MitchelLake · Product and Technology Leadership
Executive Search for Product and Technology Leadership
The product and technology leaders decide what a company ships and how fast it can change. MitchelLake appoints the Chief Product Officers, CTOs and VPs of Engineering, and the heads of data and AI product, behind venture-backed, scale-up and enterprise technology companies. Across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, since 2001.
Companies describe the brief differently. A first CPO after a Series B. A CTO to take a founder-built platform to scale. A VP Engineering to double the team without halving its velocity. A head of data or AI product to turn a model into a product. The label changes with the stage and the leadership problem does not: someone has to own what gets built, and the organisation that builds it.
We run product and technology searches from London and Barcelona as well as across APAC.
The seats
What each seat does at Series B to D and in a scale-up, what the market is doing, and the searches we have run for it.
The CPO seat
Chief Product Officer
Executive search for Chief Product Officers and heads of product: the first CPO after a Series B, the product leader who takes a scale-up from launches to retention, and the AI product leadership that turns a model into a product.
Read →The CTO and VP Engineering seats
CTO and VP Engineering
Executive search for CTOs and VPs of Engineering: the technology leader who takes a founder-built platform to scale, and the engineering leader who doubles the team without halving its velocity.
Read →The data and AI product seat
Head of Data and AI Product
Executive search for heads of data and AI product: the data platform and analytics leadership a scale-up runs on, and the AI product leadership that decides whether a model is a feature or a product.
Read →What the market is doing
In October 2026, the last settled month on the wire, 1,445 product launches were recorded, up from 829 in September 2026. A launch is the output of a product and engineering leadership layer assembled before it became visible; the seats below are that layer.
- CTO & Engineering: 31 of 1,256 executive appointments in October 2026 (2.5%), +0.6 points on the month before.
- CPO & Product: 10 of 1,256 executive appointments in October 2026 (0.8%), +0.4 points on the month before.
- Chief AI & AI product leadership: 6 of 1,256 executive appointments in October 2026 (0.5%), +0.3 points on the month before.
Counts are from the live signal wire, settled calendar months only; the appointment mix is the Talent Market Index monthly movement rail.
Comparable mandate
We have run this search for this kind of role.
Case study
Head of Product
Applied AI Lab
Case study
Head of Product
PAM
Case study
Product Design Directors
Xero
Case study
Chief Product Officer
Upflowy
Case study
Chief Product Officer
Australian Life Tech (28 by Sam Wood)
Case study
Head of Product
Atlas Carbon
Case study
Head of Product Marketing
Backpocket
Case study
Head of Product
Decidr
Case study
Product Design Lead
DoorDash
How we think about the technology leadership layer
Product and technology leadership is a system, not a single hire. The CPO sets what gets built, the CTO owns what it runs on, the VP Engineering owns the people who build it, and the head of data and AI product decides what the company learns from its own usage. Hired in the wrong order, each undermines the next; hired as a layer, they let a company change direction without changing its team.
Our reads on these seats come from the wire: which companies are launching, which are hiring for product and technology leadership, and what follows a raise. See product launch signals and strategic hiring signals for the live flow, and AI executive search for the leadership of AI itself.