Last year, Yonder held its first-ever Portfolio Managers Focus Group in Hunedoara, Transylvania, in a castle dating back to the 14th century. Although Romania has many more beautiful locations we would love to show you, we will host this year’s event in Ascot, the UK. Many airports are nearby, and it is more centralized and easier to travel to than Romania.
Date: 14 November 2024
Location: The Royal Foresters in Ascot, the United Kingdom (30 min. from Heathrow)
Program:
13 November – arrival & dinner
14 November – full day of sessions & discussions followed by drinks and a closing dinner
The Portfolio Managers Focus Group
R&D is often seen as a black box by many, challenging to understand, validate, and drive, especially with a pragmatic mindset and tight budgetary controls. However, R&D remains at the core of all business units and is the fundamental value of any CSI company. The Portfolio Managers Focus Group aims to bring together like-minded professionals who want to gain a better understanding of this domain, exchange ideas, and share best (and worst) practices in making better judgments and challenging some of the established practices within business units.
Why focus on portfolio managers?
In our understanding, portfolio managers are the ultimate stakeholders for these product companies. While managing directors and R&D managers may focus more on short-term roadmaps and maintaining ratios, portfolio managers are tasked with driving and challenging these companies to ensure feasible long-term growth and evolution of both products and companies.
What can you expect from the sessions?
There will be multiple sessions covering core aspects of R&D, ranging from Tech & Code debt and product management to new initiatives and AI for VMS companies. Each session will begin with presentations sharing our understanding and experiments in these areas, followed by open group discussions. We encourage all participants to share their views on the topics and best practices learned over the years. Whether you have a technical background and are familiar with the topics or not, you are welcome to contribute. One of our goals as hosts and guests is to answer any questions and address challenges you might have.
How will this differ from the last edition?
We have gained more insights and conducted new experiments. Additionally, we’re hosting the event in a different location, which we hope will attract new portfolio managers. What remains unchanged is our commitment to small focus groups and open discussions.
What is on the menu?
R&D Metrics Reloaded: The impact of code and technical debt.
Hosted by Remus Pereni
Through the R&D Metrics exercises performed on select portfolios last year, we have seen how much code debt and technical debt products have. Even if we all feel this can’t be good, evaluating the impact on development productivity and bugs was elusive. In this iteration, we try to show what the research says in this domain and whether the research results can be translated/measured in our projects.
Besides presenting the overall results on the R&D metrics performed and if there have been any improvements for the companies to decide to re-run them, we are also going deeper into the actual impact of tech and code debt and measures to address them. In the group discussions, we’ll discuss best practices and lessons learned by the group in handling code complexity and technical debt, as well as determining what a good engineering culture is and how to foster it.
Product management maturity: Putting a number on software waste.
Hosted by Bogdan Chiorean
Product management plays a pivotal role in driving the success of organizations, yet its impact is often difficult to assess and quantify.
In this session, we will introduce an easy-to-use framework for evaluating the influence of product management on the organizations your MDs manage. This framework will equip you with a playbook for asking the right questions and engaging in meaningful discussions, helping you uncover critical insights into how your portfolio manages product development.
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on sharing best practices and leveraging collective knowledge to optimize product management strategies toward the end.
Generative AI: Understanding the gap between the AI-promised land and the AI reality land.
Hosted by Paul Cirstean
Artificial Intelligence has rapidly evolved in recent years, transforming from a complex, costly technology into an accessible and affordable tool for businesses of all sizes. AI tasks that once required months of development by PhD-level experts can now be completed in weeks by skilled software developers. As AI becomes more integrated into core business processes, it is crucial for business leaders to move beyond the hype to understand the limitations and capabilities of this technology and focus on practical applications that drive value.
Bill Gates once said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” This is especially relevant for AI in 2024. Join us to explore best practices for tracking AI-based initiatives and preparing your portfolio companies to navigate the rapidly changing AI landscape.
Our content experts and discussion leaders
Meet the Yonder experts who will host the sessions. If you have any questions before the actual event, feel free to reach out to them via LinkedIn.
Remus Pereni, CTO
Remus is proof of what passionate people can achieve in their professional careers and personal lives. His extensive expertise comes from a formal background, including a bachelor’s degree in Automation from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and a certification in leading software teams. As a student, he joined Yonder and quickly became a project leader. He later focused on technical matters such as software architecture and is now our Chief Technology Officer.
Remus eats, sleeps, and breathes technology, from architecture to modernizations to new technologies. He helps prospects and customers gain clarity on the technical aspects of their products. He is the definition of a lifelong learner, always diving into new insights. He also knows how to combine business needs with the technological aspects of solutions. Remus inspires and trains the young technical leaders within Yonder, and he doesn’t stop there. He is often invited to share his knowledge of R&D matters with our clients within TSS and CSI.
Bogdan Chiorean, Head of Product and Innovation
With over a decade of experience at Yonder, Bogdan has dedicated himself to helping companies innovate and stay at the forefront of technology. As the Head of Product and Innovation, he draws on his deep expertise in business, technology, and design to guide organizations toward success. A graduate of Babes-Bolyai University with a degree in Computer Science, Bogdan’s career began with entrepreneurial ventures, including running his own advertising agency and supporting various startups.
Today, he is a strong advocate of incremental innovation and believes that the key to sustained success lies in combining best practices with solid processes to achieve product excellence. Bogdan closely studies our clients’ needs and creates new innovative solutions and approaches to help them solve their challenges. He has designed specific workshops and consultancy solutions to facilitate the client’s journey and ensure everyone is on board.
Paul Cîrstean, Head of Innovation
Paul joined Yonder’s first innovation internship in 2013, where he discovered his affinity for intelligent systems and innovation. He graduated from Babes-Bolyai University with a degree in computer science. Before starting his career at Yonder, Paul co-founded two tech start-ups, where he discovered that knowing your customer needs and how to sell a product is just as important as knowing how to program the software. He continues to expand his experience in technology, entrepreneurship, and customer-focused innovation as Yonder’s Head of Innovation.
In his current role, Paul investigates new technologies and explores how these emerging trends can be leveraged in a business context. By combining his technology and business expertise, he can advise colleagues and clients on the best approach in each situation, which he has aptly named pragmatic innovation. Paul has become a frequent speaker on innovation, AI, and emerging technologies at many (international) events. He inspires others to build a successful career within Yonder through his knowledge and passion for sharing his insights.
Practical information
If you are a Portfolio Manager or a General Manager and you wish to attend, please reach out to your Yonder contact person or email [email protected].
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