Work inside the real problem
Leadership, coaching, and building happen alongside consequential product and AI work, not in a separate program.
About Dave
Product leadership from inside the work.
Dave helps established product organizations make better decisions, learn from customers, and improve how work happens. Practical AI is part of that work.
He works with CPOs, VPs, CTOs, and Heads of Product at established organizations who have capable people in place but see too much time lost to coordination, unclear decisions, or inconsistent practices. The work starts by finding what deserves attention.
His path from chemistry and law to analytics, product management, and AI shaped how he works: crossing boundaries, translating between disciplines, and helping teams move when executives, product, technology, analytics, and customers see the problem differently.
Dave spent five years accountable for product outcomes inside operating companies, leading product, design, and AI at Shipwell and leading product at Cargill's AI Hub. He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.
How Dave works
Work alongside the team. Build capability that lasts.
The role is sized to the need while important work keeps moving.
Focus on what will make a difference
Dave works with existing product leaders to choose the few practices that deserve attention, then coaches and builds alongside the team.
Leave capability behind
The goal is stronger judgment, practical working habits, and reusable tools that continue after the engagement ends.
Leave the reasoning behind, not just the decisions.
The work should leave your team with stronger practices, useful tools, and the context to keep improving. Decision Receipts and Decision Memory help people retrieve why a choice was made and when to reconsider it.
Selected experience
Built from inside the work.
Dave's perspective comes from leading teams and building products inside operating companies, then bringing those lessons into coaching, consulting, teaching, and facilitation.
Venture-backed SaaS
Product, design, and AI at Shipwell
Dave led product, design, and AI inside a logistics technology company, working where product strategy, delivery, team development, and applied AI meet.
Fortune 15 enterprise
Product leadership at Cargill's AI Hub
Dave led product at Cargill's AI Hub, working across product, technology, analytics, and business teams to move AI opportunities toward useful products and repeatable practices.
Cross-industry perspective
Experience across complex organizations
His work spans Cargill, Shipwell, U.S. Bank, Mayo Clinic, Medtronic, TigerRisk, and Ecolab, from large enterprises to venture-backed SaaS.
Start with the situation
What is getting in your product team’s way?
You do not need a finished project brief. Bring the situation, and we can determine whether there is a useful way to work together.
Author and educator
Data Storytelling and Translation
Dave wrote Data Storytelling and Translation, a practical guide to bridging the gap between numbers and narratives so evidence becomes understandable, relevant, and useful to the people making decisions.
At the Carlson School of Management, he teaches digital product management and business analytics, connecting classroom concepts to the realities of building products and leading teams.
ProductCamp Conversations
The product conversations that don’t fit on a roadmap.
Dave Mathias and Allison Herbert host ProductCamp Conversations, a weekly podcast for curious product people. Join them and occasional guests as they think out loud about community, the human side of product, and what practitioners learn from one another.