Ben Freeman: product leadership and AI advisory

We should talk if…

You or your CPO are too busy fundraising to drive the product.
Product decisions still all run through the founder who needs to build capacity through someone else.
Turning what you know about your customers into a product that sells keeps stalling somewhere between the customer, the roadmap and the engineering team.
The board keeps asking about AI, and you don't yet have an answer.
You suspect your team could ship twice as fast with AI but nobody is making it happen.
Plenty of people are demoing AI in your business but they don't have the expertise to take it to production. I get it there.
You've shipped an AI feature and now accuracy, cost and customer trust are the real work.
You need a VP of Product now, but you're not ready to hire one.
Your product leader just left, and the search will take six months you don't have.

Three ways I can help

I run product organisations, I make AI adoption real, and I go deep to deliver, then step back up to lead.

Fractional CPO / VP Product

Three month minimum · month to month after that

Senior product leadership for a growing company that needs it now but isn't ready to make the full time hire. I take real ownership: strategy, roadmap, delivery, the team, and your AI question. I'll help design the organisation you need, help find them and hand over properly.

AI adoption for product organisations

Delivered as working workflows, not a deck

For companies with strong product leadership that want to move faster. I set up the tools, the guardrails and the operating model, working alongside your PMs and engineers until AI assisted delivery is how the team works. I've done it inside Meta and built an AI native product end to end myself.

Specialist consultations

Short, scoped engagements

Integrity and trust and safety: fake accounts, impersonation, account compromise, wherever a social or community surface exists. Privacy regulation: moving fast where getting consent and data handling right is critical. Years of doing both at the sharpest end.

I don't just advise on AI. I live it.

A few of the things I've built and run with AI over the last nine months:

Live

CallFirst · a mobile app that blocks social media until you've called someone who matters. Conceived, validated, designed, coded and launched solo: iOS and Android, 16 languages. callfirst.app →
A niche affiliate site · researched, written, built and monetised with AI. boxcaterpillardisease.co.uk →
A product coaching agent · used by hundreds of people at Meta; I'm now building my own version as a live demo.

For fun

My family's AI agent · plans the meals, does the weekly grocery shop, watches the school inbox and books the restaurants. Self hosted, running every day.
Games with my kids · we design them together and I build them with AI, versioned and shipped like real products. play one → and another →
Teaching kids to build · I ran a school session where a class built their own games with AI, then published them so everyone could play. see it →
Home energy automation · an agent that manages our battery around grid export events.
This website · written, built and deployed with AI tools in an afternoon.

Twenty years building and leading product

I've owned $100m+ P&Ls, returned a loss making business to profit in four months, taken a streaming service into four new countries and onto all the popular devices for millions of new customers, and built and led product organisations of 20+ product leaders and product managers with 150+ matrixed engineers.

"Growth is stuck and nobody can say why."

I've turned this around at scale, most recently at WhatsApp: I put the focus back on who the customer actually is and replaced incremental tinkering with a strategy built on what they needed.

"We know AI should be changing how we build, but nothing has shipped."

I build with AI daily. I designed, built and launched a mobile app solo with AI tools, and I delivered an AI transformation inside Meta. Working workflows, not slideware.

"Our processes eat time and money."

At Meta I reduced the time it took to comply with regulations and automated verification with AI, replacing that which had been entirely manual review. At DAZN I replaced a weekly deck culture with OKRs and a 30 minute status.

"Fake accounts, impersonation or fraud are hurting our platform."

I led the Meta organisation that detects and actions them at a scale of billions of accounts, and delivered the integrity behind Meta Verified's global launch.

"Privacy regulation is slowing us down."

I made legal a velocity partner at Meta: shared working rhythms, one company position, and evidence frameworks that let product move faster with less risk.

Meta · Senior product leader across Integrity, WhatsApp and Privacy (2021 to 2026)
DAZN · VP Product, Advertising, Playback and Living Room Devices (2017 to 2021)
Tandem · Head of Digital Product, UK challenger bank (2016 to 2017)
Lebara Play · Head of Product (2015 to 2016)
Amazon · Senior PM, Instant Video and MP3 (2011 to 2015)
Sportingbet · Poker Product Manager (2007 to 2011)
Deloitte · Consultant (2003 to 2007)

BSc (Hons) Economics, University of Warwick · Co-Active Leadership programme · London, UK

Book a 15 minute intro call

Coaching for product managers

I've interviewed hundreds of PM candidates, been through the Amazon and Meta hiring processes myself, and coached 10+ PMs to promotion and 5+ to job offers.

Interview preparation

Meta and big tech PM interviews

Timed mock interviews for product sense, analytical thinking and leadership and drive, with immediate feedback on structure, prioritisation and pacing.

Interview preparation

Amazon PM interviews

Build and pressure-test the stories behind Amazon's Leadership Principles, and learn to work backwards from the customer with the PR/FAQ method I used there.

Career

Promotion coaching

For PMs aiming at Senior, Group PM or Director. Understand what the next level expects, close the gaps, and build a case your peers and leadership will back.

Leadership

New managers and product leaders

For PMs moving into managing PMs, or leaders taking on a bigger organisation: one-to-ones, delegation, hiring, team health and difficult stakeholders.