Product leadership consultancy for CEOs and senior teams: diagnose product problems, reset strategy and roadmaps, recover teams and add fractional Product Director or CPO leadership.
Product leadership and intervention
I fix product teams and product problems.
I work with CEOs and senior leaders when a product has lost direction, a roadmap no longer makes sense, a team is struggling or the business needs experienced product leadership without waiting for a permanent hire.
Product diagnosis • direction and strategy • roadmaps • team design • delivery unblock • executive advisory • fractional Product Director • fractional CPO
Selected products, teams and technology I have helped shape.
When product stops making sense, I help make it workable again.
I am often brought in after the simple explanations have stopped being useful. "We need to ship faster" may hide a strategy problem. "The team needs more people" may hide unclear ownership. "Customers do not understand it" may mean the proposition itself is weak.
I go into the organisation, establish what is actually happening and help put it right. I can reset product direction, create a credible strategy and roadmap, investigate blockers, reshape the team, hire missing capability, coach existing leaders or take temporary responsibility for the product function.
I am comfortable moving between board-level questions and the detail of the work. I can challenge the business case, review the operating model, work directly with the team and turn the outcome into decisions people can act on.
I do not arrive with a pre-written transformation framework or a deck designed to justify a longer engagement. I start with the problem, work with the people closest to it and make the changes that will produce a meaningful result.
Most engagements are led by me directly. Where a specific domain or technical question needs extra depth, I can bring in a small number of trusted specialists without turning the work into a large consultancy programme.
Start with the actual problem
A confidential product and team assessment
This is useful when you can see the symptoms but do not yet know whether the cause sits in strategy, leadership, team shape, process, proposition, evidence or delivery.
I review the product, current direction, roadmap, decision-making, team structure, customer evidence and the relationship between the product function and the wider business. The work can be light-touch or more detailed depending on the situation.
You receive a direct assessment of what appears to be wrong, what needs attention first and whether the answer is advice, a focused intervention or embedded leadership. If the issue sits outside my remit, I will say so.
Product problems I can help fix
Some engagements begin with a defined brief. Others begin with a CEO or product leader saying that something is wrong, but the organisation no longer agrees on what it is. I can work from either starting point.
Product diagnosis and unblock
Find the real cause of slow or weak product progress
A focused investigation when delivery is slow, priorities keep moving, outcomes are weak or teams disagree about the cause. I look across proposition, strategy, evidence, ownership, decisions, dependencies, capability, leadership and technical constraints. You receive a clear diagnosis, immediate priorities and a practical recovery plan.
Product direction, strategy and roadmap
Turn ambition into a direction people can use
For businesses with too many ideas, no shared product thesis or a roadmap built from requests rather than decisions. I help define the problem worth solving, the customers and outcomes that matter, the choices the business is making and the sequence of work required. The result is a strategy and roadmap that leaders can support and teams can execute.
Product team design and build
Create the team the product actually needs
I can assess an existing team, clarify roles and decision rights, identify missing capability, support hiring and build a new product function from the ground up. I pay as much attention to judgement, collaboration and leadership as I do to job titles. The aim is a team that can make good decisions without becoming dependent on me.
Product recovery and hands-on direction
Get close enough to the work to restore momentum
Some problems are not solved by advice alone. I can work directly with product, design, research, engineering and commercial teams to resolve difficult decisions, improve product quality, rebuild the plan and get important work moving again. I can also shape prototypes and early product evidence where the direction needs to be made tangible.
Ways to work with me
The same product problem can need a different level of involvement. I can provide an independent second view, lead a defined intervention or join the leadership team for a period.
Advisor to the CEO or executive team
Independent product judgement for leaders who need a trusted second view. This can include product and roadmap reviews, investment decisions, leadership coaching, senior hiring, organisational questions, difficult trade-offs and regular challenge before decisions become expensive.
Regular advisory sessions • board preparation • product reviews • hiring decisions • high-stakes choices
Fractional Product Director
Embedded senior direction for a team that needs stronger day-to-day product leadership. I can set the operating rhythm, develop product managers and designers, improve decisions, align functions and keep the roadmap tied to the strategy.
Team leadership • roadmap ownership • capability building • cross-functional alignment • delivery recovery
Fractional CPO or interim product leadership
For businesses that need executive product ownership before making a permanent hire, during a transition or while the function is being rebuilt. I can represent product at executive level, define the function, set direction, support the board, hire the permanent team and leave the organisation in a stronger position.
Leadership gaps • founder transition • function rebuild • rapid growth • preparation for a permanent CPO
The title matters less than the mandate. We agree the scope, authority, intended outcomes and handover conditions before the work begins.
How the work begins
Understand first; intervene second.
Listen to the business and the team
I start with the people, product evidence and decisions already made. The aim is to understand the history without inheriting all of its assumptions.
Name the actual problem
I separate symptoms from causes and make areas of disagreement visible. This gives leaders and teams a shared account of what is wrong and why it has persisted.
Set a practical direction
We decide what to stop, what to fix, what matters now and how progress will be judged. Strategy, roadmap, ownership and operating rhythm are made consistent.
Make the change hold
Where needed, I stay involved to lead the work, build capability, recruit, coach or hand over to a permanent product leader. The engagement ends with the organisation able to continue without me.
Experience across product building, leadership and recovery
I have spent more than twenty-five years building products, teams and companies; from founder-built ventures and acquisitions to global products used by millions. I have worked across product direction, design, research, code, prototyping and leadership. That range matters when the problem does not fit neatly inside one function.
Built and led Huawei's London HMI innovation lab
I was hired to create a multidisciplinary laboratory focused on the future of consumer technology. I built the team, set the roadmap and led work from early research and product direction through to working prototypes across AI, wearables, robotics and new forms of interaction.
Ten years across Apple product teams
I worked across seven Apple teams on products and systems including Siri, App Intents, MacBook Pro, Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Vision Pro, HomePod, health, safety and accessibility. The work ranged from product direction and new interaction models to developer platforms, prototypes and experiences where trust mattered deeply.
Founder experience and four acquisitions
I have built companies and digital products from the ground up. Computer Inactive was acquired by Microsoft and became Fix It; Find Me My Menu was acquired by Just Eat; No Fuss Reviews was purchased by a competitor and Raven Eye Computer Systems was acquired by a local vendor. I also worked at VocalIQ before its acquisition by Apple.
Strategy that can survive contact with the work
My background lets me stay at executive altitude when that is what the decision needs, then move into the product, evidence or prototype when the detail matters. Earlier work includes BBC iPlayer, Sony PlayStation, Electronic Arts, ITV and MoneySuperMarket.
You may need me when...
The product has lost direction
The team is shipping, but the work no longer adds up to a clear proposition, customer outcome or business result.
The roadmap cannot be trusted
It is overloaded, changes with the loudest stakeholder or hides strategic choices that nobody has been willing to make.
The team is not working as one team
Roles overlap, decisions drift, conflict is avoided or product, design, engineering and commercial teams pull in different directions.
Delivery keeps blocking in the same places
Work slows repeatedly, but nobody agrees whether the cause is technical, organisational, strategic or personal.
The business has outgrown its product leadership
The founder or CEO is still carrying too many product decisions, or the current structure no longer fits the company's next stage.
You need senior product cover now
A product leader has left, a permanent search will take time or the function needs to be repaired before the next person inherits it.
What people say
Via LinkedIn ↗Matthew brought a clear vision to the team, drawing on his extensive experience to guide projects from early ideas through to delivery.
Fabiola Souza Lima
Huawei
June 2026
Matthew pairs an incredible instinct for industry trends with the rare ability to clearly articulate a vision to both stakeholders and team members.
Gonzalo Morales
Huawei
June 2026
He'd ask a question or offer a different perspective that would completely change how you were looking at the problem.
Yiping Wang
Huawei
June 2026
Matthew brings a unique, user-centric perspective that has led to solutions I hadn't initially considered.
Marco Dinacci
Apple
September 2023
Product leadership enquiries
Tell me what is not working.
You do not need to arrive with a clean brief. A product problem is often unclear precisely because several issues have become tangled together.
Tell me what you can see, what the business needs and where confidence has started to fall. I will tell you whether I can help and what the first useful step would be.
I work with founders, CEOs and senior leaders in commercial organisations; usually in a focused advisory, diagnostic, fractional or interim capacity.
Matthew Riches, Product Consultant and Fractional Product Leader, London, United Kingdom.
Prefer to contact me directly? Email [email protected]
Thank you.
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