CPO Stories: Jessica Hall - Just Eat Takeaway

We all make the best decisions we can with the information that we have and the situation that we're in at the time. And then we get new information or things change and we should use that to make better decisions. That is true in product management, but that's also true in running a department or delivering for a business on that, the most broadest sense. And I personally also feel that in taking this approach, you can listen to the feedback of your team and make things better. Hello, and welcome to CPO Stories, where I speak to the UK's biggest and best executive product leaders, as well as some of the up and coming stars of the future. If that sounds up your street, don't forget to dive into the back catalog on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. And of course, follow, share, or drop me a comment or review. And if you're a CPO or want to nominate your CPO to chat, get in touch. I'd love to have a conversation. On this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Jessica Hall. Jessica's career has taken her through some of the biggest names in retail, including UK high street heavyweights like Tesco, Argos and Sainsbury's before moving to leadership roles and ultimately to chief product officer at Just Eat Takeaway. One of the world's leading global on-demand delivery companies, providing retail and food deliveries here in the UK, as well as across Europe and beyond, although having suffered through my share of British meals, I'm hoping the Yorkshire puddings are staying firmly within our borders. Jess, thanks for coming and welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. No problem. It's good to have a chance to have a chat about what I'm sure are going to be some very interesting topics from what I've heard in the sort of the preparation. I'm quite excited about some of the things we're going to talk about today, but let's crack straight into it and talk about Just Eat Takeaway. Now, obviously it's a big name that most people have almost certainly heard of, and I certainly have. I use it fairly frequently. But just for the record, why don't you give me the official version and tell me what it is that Just Eat Takeaway does for a living? Yeah, so we're an on-demand delivery platform delivering all kinds of things, as you said, across Europe and beyond. We operate in 16 markets. We have nearly 400,000 partners on our platform, 60 million active customers, and a huge amount of orders going through our platform every single day. We started in a food space with prepared meals or takeaways, as the name kind of suggests, but these days you can get all kinds of things, technology like laptops, iPads, et cetera. You can get pharmaceuticals, you can get glasses, you can get homeware. All kinds of things, depending on where you are. And we continue to grow in this space to really meet the needs of consumers in that kind of under one hour delivery experience. Interesting, but it's quite an interesting thing to be called Just Eat Takeaway. You're very food focused and then to start, and I know that it's been more of a more recent branch out or certainly more recent compared to the food stuff. How it feels like that then becomes a positioning problem from a name perspective. Is that something that people get confused by or is that something that everyone kind of just gets behind and it's all OK? I think we're growing the business bit by bit. You know, we went from prepared meals to grocery and then we've gone to kind of pharmacy and beyond. And so I think as we grow bit by bit, we can kind of help customers go on that journey with us. Yes, the name does lend itself to food, but we haven't seen that as an issue. And it's such a fantastic brand that's recognized across all of our markets. We actually have different names in different markets, but all of them have this fantastic brand presence. And so I think in many ways it would be mad to change that with the recognition that we have. So I think it's actually about how we create great experiences for customers that help them to branch out into new categories through our product. Well, that thing about local names is interesting as well. I'm definitely not going to test you on all of them in all of the different languages as well, because that would be very unfair off the bat. But at the same time, being an international company that provides services in all these different places, it kind of brings up one of the most tricky things, certainly from a product organization that you can find, building a tech platform and connecting everyone together. Because there's obviously the internationalization of the, as you say, the name, but also then the platforms themselves. But there's also potentially different cultural things going on in these different countries, different food and the sorts of things that they'd even be prepared to buy on a platform like yours, as well as potentially regulatory stuff going on. So how does that make your job harder, I guess? But how does that kind of impact the sort of work that you as a company are doing and the kind of things you have to be aware of and conscious of? You're spot on with that. I mean, that is definitely a challenge. There are regulatory issues across different jurisdictions. And that means that our businesses operate slightly different in different locations as a result. And, you know, we've always got to have one eye on that. But, you know, also from a product perspective, very kind of basic things, you know, in Europe, typically the decimal point that we're used to in the UK is actually a comma. And in some countries, the euro sign comes before the numbers. And in other countries, the euro sign comes after the number. And so there are all these kind of different pieces that we have to really get on board with. And sometimes you're a product manager that's based in one of those countries. You're working on something global and you've got to get, you know, you've got to get up to speed with what's happening across all of the countries and making decisions. We do have a global platform and we've spent the last few years getting there. We are a business that grew from mergers and acquisitions, which partly explains the different brand logos and things or brand names, rather. But now we've developed this global platform. We have to develop it with enough optionality within it that we can meet the needs of our local markets whilst not having a massive overhead in terms of, you know, having to redevelop features all the time for different markets or a really big kind of overhead on maintaining the platform. When it comes to consumers and culture around that, that's very real as well. And we see certain markets tend to lead the way in consumer thinking. And we, you know, what we see there tends to flow to other markets over time. Grocery would be a good example of that, where I'd say, you know, the UK, Canada, we saw strong demand for grocery and less so in mainland Europe, but that's now shifting. And what's really great is where we see the emerging demand, we can develop the solutions so that when the consumer in other markets is ready, we tend to be, you know, we have a better understanding and we're developing things globally. So it's the features are ready. But it's also partly about how you educate the customer in that space and the supply that you have, you know, for example, like we need to actually have the supply to serve the customer. And some of that can be part of the challenge. So, you know, it very much is a full kind of ecosystem thinking. It's not just about the technology. It is also about the cultural elements of the countries, consumer preferences, business in those countries. Like, are they ready and willing to come on a platform like ours or have they got a different perspective? And it's challenging, but I also think it's really interesting as well. I think that's part of what makes the job, you know, an interesting job because you've got lots of different problems to solve. And the last thing I would say is like I always encourage my team and I myself look far beyond our own markets, you know, over to the Far East and other places to see what's happening in those markets that might also come to our markets or, you know, how are consumers responding to changes there that we might be able to bring into our own products as well? Well, I mean, you talked a little bit about sort of mergers and acquisitions and the way that the company's grown. And of course, you know, that part around sort of looking further afield is something that's quite relevant now that you've been acquired by a process which big investment firm, loads of experience all around the world. My understanding, and this may be incomplete, is that they're big or a lot of their portfolio is big outside of the places that you were big. And then obviously you've come in and you're filling in the gap in a sense. So that must then make it really, you know, to what you just talked about, like the need to kind of cast your eye further afield, it must make it quite exciting to be able to do that with expertise in all those places that you can actually start to tap into and vice versa. So is that kind of how you're seeing that? I mean, obviously, on the other hand, there's going to be a lot of work to do, of course, but at the same time, is that kind of opening up a lot of options for you? Absolutely. I think Process are an organisation that have a real view on, you know, looking outside of the business to really understand what's going on and always be thinking about how to improve, how to be better, where they need to be going. Earlier this year, I spent some time with iFood, which is another business in the portfolio, to understand more about how they're working. And then only a few weeks ago, I spent time with a number of people from the Process world, from different businesses within the portfolio, and I had a great opportunity to kind of connect and learn what they're doing, learn from them, you know, and I think that's one of the brilliant things about this acquisition. I really feel that this is a business that understands and wants to drive really great technology change, really great businesses, and have lots of practices within the business that help with that. So it's a very exciting time for us. Well, yeah, exciting is always a great word to use when it comes to takeovers and acquisitions and stuff. And I've certainly been through a few, but again, I think a lot of it's around just trying to work out the big benefits and it sounds like, you know, there are a lot of those, so hopefully that trajectory carries on. But you talk about technology and how obviously what you do is more than just technology. And of course it is because there's actually real stuff on the ground being delivered to real people. But you sit there and to some extent you start to think, well, it's not just a technology company, it's more than that. But at the same time, there's still kind of a conceptual quote unquote product. Like what is the product for Just Eat Takeaway in your head? I would say we're a platform and the platform that we are is a three sided marketplace. So the product is the heart of the business. It's what everything operates around. And as a product leader, my job is to drive the business commercially and to partner with all of my colleagues across the business on the things that they need to be able to drive the business forward. So it's very much a partnership. But that three sided marketplace is all around the consumer. That's what, you know, many people think of when they think of us, the app, that's the consumer. We have the partner side. So that's the shops, the restaurants, et cetera, that are on our platform and how we help them grow their business, how we partner with them. And then there's also the courier side of our business, which is, you know, the element of how we get the products from the partner to the consumer. And no part of this platform works if we don't have all three elements of the of the of the marketplace. Yeah. And then kind of you talked about it earlier, but and it kind of talks to the potential sort of cold start problem in a new market as well. You know, going to a new place and you've got to start to build up all of those bits of the marketplace all at once. Now, obviously, you've got a lot of experience doing that now. So is that sort of a solved problem? Have you got a good sort of one, two, three playbook or are there sort of wrinkles sometimes when you go into a market and maybe it takes a little bit longer? I'm thinking of examples like Uber when they go into a new place or something like that, and they try and work out what to do in a new place rather than just doing exactly the same thing again and again. I think that's right. I think, you know, to the earlier point about how does. Geographical culture, et cetera, affect the business, that it's the same here. So, you know, as you expand into new cities or new markets, I think that you have to look at it on a case by case basis. You know, you need to understand. If you're if you're going into a new vertical, for example, you're going into pharmacy or another type of retail, for example, you've got to think about like what is the supply depth, as in how many of these shops are there and how far away are they from your customers? And in what space does it make sense to trial with this? And that, I think, is a key piece in the product mindset, isn't it? You know, test and learn. We've got an idea. How do we figure out how to do that on a small scale so that we can get the proof points that we need to go forward? Sometimes you can prove it out, but it's too expensive to do or it's too complicated to do. So then you change your hypothesis. We know that this could work, but how do we make it affordable for the business or operationally sound? So I think it's always a case by case basis. Sometimes opportunities kind of present themselves and then you have to kind of try and figure out how to make it work. And, you know, I'm a realist, so I don't subscribe to doing everything by a framework from a book every single time. And if you follow these steps, you'll always be successful. I think you have to be adaptable. And I think the speed of adaptation in this AI kind of world is increasing massively. But. But I think it's about taking it by a case by case basis and then figuring it out. There are always kind of. There were some kind of truths that become true over time as you go into markets that, you know, like you, you know, certain things that you need to do, but there are there are always nuances in every market, you know, like and it's small things sometimes like credit card and debit card usage versus cash in a society. And like, how does that affect you when you're an online platform or, you know, expectations around speed or like how your food might be packaged or, you know, there's all kinds of things. And it's only really when you actually start to really experiment and delve into understanding that it that it comes to life. And that's another key thing for me, customer closeness. And when I say customer closeness, I mean that across our whole three sided marketplace. So that is talking to consumers using the app, but it's also visiting partners and it's also talking to couriers because we can look and analyze data in reports endlessly. Actually, when you get on the ground and you see what's happening, you then realize, OK, well, this isn't the the the the partner's not using this feature because it's too difficult to understand or it requires like extra button pushes. And they're actually they've got so many orders and they're trying to get everything out and they're trying to like, you know, they've got a load of couriers waiting to pick up orders and all of that. So they just don't have time to engage with that or, you know, but also like talking to them and understanding like what is difficult. You know, these things you cannot get that from a report. You cannot get that from the data. The data will tell you trends. It will tell you things about your business and it will give you ideas about where you should go and spend your time to investigate. But I don't think you can beat real customer closeness. And as a product person in particular, I think that kind of curiosity is essential to being good at your job and to bring real commercial realities to life in your business. No, absolutely. And you mentioned AI just now. We'll come back to that in a minute. But I think that, you know, there's that kind of tension these days between kind of customer closeness and AI and how far you go one way or the other. But before we do talk about that, I'd just like to kind of dig in a little bit to just product management in general within the company. So obviously you're the CPO, you're responsible for, I hope, all of it. But like how big a team are we looking at there from a product management perspective? And I guess also, how have you kind of laid them out across those different parts of the marketplace or some other way that you've kind of come up with? Yeah, so my team does encompass all product for the global business. And in total, it's about 750 people across a number of different offices. So we're quite a distributed team. And then we work with engineering, as you might imagine, because that's a very close partnership that we've cultivated over time. The CTO and I work very closely. And so all together with product and engineering, it's about two and a half thousand people. The people in my world, the things that we work or the role types within my world are product management, which is obvious, but also product analytics and the kind of data side of things, technical program management, this kind of delivery and helping us with speed to market and all of that kind of thing. UX design, UX research and then also kind of an operational piece, like how do we do planning, road mapping and all of that kind of stuff? Because in an organization of our size, you know, my team alone making sure, my team and engineering, making sure they know what we're supposed to be working on. That's a job in itself. But then, you know, 9000 people in the organization at large also need to be and need to understand and be on the journey with us. So that's what the team is made up of. In terms of how we've set it up, I'll be honest, in the time that I've been doing this job, which is about four years now, I've made decisions and they've worked for a while and then we've had to shift another way. And I think that's a reality in business. You kind of, you solve for one problem, things get better. You need to solve for another problem. So I wouldn't ever say that I've solved this or that I've got it right. What I have is something that works for where we are today and is helping us move forward. So we're roughly arranged around a number of pillars that are kind of business areas. It's not quite as simple as just the three sides of the marketplace. There's some other pieces in there like, you know, we have like customer service. We have the kind of fintech part of the business. There's a few other bits and pieces in there. We partner really closely, though, on each of those. So engineering and product go hand in hand. And where we've got a product leader, we also have an engineering leader at the top level of the organization to make sure that we are moving forward together. And this is real true collaboration. And the one thing that's different is UX design and research, because some time ago now, we needed to really upskill that area of our team. And I'm pleased to say that it's come a very, very long way. And there's some brilliant people in these teams. But they're actually a centralized team, center of excellence, where we can invest in their development and making sure there's a real career path for them. But they actually spend their time kind of federated out into the areas that they work in. And that is a key point for me, the career paths and things like that. One of the things that I've spent quite a lot of time on since I took on this role is kind of developing expectations of what these roles entail, what great performance looks like, what a career path can look like, bringing in training or learning pathways to help people grow and coaching and other things to help leaders to step up to where they need to be and feel really confident. Because product management and all of the things associated with product management can be really difficult. You sit at this point where you're kind of between engineering and the business to some extent. And we can debate whether that's right or like what a product led organization is. But the reality is quite often you're the person who's answering the question about whether or not we can or cannot do something. And lots of people really, really care about it. And so it can feel very tough being in the kind of eye of the storm, I guess, at some moment. So all of this is also designed to help our product managers feel really confident in what they are here to deliver, how to do it and how to show up in the organization as a whole. Oh, no. I mean, that's some really interesting things to talk about. Now, obviously, the kind of the federated versus the kind of aligned stuff is obviously something that people would have different opinions about. But I think one of the things that I think is really interesting from what you've said, and it's something I see in a lot of companies when I go out and about working with different organizations is this idea that there's a bunch of individual optimizations effectively. You sit there and like you say, you've got a problem, we pull a process together or we put a team together or we do something to solve that problem. And then we do that and then we do that and we do that. And over time, these different solutions kind of sum up maybe to something that wasn't quite the solution that you were looking for in the first place. Because of course, each individual iteration maybe ended up going somewhere else. And it sounds like you've got a really good kind of eye on that to sit there and say, well, actually, you know, a few months or years or whatever down the line, actually, maybe we need to change that again. And that's not something that everyone does, because sometimes it just kind of keeps adding and adding and adding and people never take stuff away or never go back and sort of change previous work. So there's any kind of trigger point in your head where you sit there and you say, actually, now it's time to not just put another solution on top, but actually we need to reconfigure this. Like what is it that makes you kind of think that it's time to maybe go back and look at that and maybe shake things up a little bit and sort of true up to whatever the new reality is? I think my job as CPO is to make sure that we deliver value for the business. That is the core of this job. And so the way I look at things is, you know, am I making it easy for my teams to deliver? And is it easy for people around the business to interact with us and understand, you know, what we're doing and how to utilize the things that we produce? Um, and when I start to get a hint that friction is kind of growing or that there's some kind of dependencies or something like that, that's slowing us down, I'm always kind of like, okay, where do, what's going on there? And what I would say is, whilst I am CPO now in my career, I've done lots of different things. And one of the threads of my career is, is a kind of transformation, um, reorg and kind of, um, best practice sort of side of my career. So I bring that thinking to it. I don't think my job as a CPO is to be the best product person ever. That's not my job. My job is to, to free up, uh, the best product people ever so that they can do really brilliant work and take our business forward. Um, so, you know, my job is kind of to, to serve that team and to, to create the space. So I think that, that those are the trigger points are, hmm, I'm hearing that things are difficult to do. I'm getting some murmurings that there's a lot of friction or, uh, features that I think probably shouldn't take too long to deliver suddenly have got big lead times on them. So I'm kind of like, what, what's going on here and, and delving into it. Um, I really am a problem solver in a collaborative way. So I'm always discussing that with the CTO as well. You know, is this an engineering side problem, a product problem? Is it both? Do we need to do something together? Um, but I think that that's what it is. And I also just take a continuous learning view on life that is, um, you know, we all make the best decisions we can with the information that we have and the situation that we're in at the time. And then we get new information or things change and we should use that to make better decisions. That is true in product management, but that's also true in running a department or delivering for a business on that, the most broadest sense. Um, so I'm very much not a person who's kind of wedded to any specific idea or way of doing things. I think it depends. I think it also depends on like culturally, where is your business? Um, how mature is your function or the people that you have, you know, in terms of their experience in doing the role, their experience with the environment that you're in. Um, and you need to take all of this into account as you then make those decisions because you've got to set people up for success. There's no point in expecting somebody who's got no experience to be able to operate like a really experienced person. You've got to take them on the journey to get there. Um, and I personally also feel that in taking this approach, you can listen to the feedback of your team, um, and make things better, but also in providing some of those kind of pathways or making changes, you create opportunity for people. I think opportunity being listened to all of that kind of thing makes a great working culture. I hope makes people happy and enjoy the work they do come in and feel some purpose around it and therefore do really brilliant work as well. Um, yeah. And with all of these things, I would say that it's a really a people first thing. If you get the people side, right, then most of the rest falls into place. Yeah, no, absolutely. I still believe in the age of AI that product management is one of the most sort of intensely human crafts, no matter what some people are out there on LinkedIn or X or whatever saying about like how AI is going to replace everything like that kind of. Yeah. As you say, kind of being in the middle and having your foot in so many different camps and the kind of the people skills and the sort of the negotiation and the bringing people along and the storytelling and the alignment. And it feels like from what you say that you do a lot of work on, as you say, sort of training and giving people pathways, which isn't also something that everyone does in all companies. And I guess that's a really interesting point as well, because like a lot of people, you sort of sit there and they don't really have like, well, you do this and you get this, or you have to do this to move to the next level. But also there's the concept then of sort of along the pathway approach of kind of the old school way of doing it, which is like, well, everyone wants to get to a point, they either have to start becoming people managers, or that's kind of their ceiling. Or these days, it's more like, well, actually, maybe there's a dual track, like some people can go and be people leaders and some people can be very super senior individual contributors still and still contribute to the organization, but not have to sort of take on people management if that's not their sweet spot. So that's something you advocate for within your organization, or are you still kind of looking at that as more of a kind of a people management progression? No, I... of a people management progression? No, I fully advocate for this. And actually, um, at the most, at the more junior management levels within my organization, you know, perhaps like first time, uh, team managers, uh, maybe managing a small team. I also actively encourage at that point to spend, or those roles are shaped to be partially people management and partially individual contributor work for themselves. And the reason is because that's how I've approached my career. And I've done, um, you know, people management roles. Um, I actually did some large people management roles and then went and did an IC role and then went back to people management. Um, and it wasn't because I enjoyed people management more than individual contributor work. It was more about, you know, where my ambition and what I want to do was taking me. But I think there's real value in senior ICs who can really tackle the most challenging, um, uh, kind of topics that you might have to go after, but also who can mentor and grow talent within your organization. And I just think it's actually really worth, um, recognizing that that talent is just as valuable as people management talent. Um, there is always a moment in time where, you know, um, there are tough decisions about exactly how you structure your organization and the budget you've got and all of that kind of thing. So I'm not going to try and tell you I've got some kind of utopia where you can be a senior as you want in an individual contributor role, but we do have very senior ICs and I actively encourage it. Um, and it's something that I, I want to grow more because I think it has traditionally been in the industry undervalued or that that ceiling has come probably a bit too early. Um, and I think that the quality of work is, is so important. Um, we try to have the opportunity for people to take whichever route they want and also to be able to move between the two, because one of the other things that I believe, and I know from my own career is kind of sideways moves, breadth of experience is also part of being high performing, you know, if you're an individual contributor, I want you to have worked across different parts of our business and other businesses as well. To bring all of that thinking together on how you connect the dots and be creative in, in finding solutions. No, absolutely. And completely agree that, you know, there's, there are some people that are amazing product people that maybe not so good product, no people managers and vice versa, so like, you know, right tools for the right jobs, but you've yourself, as you just kind of called out, you've had a bunch of different types of roles in your career. You've kind of gone into people management. You've gone back from people management. Obviously you're very specifically, uh, you're an executive with lots of responsibility at the moment. And as you say, it was, I think it'd be like four years since you took the role at Just Eat Takeaway, you were already there in leadership, but then you kind of took the hot seat. What's the biggest challenge for you stepping up and sort of taking that executive product leadership role for the first time? I mean, it's been a bit now, so I'm sure that you've overcome all the challenges, but like when you first kind of got into the seat, like what was the biggest challenge for you? Um, it's a difficult one to answer because I think, um, I, I'm just a big believer that we're never the finished article and so I spend my life thinking and anyone who spends much time with me knows I'm a very avid reader and consumer of information and I'm always kind of, you know, often when I'm in my flow, I think it's annoying for people because I'm like, Oh, this new idea. And what if we did this, this and this? And we could, you know, and like my brain is pinging. So I'm very motivated by learning and development myself. And so I try to bring that to my role and try to be better. I think the organization that I took on is very different from the one that we have today and there were a lot of challenges, um, to, to face into and we've overcome many of them and I'm actually incredibly proud of my team because they've all gone on this journey and grown into this fantastic team that I love being part of. Um, but in the early days, I think probably the challenges, the two big challenges were one, okay, well, it's all on me now and I've got to figure out what to do to take us forward. Um, and I did have a very good peer network and, um, within the business, very good relationship with our CEO, but ultimately, um, it was a first time that I was kind of like, right, okay, well, I don't, I know it's not really coming to me to figure out how to execute. I really have got to have the whole picture. Um, and then I think the other one is one that might surprise people, but that's that you don't get much feedback. You, you, you get your, you get your employee surveys and you get bits and pieces, but once you get to this level, you're expected to, to get on and, and, and do, and the feedback is more about whether or not you achieve the objectives or not and less to develop you. Um, and it is interesting because as I was thinking about this podcast and we kind of like preparing, um, it, that was the first time that I really thought about it now, when I look back, it's clear, but it's been an evolution. So I, I would say now, um, I'm much more self-reliant on, you know, how I develop, um, and what I need to do and how I take the signs, um, as feedback when I don't get actual feedback, if that makes sense. No, absolutely. And it kind of makes it feel, you know, almost like a lonely, lonely at the top of the ivory tower, right? Which obviously is, yeah, it's tough at the top and all the other cliches that we can put in there. But that kind of speaks to two things. And I'm going to cover them separately. One of which is obviously that kind of distance, which naturally kind of, I guess, occurs because obviously as you move up and you're having different conversations with different people and maybe not quite as in the team as you would have been earlier on in your career. So like, how do you feel or, or can you like, have, how have you been able to kind of keep yourself connected to the day-to-day work, like you say you're an ideas person, so like, obviously you could just kind of swoop in, drop a load of ideas and fly off again, or do you still manage to kind of get into the kind of day-to-day work appropriately enough? Uh, or do you feel that as a CPO now your job is to, as you kind of put it earlier, sort of arm the team and then let them get on with it? Well, it's probably a mix of all of that. So I, um, I believe in empowering people. And like I said, right, I, I try to hire people who are far better than me at all of the things that they do. So I'm always, I'm always kind of curious, like how do they approach this? What's their thinking, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm also very involved in, you know, reviewing with them. You know, how, how is it going? Do they need any help? You know, what are their findings? I love, um, looking at the designs that they come up with and why and how they're performing. I love seeing the outcomes of experiments and people explaining those things to me. So I try not to get involved and tell people what to do, but I love to be involved in kind of hearing what's going on and understanding things. And I will course correct when needed, um, because, you know, that's what I'm here for. But I really do believe that, um, empowered people will deliver the best work. The key is helping people to understand, um, in what space are they empowered? So, uh, creating the right environment and having, you know, the right guardrails or, um, I love this concept of freedom in the frame where you have kind of, um, four metrics and there's some tension. So you can, you can push one while it's, um, I heard it explained as, uh, it's like squeezing a balloon so you can push on one side, but it tends to hold on the other, uh, and if that's the case, you've got it right. So, um, I'm still working on getting that perfect, don't get me wrong, but that's the kind of mentality that I like to bring to it. It can be lonely when you have to make difficult decisions or, you know, um, you can't be entirely transparent with your team, but you know, that's, it goes with the territory that that is the role. And I think every level of management that occurs to some extent, uh, because you go from being one of a team to kind of maybe in a management layer and in my position, that layers like smaller than ever. Um, but what I think is really important is just cultivating relationships with people, you know, around you that you can, um, and you know, where appropriate mentors outside of your business or, you know, networks that you can be part of where you can get ideas. You know, um, I'm part of a number of brilliant networks of really, um, accomplished people. And so I don't need to tell them the ins and outs of my business, but I might ask them, Hey, I've got this problem. Like, have you come across it? How did you solve it? What's your thinking? Have you seen this trend or that trend? Um, and I think that's really helpful for me because it gives me another outlet to, to do those kinds of conversations, but you don't need to wait until you're a CPO to do that. I think cultivating your network at every level is incredibly important. Um, and I know that sometimes that feels a bit scary because it feels like it's sort of networking and it's a bit like there's a bit of a barrier to doing that, but I think getting out there and trying and being brave, um, over time you will really see the value. And I would say now I have an incredibly strong network and I know that there are a number of questions that if I don't know what to do, I know somebody I can ask. Yeah, obviously I'm all about networks as well. And it's been something that's been very helpful for me over the last few years as well, as I've been trying to find my way in this big, scary world. But I think also, you know, just that kind of concept again of it not being or never being too soon, but a lot of people ask me for advice on networking and, and like, you know, it's a long game obviously, but it's almost like you've kind of talked about almost building like a, it's almost like a personal board of directors as I know some people call it, you know, people that you can just kind of, you know, have a friend DA with and sort of just go in there and start to talk about some of these things and just kind of get spitballing and bouncing ideas around and just kind of working out what works and that's obviously essential. But you've also got another thing, which is just, you know, you're the CPO in a, in a large business that's built or been built up through acquisitions and I'm sure that doesn't have product focused people in every role, certainly in the leadership level. So there's almost certain that kind of advocating for the craft of product management, which we kind of touched on a bit earlier, but sort of maybe selling the benefits of customer centricity and product practices and product management as a practice. Is that something that you have kind of got a natural, I guess, you know, like have you found a natural way to do that? Is that something that comes easy? Is that something that you've had to adapt to over time? Sort of just that selling product at the executive level? I, I think, um, I like to let the work speak for itself. I think in life, um, as a sort of tangent, we remember more of what we do than what we hear or read by a long way. Um, and so I kind of bring that into how I approach work and I would, um, so I would say, I let the work speak for itself, but I'm, I am, I'm tough with my team. You know, I think influencing is about like, cause this is what we're talking about, right? Like influencing people to come to your way of thinking or understand what you're trying to achieve. For me, influencing is about finding the win-win. Um, and so it isn't actually about convincing somebody that the product way is the right way, whatever framework that might be, or however you might approach it, but actually saying, what is it that matters to this person or this department? Like, what are they incentivized to achieve? What does success look like for them? What do I want to achieve? And like, how do I make both of those things happen with my team? I'm, I'm, I'm especially at the leadership level, I'm pretty tough with them about. You need to be commercial is not enough to only know, um, you know, how your feature performs, your product metrics, which are often proxies for, um, commercial metrics, but they aren't the commercial metrics themselves. Um, and so kind of saying, you know, actually, come on, you, you need to challenge yourself to be more commercial, to be able to have that conversation with whoever it is, a sales team or a country market team or marketing or whatever. Um, and then I think the other piece is, uh, problem solving together. So rather than come, like we don't, we product people don't like people coming to us and saying, I would like you to make a button that is green and I want it here. And I want it to show at this point, right? We don't like people coming with those solutions. We want people to come to us with problems that we can solve together. If we want that, we have to show up and role model it. And so we need to ask the questions around like, what problems are you trying to solve? What are the real challenges in your business right now? Um, be up to speed, like know what the order volume is in a certain country, know these kinds of things and be interested so that you can be a credible partner when you solve the problems together. Um, so, so I think all of that I summarize in, I try to make it a win, win and speak for itself. And I also hold us to account to say like, we can only be brilliant partners and we only really deserve the opportunity to collaborate on this stuff if we show up and know the business as well. Yeah. I love that word partner. And it's something that I've been reflecting on a lot over the last sort of year or so, this idea that, you know, product people should be positioned as partners, not just, you know, either in some companies, just people that the work gets thrown out, you know, like a big old bag of meat and they just have to tear it apart. Uh, in some companies, obviously they're like the full on empowered dream, but just this, this goal of being an actual kind of first rate business partner to the rest of the business versus just being this kind of team that sort of sits between, you know, as you kind of put it earlier, sort of sits between the engineers and the business. It's like, it's, I know where that comes from. And I've certainly seen it in a bunch of companies, but like being actually able to kind of stand up in a room, we've all seen that Venn diagram of the business and the tech and the users, like actually being able to legitimately have three feet, I guess that'd be weird, but like a foot in each one. It definitely feels like a smart move. Well, we could talk about this for a long time, but I do have to finish with some, some lighthearted lightning round questions just to kind of, you know, finish on a high, get to know you a little bit more as well. Let your team find out a little bit about your own, uh, your own preferences. So I do have to ask the first question. Favorite Just Eat restaurant category. This is really nearly impossible for me to choose because I order. You can't choose amongst your children, right? Breakfast, lunch, dinner. I order it all. Um, groceries a lot. Um, so what is my favorite? I don't know if I was really had to choose, I'd probably go with pizza, but, um, yeah, I mean, it's difficult. And to get some kind of fusion thing going on. So you can have like the, you know, pizza with a curry on top or something like that. Maybe that could be something for the 2026. Stick into the food kind of category. If you could have dinner with any famous figure alive or dead, who would it be and why? Oh, um, I would love to have dinner with Brené Brown because I love her books. I fully subscribe to the mentality of, um, being brave, vulnerability, kind of, um, constantly growing yourself. Um, so I think it would be Brené Brown, which is probably a cliche, but, you know, they exist for a reason. Exactly. Yeah. Cliches, as you say, cliches are cliches for a reason. Like it's not, it's not for nothing that people recommend these people. Right. But you talked about books and earlier you mentioned about like, you, you love to learn yourself. So like, if you had to recommend any product or tech or business book to people listening to this, what would be one that you would recommend? Well, I would start by saying, um, Brené Brown, um, any of hers, uh, great, but, um, I think, cause I think that, I think that in reality, our careers and life, it's all about having courage, being brave and, um, and achieving what you want. The business side comes second, uh, how you apply frameworks and other things, um, come second. Um, so also with that in mind, I'd also recommend the hundred year life. Um, because this is a topic I'm super interested in now around how we're all going to live longer and how careers and life is going to be a bit more cyclical. We won't be doing education, work, retire, but we'll rechange, we'll, sorry, we'll retrain, we'll change careers, et cetera. Um, it doesn't give you any answers, but I think that thinking and then being brave and having courage hopefully takes you where you want to go. Oh, absolutely. I'll go and check that out after this as well. I'm always in need of a new book. First app you check in the morning and I'm hoping it's not your food app because come on. It's not a food app, it's the news app. That's the first app I check in the morning or WhatsApp depending on how much is coming overnight. Most important trait in a product manager? Curiosity, um, solving problems requires you to be really curious about what is behind the thing you're seeing. Oh, absolutely. That's good. Good lesson to take away. But the final question is always the most important question. Why should great product people consider joining you in the team at Just Eat Takeaway right now or in the future? Uh, we have really exciting problems to solve and we are working with cutting edge technology in a really large global environment. So, um, the opportunity in a business like ours is huge and the impact you can have is massive. Um, small consumer changes touch tens of millions of users as an example. So, um, if you really want to see how you can take experimentation to reality, um, and touch millions of people, this is the business for you. Oh, there you go. That's a inspirational speech there. And also, I'm hoping that you get a discount on the food as well, because that would also be an additional bonus. On top of changing the world, you can also get a discount on the food as well, right? There are definitely some incentives, yeah. And where can people catch up with you after this if they want to find out more about you, your journey, or obviously, you know, check out Just Eat Takeaway? Um, please do look at our website. Our corporate website has more information about roles and our programs that we run, like our Early Careers program. Um, if you're just getting started in your career, um, and if not, find me on LinkedIn, which is where I'm posting, um, you know, what's going on in our business and what I'm up to. Nice. Well, I'll make sure to link that all into the show notes and hopefully have a few people come and checking you out and maybe even joining the mission at some point. But all I can do now, Jess, is thank you very much and give all my gratitude for coming on and sharing your CPO story. Thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.