Building Product Culture Without a Head of Product

When I joined Keka, there was no Head of Product. No CPO. No VP of PM. Just individual PMs reporting to different functions. Most people would see this as chaos. I saw it as an opportunity.

Why product culture matters more than org structure

The absence of a product executive doesn't mean the absence of product thinking. In fact, sometimes the opposite happens—without a hierarchy to defer to, individual PMs develop stronger judgment.

At Keka, we built product culture from the ground up:

1. Define your principles, not your processes: We wrote down what "good product decisions" meant to us. Not a process doc—a belief system. "Data-informed, not data-driven." "Ship to learn, not learn to ship." These became our north star when executives weren't in the room.

2. Create cross-PM accountability: Every week, we'd share wins, failures, and hard decisions. Not for approval—for learning. When I killed a feature mid-sprint, I explained why. When someone else shipped something brilliant, they shared the thinking. Culture is behavior witnessed and repeated.

3. Earn trust through craft: Without a CPO to advocate for PM, we had to prove value through work. Every product decision came with clear rationale. Every launch came with metrics. Engineering and design started inviting us earlier because we added value, not overhead.

4. Make your case with evidence: Want to prioritize a risky bet? Build the case with data, customer quotes, and competitive analysis. Without a senior PM to champion your idea, you become the champion.

Result: When Keka eventually hired product leadership, the culture was already established. The new leaders didn't have to build from scratch—they accelerated what existed.

For PMs in similar situations: this is a gift, not a burden. You're building the muscle that will define your career.