Supra Insider

#6: A Masterclass on Scaling as a Product Leader with Brenton Sellati

Apr 16, 2024

Brenton Sellati, VP at Pie Insurance, shares insights on scaling as a product leader: building high trust relationships, creating leverage, clear writing for clear thinking, minimizing dependencies. From managing 4 to 50 teams at Wayfair, his structured thinking shines. A masterclass in product leadership!

01:01:32

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Episode guests

Brenton Sellati

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Highlights

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Transition from individual contributor to executive requires mindset shift from hindrance to resource utilization.

Effective leadership involves coaching, empowering teams, and fostering high-trust relationships for scaling impact.

Establishing clear engagement levels, feedback sessions, and structured frameworks enhance managerial effectiveness and team accountability.

Deep dives

Shifting Mindset from Friction to Leverage

Transitioning from an individual contributor to an entry-level executive requires a shift in mindset from viewing the organization as a hindrance to seeing it as a resource for creating leverage. Instead of solely focusing on making oneself understood to key stakeholders, the emphasis shifts to evangelizing initiatives, seeking feedback, and building advocates across the organization to gain support for one's agenda.

Accelerated Learning Through Managing Diverse Teams

01:37

Structured System for Self-Management

01:34

Introduction

2min

Scaling Up Teams and Responsibilities

16min

The Power of Writing for Clarity and Reflection

6min

Strategies for Organized Product Leadership

15min

Strategic Approach to Strengths, Weaknesses, and Networking for Product Leaders

3min

Optimizing PM Organizational Design at Wayfair

9min

Aligning Individual Motivations with Organizational Goals

10min

In this episode, Marc and Ben are joined by Brenton Sellati. Brenton is the incoming VP of product at Pie Insurance (Series D insurtech company) where he will be leading the product and design team and leveraging his past experience driving innovation strategy and product management at Liberty Mutual Insurance where he started his product career.

Between Liberty Mutual and Pie Insurance, Brenton had a stellar run for over 5 years at Wayfair, where he worked his way up from managing 4 teams as a group PM all the way to leading 50 teams as a senior director of product management. This episode goes into the secret sauce that enabled Brenton to scale as a leader supporting 300+ people.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground:

* Why most middle managers are not competent

* How to build high trust, high candor relationships with people

* Ways to create true leverage as your scope of management grows

* Why it’s impossible to have clear thinking without clear writing

* The importance of designing organizations to minimize cross-org dependencies

* And a lot more!

Brenton is one of the most structured thinkers we’ve met in product leadership. He’s a member of the Supra community and a consistent contributor to top of mind discussions within the group. We feel very lucky to get to learn from him on a weekly basis and the density of insights in the conversation might warrant listening twice - we know you’ll enjoy this conversation.

Thanks for listening!

Episode Links

* Brenton’s LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentonsellati/

* Brenton’s Substack: brentonsellati.substack.com

* Article: The day you became a better writer (Dilbert)

* Doc: Sanitized reflections doc from 2019 at Wayfair

* Nikhyl Singhal’s post about superpowers and shadows

* 1v1 Norm & Expectation Setting template (Building Trust & Setting Expectations for Managers - the full written voiceover for the template)

* Monthly Portfolio Review for Senior Leaders template (How Brenton managed his time at the Sr Director/VP level)

* Strategic Task Backlog Example (How Brenton managed his time when he was a senior IC and early manager of 3-4 teams)

Hosts

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/