Most modern business knowledge is trapped in the heads of a small group of frontier leaders working on the fastest-growing companies. They go from operating role to operating role, not being able to take the time to pause and synthesize what they know to pass it on. As a result, unless you are one of the few lucky people to work closely with these frontier leaders, that knowledge tends to remain trapped.
One of the core pillars to Reforge is to un-trap this knowledge. That's why in 2019, we created an Executive-In-Residence program. As leaders in the industry think about their next role, the EIR program gives them the time to explore, a platform to build their professional brand, a network, and more. For Reforge Members it is an opportunity to interact and learn from the best in the industry.
Prior EIR's have included Bangaly Kaba (Ex-Head of Growth at Instagram, Instacart), Elena Verna (Growth Advisor at Miro, MongoDB, Netlify), Fareed Mosavat (Ex-Director Product Growth at Slack), Adam Grenier (ex-Head of Growth Marketing at Uber), Joanna Lord (ex-CMO at Skyscanner, ClassPass), and many more.
We are excited to announce the Fall 2021 EIRs:
Adam Fishman: Ex-CPGO at Imperfect Foods, VP Product & Growth at Patreon
Michael Sippey: Ex-VP, Labs & CPO at Medium, VP Product at Twitter
Stephanie Kwok: Ex-VP Customer Marketing at FanDuel
Louis Bennett: Ex-VP Engineering at VSCO, Head of Engineering at Intercom, Senior Director of Engineering at Trulia
Jonathan Hillis: Ex-Director of Product, Shoppers & Marketplace at Instacart
Valerie Wagoner: Head of Product, APAC at Stripe, ex-CGO at GoPay, VP International at Credit Karma
Behzod Sirjani: Founder at Yet Another Studio, ex-Research Leader at Slack, Facebook
Ravi Mehta: Ex-CPO at Tinder, Product Director at Facebook, VP Product at TripAdvisor
Erika Warren: Ex-VP Product & Strategy at Wyzant, Grubhub
Jeff Dwyer: Ex-VP Engineering at ezCater
Ely Lerner: Ex-Head of Consumer Product at Chime, Product at Yelp and Eat24
You can learn more from this group by becoming a Reforge Member. As of Fall 2021, we have fourteen programs across product management, engineering, growth, and marketing. Learn more about being an EIR or an OIR.
Reforge’s New Executives in Residence
Adam Fishman
Programs: Growth Series, Advanced Growth Strategy
About: Adam Fishman is the former CPGO at Imperfect Foods and VP of Product and Growth at Patreon. He has spent his career as a Product and Growth leader across B2C and B2B driving millions of customers and billions of dollars in revenue through product, customer acquisition, and retention. He has helped products such as Imperfect Foods, Patreon, Lyft, Wyzant, Shutterfly, Expedia, and more.
Writing: Specialization of Product Management, Becoming a Better People Manager
Michael Sippey
Programs: Product Management Foundations, Mastering Product Management
About: Michael is the former VP, Labs and CPO at Medium. Previously, he was VP of Product at Twitter, Co-Founder and CEO at Talkshow, and VP of Product at Six Apart. Michael is one of the top consumer product leaders in the industry, helping grow and evolve Twitter and Medium to millions of active users.
Stephanie Kwok
Programs: Marketing Strategy, Monetization + Pricing Deep Dive
About: Stephanie Kwok is the former VP of Customer Marketing at FanDuel, where she also held VP roles in Strategy & Operations as well as Engagement & Retention. In her 6 years at FanDuel, Stephanie helped grow the product to millions of users and a category leader, working across acquisition, retention, and engagement levers.
Follow: LinkedIn
Louis Bennett
Programs: Technical Strategy
About: Louis is the former VP of Engineering at VSCO, a photo/video app and social network. Prior to VSCO, he was a Head of Engineering at Intercom and Senior Director of Engineering at Trulia.
Jonathan Hillis
Programs: Experimentation + Testing Deep Dive
About: As Director of Product, Shoppers & Marketplace at Instacart, Jonathan Hillis led the 100X growth of Instacart's shopper fleet helping millions of people make money shopping. Jonathan is currently building Creator Cabins, Capital.community, and Carrot Angels.
Val Wagoner
Programs: Growth For Founders
About: Valerie is currently the Head of Product, APAC at Stripe. She was previously Chief Growth Officer of GoPay, the payments and financial services platform arm of Gojek, and VP International at Credit Karma. Prior to those experiences, she was the Founder & CEO of ZipDial before being acquired by Twitter.
Follow: LinkedIn
Ravi Mehta
Programs: Product Leadership, Product Strategy
About: Ravi previously served as the Chief Product Officer at Tinder and was the Product Director for Youth Engagement at Facebook. He also led the Consumer Product team at TripAdvisor and was an early member of the Xbox team. Ravi is an angel investor and strategic advisor focused on helping consumer tech companies scale.
Writing: The Product Strategy Stack, The Entertainment Value Curve, Becoming a Peak Product Manager
Behzod Sirjani
Programs: User Insights for Product Decisions
About: Behzod Sirjani spent the last decade exploring how people work together as a Research Leader at Slack and Facebook. At Facebook, he co-founded the Research Associates Program mentoring young research practitioners. He currently runs Yet Another Studio, where he helps people bring more rigor to their curiosity and organizations like Figma, Dropbox, and others build intentional, responsible, and sustainable practices of learning.
Writing: Tug of War: Balancing What’s Best for the User vs. Business
Erika Warren
Programs: Retention + Engagement Deep Dive
About: Erika is the former VP of Product & Strategy at Wyzant, a tutoring marketplace that supports millions of students with their learning goals. Erika built the product function from the ground up and led a pivot of the business from in-person K-12 academic tutoring to an online K-career personal learning platform. She was also an integral part of the deal team that led a successful exit to IXL Learning. Prior to Wyzant, she was a Founding Member of the product team at GrubHub. Erika is a strategic advisor and consultant for climate tech startups focused on product market fit.
Follow: LinkedIn
Writing: Tug of War: Balancing What’s Best for the User vs. Business, Grow Your Career Like You Grow A Product
Jeff Dwyer
Programs: Scaling Product Delivery
About: Jeff is the former VP of Engineering at ezCater, which connects businesses with restaurants and caterers through an online marketplace. Jeff led the engineering team that built the ezCater Marketplace, and deployed the company's first machine learning models to predict customer lifetime value. Previously, Jeff was Tech Lead at HubSpot.
Ely Lerner
Programs: Product Management Foundations, Mastering Product Management
About: Ely is the former Head of Consumer Product at Chime, the largest and fastest-growing US Neo-bank. Prior to Chime he held a number of Product Leadership positions at Yelp, working across the Consumer, SMB, and Marketplace domains, and was Head of Product for Yelp subsidiary Eat24, a fast-growing food delivery marketplace.
Follow: LinkedIn
Join Reforge
Membership includes participation in our cohort-based programs and ongoing access to content from all programs, weekly releases, deep-dive sessions, and a community of vetted peers to help you execute what you learn.