About Us
Meet Academy of Product Management®
👋 Hi! I'm Sondra Orozco.
I’m the CEO, founder, and head instructor here at Academy of Product Management®. You probably want to know if I have any clue about product management. Smart move, checking your sources. 👏 I already like you. So, where should I start?
I graduated from MIT in 2007 with a degree in Management Science and began my tech journey as a data analyst. About five years later, I made the leap into product management. I won’t bore you with a full resume—check out my LinkedIn profile for that.
I’ve been in product management for over a decade. The highlights? I was a product lead at Google, and I had the good fortune of working at two startups that became unicorns: Upwork, which went public in 2018, and Looker, which Google acquired in 2020. But I’ve also worked at tiny startups, big companies, failed ventures, and everything in between.
I’ve held a bunch of PM roles: growth, platform, core, 0-to-1. I’ve worked on web apps, mobile apps, marketplaces, B2B, B2C, and have specialized in everything from A/B testing to infrastructure, security, and privacy. I’ve worn many hats and tackled all kinds of challenges along the way.
Currently, I hold a product leadership role as my full-time job, and I also teach product management here at Academy of Product Management®. Stick around—it’s going to be fun. 🎉
🤔 Why did I start Academy of Product Management®?
New product managers face a big challenge: in-house training is often lacking. While some large companies offer formal programs, most don’t. McKinsey’s research in 2018 revealed how underdeveloped training for product managers was, and in 2022, they confirmed it hadn’t improved much (source: McKinsey 2018; McKinsey 2022). Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to those of us in the field.
When I landed my first product job in 2012, I was lucky to have great mentors—though they were incredibly busy. We were at a fast-growing unicorn startup, and there was no formal training for me as an associate product manager. So, I watched, I learned, and I made a ton of mistakes along the way.
The cycle repeated itself when I hired associate PMs for my own team. Determined to be the best mentor ever, I still found myself buried in 30 hours of meetings each week, plus my regular work. When exactly was I supposed to hold training sessions? 5 p.m. on a Friday? No thanks, that’s wine time.
“Despite product managers’ central roles in software organizations, they are often neglected from a talent-management perspective.”
– McKinsey, The product management talent dilemma
And that’s the problem with learning product management skills. You don’t get enough training at work, so you sign up for a bootcamp in your personal time, shell out $5,000, and sit through hours of Zoom sessions after a long day of meetings. That’s fine if live classes work for you and you can afford them. But what if you want a condensed version? Something from a highly experienced PM, that’s more engaging than PowerPoint slides, more like a movie, and at a fraction of the cost? Better yet, what if a lot of it was free?
That’s where Academy of Product Management® comes in. This is the training I wish had existed when I started as a PM in 2012, and for the teams I managed later on.
On our blog and YouTube channel, I’ll be sharing the hard-won lessons I’ve picked up over the years. I’ll be candid about the mistakes I’ve made, so you can avoid them, and I’ll offer tips and frameworks to help you succeed.
But we’re all busy, and no one has time for boring content. Here at Academy of Product Management®, we believe in being edutained (educated and entertained—get it?). Because if you’re bored, the lessons won’t stick. It’s on me (and my unpaid producer/husband) to make sure they do. Expect fun, engaging lessons packed with insightful research and real-world stories.
If that sounds like your kind of learning, stick around. Subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel for the free content, and check out our courses for deeper dives and certifications.
You got this!
The team!
Jeremy Orozco
Executive Producer
Mando Orozco
Chief Dog Officer
