Three Top Executive Recruiters on Where Product Management Is Going

What do the hottest companies look for when they hire a CPO or head of product? I put the question to three people who sit in these searches every week: Lindsay Keith of Daversa, Andrew Abramson of Fusion Talent, and Caroline Horn of a16z. We had a similar conversation in January 2026, and the market has moved a lot since. A year ago, founders wanted a narrow profile: a former founder, hands-on, willing to work 9-9-6 hours. That profile hasn't gone away fully, but as companies mature past their first head of product, founders increasingly know what they want. The winning profile is the executive builder: someone senior enough to run the function and still close enough to the work to build.

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Key topics:

• Why founders want senior leaders who never stopped building

• Why "go be an IC" stopped applying to executive searches about six months ago

• Staying "close to the metal": how companies test whether an executive is really hands-on

• Why working sessions with the team have replaced the take-home presentation

• The attributes that matter more than the title

• Why technical depth is now a must-have for product leaders

• In-office expectations, and why 9-9-6 went quiet but didn't disappear

• Comp as a pressure cooker

• Why AI fluency will be table stakes by next summer, and what will differentiate candidates instead