[3m04s] What sparked Alex’s interest in finance and economics and led him to launch his career at Intuit
[6m36s] The origins of Alex’s interest in human-centered product design
[12m24s] How the opportunity to work for Asana meshed with Alex’s drive to bring clarity to the product development process
[16m42s] Advice on how to apply human-centered design and develop customer empathy as a product builder
[20m45s] How Asana is working to solve the pain points associated with hybrid work
[27m21s] Why it’s so important to unify brand experience, product experience, and culture
[32m53s] Reflections on Asana’s IPO, and how the company used its own platform to pull it off for Asana, by Asana, on Asana
[34m32s] The importance of not wasting time on decisions that are easy to reverse
[36m20s] Alex’s thoughts on leading with curiosity
In today’s fractured world of work, Asana develops products that bring connectedness to teams and business processes using a human-centered design approach that prioritizes observing and understanding. And at the center of that process is their Head of Product, Alex Hood.
In his talk with Jesse, Alex illuminates the principles he’s developed over a career that spans tenures at Intuit, TubeMogul, and Asana. While reflecting on leading key initiatives like the development of Quickbooks at Intuit, Alex gives his advice on how to build customer empathy at scale, how to make the right product decisions while in hypergrowth, how to lead with curiosity, and much more.
Guest Bio
As Head of Product, Alex leads Asana’s product strategy, planning, and the management of the entire product organization, which includes product management, design, and user research. Prior to Asana, Alex was a VP of Product Management at Intuit and led QuickBooks Online. Alex was also the VP of Product at TubeMogul, which is now Adobe’s Advertising Cloud and has held positions at the Nasdaq Stock Market. Alex has an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Helpful Links
Alex’s appearance on the CIO Classified Podcast
Seven insights for building hypergrowth products (from Asana blog)
Forbes article: You spend 60% of your job on ‘work about work”
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