Board of Directors

Jennifer Berkley Jackson
As Director of Special Events, Jennifer is the lead contact for the annual Silicon Valley Product Camp (formally P-Camp).   As founder of The Insight Advantage, Jen Berkley Jackson works with a wide assortment of organizations, from high tech to no-tech, using research to help her clients understand their customers better than their competition does.  Prior to launching her consulting business in 2000, she held positions in product management and managed a customer support group.  With her varied experience, she has the expertise to be able to take any research challenge and quickly diagnose the right methodology(s) to use to quickly and cost-effectively achieve her clients’ objectives.  Jen teaches The Power of Market Research class at UC Santa Cruz Extension and is Vice President of Women in Consulting as well as a member of Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA).  She also contributed to the book  "42 Rules of Product Management".

Victor Chong
As Director of Partnerships, Victor is responsible for building long-term partnerships with other local professional organizations and to find opportunities to collaborate with partner organizations across via joint events and programs.  Victor is a product manager at eBay focused on global advertising and buyer experience.  He has a special interest in consumer-facing web and mobile products.  Prior to eBay he was product manager and co-founder at a mobile advertising startup.  He started his career in Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise computing group and is a graduate of Purdue and University of Chicago.

Greg Cohen
As Director of Finance, Greg Cohen, Senior Principal Consultant with the 280 Group, is a 15 year Product Management veteran with extensive experience and knowledge of Agile development, a Certified Scrum Master, and former President of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. He has worked and consulted to venture start-ups and large companies alike and has trained product managers on Agile development methods throughout the world. Greg is the author of the book "Agile Excellence for Product Managers" and a speaker and frequent commentator on product management issues including Lean Product Management.  Greg has a background in B2B software and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) including spend analysis, business analytics, contract management, network security, and medical technology. Prior to consulting, he has managed over a dozen products from concept through deployment and end of life for Silicon Valley Companies such as Instill (acquired by iTradeNetworks,) Idealab!, and Pandesic (a joint venture between Intel and SAP).  Greg earned an MBA with honor from Babson College and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with second major in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University.

Helene Eichler
As Director of Communications, Helene is responsible for developing and implementing Communications Strategies for SVPMA. An accomplished project/program manager, she currently runs HRE Technical Marketing focused on CRM and Partner Marketing Consulting. She has recently collaborated with Marketing Operations Partners on research data for their 2010 Marketing Operations Benchmark Study as well as identifying content for an SVPMA Marketing Operations Workshops. She was previously Sr. Channel Marketing Manager at Narus, an IP Traffic Management Security company. Ms. Eichler has also held both Channel and Product Marketing roles at telecom networking equipment companies like Ditech Networks; and the semiconductor space for LSI Logic. Earlier in his career, Ms. Eichler has held positions as Marketing Communications Manager at Fairchild and Product Marketing Manager for a division of HP. Helene has an M.B.A. in Marketing from Santa Clara University as well as Network Engineering Certificate from U.C.S.C.-Extension.

Mike Freier
As President, Mike is responsible for the vision, long term strategy and growth of SVPMA.  Prior to this role, Mike ran the monthly event series for 5+ years and secured guest speakers from hot start-ups to Fortune 1000 companies.  Professionally, Mike is Founder and President of the Product Management Consulting Group, a senior consultant with the Product Realization Group and serves on the MIT-Stanford (VLAB) executive planning committee.  Mike has deep knowledge of the product lifecycle and the functions of product management and product marketing, including product/market requirements, positioning, pricing, roadmaps, vision and end-of-life planning.  Over his 20+ year career, Mike has helped dozens of companies that design and manufacture electronic high-tech products, which include product design, software/ operating systems and systems integration.  Mike graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a B.S. in Engineering with an emphasis on product design and development.

Sreechander Kamala
As a Director of Website and IT, Sree is responsible for handles our website and other IT Initiatives. Sree is a Sr Software Engineer working for Cisco Systems. He has over 8 years of software experience in the field of network and security. Prior to Cisco systems Sree worked for Citrix and various startups  in the valley.

Shyla Klinder
As Director of Social Networking Events, Shyla is responsible for managing SVPMA’s social networking events. Shyla is a product management professional with over 16 years of experience in enterprise software technology, product management, consulting, and development. As Product Manager at SAP labs, she was responsible for product definition, product planning for SAP’s first ever internet offering and marketplace exchanges. Shyla currently provides her expertise in strategic consulting, managing software products from concept to launch for early stage startups, and non-profits. Shyla holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Central Michigan University and a Master’s degree in Mathematics from Bangalore University, India.

Jamie O’Halloran
As Director of Workshops, Jamie is responsible for developing and managing SVPMA’s workshop series. Jamie is a Sr. Solutions Consultant at GXS, the worlds largest B2B e-commerce network provider. He previously helped managed B2B offerings at Cisco Systems and has 12 years of eCommerce and SCM experience. Prior to Cisco, he held various product management, marketing and operations management positions at QRS Corporation - helping to develop numerous collaborative commerce, product catalog and channel management solutions for the retail industry. Jamie Graduated Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a B.S. in Psychology.

Dutta Satadip
As Director of Sponsorships, Dutta plays a key role by reaching out to successfully secure sponsorships and associated revenues from technology vendors, educational institutions, and other organizations whose interests and goals are relevant to the product management and product marketing communities.  Dutta Satadip heads Product Operations for the Display Advertising product portfolio at Google. At Google, he is working on devising product and service strategies to help accelerate revenue growth rate for the portfolio of display advertising products that include DoubleClick (Ad Trafficking/Serving, Rich Media, Mobile and Video Ads), Invite Media (Demand Side Platforms) and Google Analytics. Prior to joining Google, Dutta ran Product Marketing and Management for MarketTools - a company that provides cloud based software and services to help enterprises understand and profit from customer satisfaction and social media. Dutta has held several leadership positions in Engineering, Marketing, Product Management and Sales Support at companies like HP and SAP.  He currently serves on the Board of the National Hemophilia Foundation, New York. Dutta holds a graduate degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech and an MBA from University of California, Berkeley.

Nupur Thakur
As Director of Monthly Events and Speakers, Nupur is responsible for identifying topics and speakers for the monthly events. Nupur is a product mangement veteran with experience bringing new products to market to managing established products. In her current role, Nupur is responsible for marketing and strategy in the services and support organization at Juniper Networks. Prior to Juniper Nupur has held PM/Marketing roles at Brocade and Tellabs. Earlier in her career, Nupur held engineering roles at Tellabs, Venkani Info Systems and C-DOT, India.  Nupur has a B.S in Computer Science and Business Management.