BUILD WHAT’S
NEXT. BRING
PEOPLE
WITH YOU.
I’m Pati Smus. I help teams build great products. My mission is to change company culture, and above all, to help women in tech thrive.
Hi, I’m Pati.
A thinking partner.
And a doing partner.
Products don’t exist in isolation. Neither do the teams who build them, the culture they work in, or the AI tools they use. The most interesting work happens where they connect, and that’s where I work: product strategy, company culture and AI, with a builder’s mindset.
I teach companies, managers and product people how to build great products, and how to lead the people who build them. I’ve built my experience working in the US (New York, San Francisco), the UK (London), Switzerland (Basel) and Poland, and I hold a diploma in mindfulness and compassion for leaders from SWPS University.
Top strengths · Gallup CliftonStrengthsIndividualization · Positivity · Strategic · Ideation · Developer
PRODUCT
STRATEGY &
OPERATIONS.
What’s worth building.
And how to build it.
In the AI era you can build almost anything fast. The real work is knowing what’s worth building. I help product teams move from shipping features to delivering outcomes: real problems to solve instead of solutions to build, with discovery, clear strategy and cross-functional collaboration as everyday habits.
Empowered product teams that own a problem and are measured by outcomes, not by the features they ship. I build on Marty Cagan’s product operating model and adapt it to what AI makes possible, in how teams discover, decide and deliver.
A simple visual map from the outcome you want, to the customer needs and pains behind it, to the ideas worth testing. It keeps discovery continuous, makes trade-offs visible, and stops teams from jumping straight to solutions.
One living source of truth for your product: customers, research, strategy and decisions. People and AI agents work from the same context, so knowledge doesn’t get lost between meetings, tools and team changes.
Using AI tools to turn an idea into something people can click and react to in hours, not weeks. We learn from real users before investing in building the full thing.
Engineering teams working alongside AI agents that help write, test and review code, with people firmly in charge of direction and quality. Faster delivery without giving up judgment.
COMPANY
CULTURE.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Companies that grow
are built by teams that thrive.
Growth, innovation and success you can see in the numbers all start with people who can do their best work. I help leaders build those teams, and it starts with how we lead. There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook: every team is different, so I start with the people, their strengths and what they need, and shape the approach around them.
Give your people trust from day one, and then earn theirs. That’s the hardest part. If you want people to follow you through fire, do the work on your side first. And trust their aspirations, too.
One of the best ways to earn trust is to work side by side. Not just giving context, but brainstorming together, shaping the spec, the UX, the design, the doc or the presentation.
Ask how you can serve your people. How can I help? What can I enable or unblock for you?
Get rid of your ego. That’s the hardest part, and it changes everything that comes after.
Don’t try to be respected. Respect others, their values and their priorities. People with strong values will give that respect back.
Fair compensation and real flexibility. Measure outcomes, not hours.
Kindness is a value in itself. Together with empathy for everyone, including other leaders and the C-level.
Context, ownership and accountability instead of micromanagement or command and control. And some decisions are yours to make: that’s leadership’s responsibility, not something to push onto the team.Inspired by Dare to Lead, Brené Brown
CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
IN THE AI ERA.
The way products are built
has changed. Your team can too.
The pace of change right now is unbelievable. The way products get built and the way teams work is being rewritten almost month by month. I’ve seen many teams adopt AI for the sake of AI, without real value. Real change needs three things: understanding how your teams work today, redesigning how they work together, and helping people move from fear to confidence.
No AI for the sake of AI. I start by understanding how your teams work today, then decide together where AI adds real value, what’s worth automating, and what isn’t.
Roles, rituals and handoffs between product, design and engineering change. Prototypes instead of long PRDs, lean specs that define the problem and how we’ll measure it. I help teams redesign how they work, not just which tools they use.
AI speeds up some parts of product work and slows down others. Fixes, iterations and testing often take longer. I help teams plan for the whole flow, not just the fast part.
“Will AI take my job?” “I can’t keep up.” Most people feel some fear, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to use AI everywhere, but to use it with purpose, and in a way that respects people’s own values. I create space to learn, experiment and admit what isn’t working, and lead the change with trust, not pressure.
AI speeds things up. People decide what matters, what’s good enough and what’s right for customers.
Start with a Product Health Check.
A 2–3 week review of your product strategy, ways of working and team culture: the three areas above, reviewed together. You get prioritised findings, a 90-day roadmap and a leadership readout.
See the Product Health Check ↗