About Ekaterina
I step in as your Head of Product when you need one but can't hire one full time. Or when you need to accelerate your product team, equip them with AI tools, and establish a discovery process that makes sure you're building high-potential bets.
In a few words:
20+ years in product strategy across financial services and B2B SaaS. Deloitte Digital, Capgemini Invent, Sberbank (launched products reaching 9M+ clients), INSEAD Executive MBA.
Now running 12LANE.AI and 12BRAVE.com from Düsseldorf.
I work with Series B-D SaaS and fintech companies, €10M-€100M ARR. Product teams of 3-15 PMs.
What I do:
Fractional CPO / Head of Product Discovery (2-5 days/week). Embed with your team. Run discovery, coach PMs, build the operating system for how product decisions get made.
Discovery Diagnostic (1-2 days). Map assumptions, pressure-test your biggest bet, align stakeholders.
Evidence Sprint (4-8 weeks). End-to-end discovery on one live initiative. Market research, customer interviews, prototype testing, willingness-to-pay validation.
AI Discovery Training (3 days). Methodology transfer on your real roadmap items.
Industries: Neobanking, lending, customer service SaaS, knowledge management, workflow automation.
Skills: Fractional CPO, Product Discovery, Product Strategy, Stakeholder Alignment, AI-Powered Product Operations, Customer Research, Evidence-Based Prioritization, Go-to-Market Strategy
English
Native or bilingual
German
Fluent
Russian
Native or bilingual
Spanish
Conversational
Can work on-site
Düsseldorf (up to 50km)
Experience
- 12BRAVE,Co-founderJanuary 2025 - Today (1 year and 5 months)Defined methodology and launched 3 cohorts with 100+ alumni from Deloitte, Zalando, Adidas, and ALDI. Fractional product leadership, opportunity validation, and growth coaching for early stage teams
- 12LANE.AIFounder & Fractional CPOJanuary 2025 - Today (1 year and 5 months)Advisor to scale-ups and transformation programs on product strategy, customer research, and growth execution. In focused Validation Sprints, I reverse-engineer the buying decision: who the best customers are, what made them say yes, which channels convert, and why some prospects buy while others do not. Fractional CPO and GTM leader who builds evidence-based growth logic through customer validation, positioning refinement, and AI-supported research and experimentation.
- Capgemini InventSenior Manager, Business Development in FSJanuary 2022 - January 2025 (3 years)Program manager (40+ FTE) of AI/ML Program, ranked 200+ initiatives and scaled 15 lighthouse use cases across ESG, revenue optimization, client insights, NLP, and RegTech. Built 3-year roadmap with hub/spoke model, cut time-to-market from 9-12 to 3-6 months Offerings & Workshops: CX in Retail Banking, CX in WAM Product-Market-Fit positioning and go-to-market strategy for multiple cases Bid Lead for 20+ RFPs
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Education
- Advanced Project Management,Deloitte Digital2020Advanced Project Management,
- Scrum Master and Product Owner certificationScrum Alliance2019Scrum Master and Product Owner certification