceptional product leaders I've worked with. She pushes teams to think boldly and execute rigorously, always tying decisions to real customer and business value. Her strategic clarity and operational discipline are unmatched - she elevates everyone around her.
Pablo Kern
Customer Success LeaderElena’s session was filled with ‘aha’ moments — finally understanding how to frame features in business language, how to align roadmaps to outcomes, and how to think beyond the feature backlog. The ROI Canvas alone changed how we work. This is the kind of strategic education PMs never get but desperately need
Lightning Lesson Participants
PMs & Product Leaders from 5+ countries
Frequently asked questions
$2,500
USD