Anique Drumright

Anique Drumright is the COO at Loom, a video communication tool for streamlining workflows. Loom has raised over $200M, and was last valued at $1.5B. Anique has a proven track record across product development, executive leadership, and building high-performing organizations. Before joining Loom, Anique was the VP of Product at TripActions, where she scaled the team over 8x globally, and she has also held multiple roles at Uber.In today's episode, we discuss: Best-practice product management How to achieve alignment at scale The importance of cross-functional performance Anique's unique approach to finding top organizational talent How to hire for roles outside your area of expertise Common fail cases with internal and external recruitment Tactics for effective interviews Referenced: Loom: https://www.loom.com/ Navan (formerly TripActions): https://navan.com/ Teach for America: https://www.teachforamerica.org/ Uber: https://www.uber.com/ Where to find Anique Drumright:Twitter: https://twitter.com/aniquedLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anique-drumright-53978a1aWhere to find Brett Berson:Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettbersonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/Timestamps:[00:03:00] The similarities and differences between PM and executive leadership roles[00:06:53] How Loom uses storytelling when launching a product[00:10:01] Managing cross-functional scope and performance[00:13:41] Goal-setting with functional leads[00:16:59] The importance and difficulty of organizational alignment[00:20:40] How Uber achieved alignment at scale[00:24:06] Rituals for staying aligned[00:25:23] Loom's winning one-on-one format[00:27:49] When and how to help functional leads[00:29:13] Hiring for roles outside your area of expertise[00:32:55] Go-to interview questions for prospective leaders[00:33:55] Changing the hiring process for roles outside your area of expertise[00:36:09] Common patterns of failed external hires[00:37:40] Common patterns of failed internal hires[00:39:05] Avoiding over-promotion in your organization[00:40:51] What inspires people in a company[00:45:40] Tactics for getting honest answers in interviews[00:47:12] Asking the right questions during reference checks[00:51:29] A month in the life of a COO[00:52:52] The importance of employee energy levels[00:54:53] Loom's leadership dynamics and why it works[00:57:30] People who had an outsized impact on Anique's career

In this episode, Anique Drumright shares invaluable insights from her experience, covering topics like establishing collaborative team culture across time zones, implementing efficient brainstorming techniques, creating async stand-ups, crits, and sprints, and utilizing top agile remote team tools. Aspiring and current PMs will gain real-world knowledge and actionable takeaways to build their own high-performance async product teams.Get the FREE Product Book and check out our curated list of Product Management resources here.