One Knight in Product CPO Stories: Sean O'Neill - Syncron
On this episode, I speak to Sean O'Neill. Sean is the Chief Product & Technology Officer at Syncron, and an executive product leader with a storied career spanning companies like Amazon, Tesco, and GfK. We bond over our shared history at GfK, speak about how Amazon has influenced his product thinking, how it's developed since he moved on, and his approach to portfolio management and right-sizing investments across the product portfolio.
We cover a lot, including:
- There's no greater crime than building something the universe doesn't need: Sean's ten key product principles that he lists on LinkedIn - first developed at Tesco - all matter, but building pointless stuff tops his list of product sins.
- Use the right tool for the job: Amazon shaped Sean's product DNA, but he's clear that context is king - you can't simply transplant Big Tech practices into legacy environments and expect them to work wholesale.
- Most companies under-invest in their strategy: When progress stalls, it's usually because teams are spread too thin across BAU work and one-off feature requests. The best product firms align time and capacity to strategic bets (or admit that they're a professional services company).
- Adopt a portfolio mindset: Sean's capital allocation framework helps leaders size and re-balance investments, ensuring resources go where they'll have the biggest impact - and revisiting regularly (but not too regularly) to stay honest.
- Learn the language of money: Too many product leaders avoid finance. Sean argues that financial literacy isn't optional if you want credibility with the board and real influence on business outcomes. Learn the numbers!
You can connect with Sean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanon/. There you'll find a number of articles, including the one we discuss in this interview: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-dont-need-more-engineers-better-strategic-bets-sean-o-neill-s0vze/
Connect with Sean's "mystery caller"You can connect with special guest interviewer Sterling O'Neill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterlingoneill/.