CPO

Also known as: Chief Product Officer, VP Product, SVP Product, Product Director.

What does a CPO do?

A CPO is the executive responsible for the company's product as a whole: what to build, for whom, in what order and how it will affect revenue and key metrics. The CPO builds the product team and ties product decisions to business goals. In a growing company the first CPO also defines how product, engineering and the CEO make decisions together.

• sets the product strategy and chooses what the company will not invest in;
• builds the product organisation: product managers, design, product analytics;
• sets up how product decisions are made, from research to priorities;
• links product metrics to revenue and reports on them to the CEO and the board;
• agrees with engineering, sales and marketing on what ships and when.

When does a company need a CPO?

A company needs a CPO when product decisions can no longer be made by one founder and there are several products, teams or markets. Common triggers: the company is moving from sales-led to product-led growth, investors expect product-driven growth after a round, product teams are pulling in different directions, or product and engineering are fighting over priorities. Another scenario is preparing for a sale, when revenue growth has to be shown through the product quickly. The role will not work if the CEO is not ready to hand over product decisions: then it is better to hire a strong Head of Product to lead the product team within the founder's decisions.

CPO vs Head of Product: what's the difference?

A CPO owns the company's product strategy and its link to revenue, while a Head of Product runs the product team within a strategy that has already been set. The CPO sits at the leadership table and argues with the CEO about direction; the Head of Product organises product managers and the process. The first CPO often has to take part of product decisions away from the founder. A CPO differs from a CTPO in not running engineering.

Why is it hard to hire a CPO?

Hiring a CPO is hard because the title is handed out very differently, and behind it there is often senior product manager experience rather than leadership of a company's product.

• In small companies the only product manager is often called CPO, so the title in a CV says little about level.
• Experience transfers poorly between models: CPOs from B2C and from enterprise B2B solve different problems and think in different metrics.
• A CPO's result is hard to separate from the company's success: the CV shows the product grew, not which decisions the candidate made.
• Candidates with almost identical profiles can differ a lot in salary expectations, and strong CPOs are usually employed and not looking.

How much does a CPO earn?

CPOs working for international companies earn $/€10–18K per month gross, according to NEWHR's 2024 hunting analytics on CPO hiring. Candidates with almost identical profiles can ask for up to 50% different amounts, and bonuses of 10–20% of base are almost always part of the package.

What to decide before hiring a CPO?

• Which product decisions will the CEO hand over, and which will stay? If the founder keeps deciding everything, the CPO becomes an expensive product manager and leaves.
• Is the company product-led or sales-led today, and where should it go? This decides whether you need someone to build a product culture or someone who works closely with sales.
• Will the CPO own design and product analytics? This sets the scale of the role and the candidate pool.
• How will the CPO share priorities with the CTO? Without an agreed rule, the product–engineering conflict simply moves to the leadership team.

Where to find a CPO?

CPOs usually come from companies of a similar size and model (B2B or B2C): sitting CPOs and VPs Product, and heads of product ready for their first leadership-team role. A strong profile signal is a product where the candidate can name their own decisions and their effect on revenue or a key metric, not just the size of the team. A second signal is experience of moving a company to a new growth model or a new market. NEWHR searches for these candidates by the results of their work, not by applications to a job post.

How to assess a CPO in an interview?

A CPO is assessed through a product case on your real data and metrics and a walkthrough of products they led. In the case the candidate decides where to take the product, which metrics matter most and what they would do in the first months. The CEO and the CTO take part on the company side, and references come from product teams the candidate led.

Strong signals:

• connects product decisions to revenue and can show it in numbers;
• names features and directions they shut down themselves;
• asks how decisions are made today before proposing a strategy.

Red flags:

• talks about processes and frameworks, but not about product results;
• cannot separate their contribution from market growth or the team's work;
• does not ask who decides what goes into the roadmap today.

How long does it take to hire a CPO?

We present the first candidates for the CPO role within 5–7 days of the brief. The whole search usually takes one to six months. From our cases: a CPO for a MarTech company in one month.

Related roles

• CTPO — owns both product and engineering in one role.
• CTO / VP Engineering — decides how to build the product, not what to build.
• AI Product Manager — runs an AI product or feature, not the company's product strategy.
• Growth Lead — grows metrics through experiments, not the product as a whole.
• CMO — owns positioning and demand for the product, not the product itself.