Helping scaling companies set up product operations and portfolio governance, as a fractional leader or a coach.
About Carolina Castanheira
I am a product leader who builds the product operations and portfolio management capabilities that accelerate value delivery at scale.
With 20+ years of leadership experience across startups, scale-ups, consulting and enterprises, including HERE Technologies and HelloFresh, I work at the intersection of strategy and operations. With a product mindset, I bring clarity, build structures, and change behaviours that unlock speed and impact:
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Your teams start collaborating to execute at pace, without your organisational design getting in their way.
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Your people start making timely, informed trade-off decisions that make sense at the portfolio level.
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You understand how investments in technology are contributing to strategy execution.
Organisations hire me when they are scaling and the speed is not following.
The usual symptoms are painful for leaders and teams alike:
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The value of product management is not showing at scale.
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It is unclear how trade-off decisions are being made and what their impact is at the portfolio level.
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The right people are being hired, but decisions still land on the senior leaders' tables.
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The product operating model transformation is not showing the promised results.
I usually start with a 2-week assessment. I meet with you to understand your pain points, I run a survey with your teams to understand how their pain points align with yours, and I interview people on the staff for more in-depth perspectives. At the end of this assessment you will get a report with a recommendation on where I should start.
We can then decide which of the models below works best for you:
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Fractional leader. I join your leadership team two to three days a week. I set up product operations and portfolio governance with you, and I make sure your people can run it after I leave.
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Interim leader. If you need someone full time right now, I can step in as your interim product operations or portfolio lead for 6 to 12 months. Then I move to a fractional role, so the work continues without a gap.
Leaders hire me as a coach to expand their capabilities
I work one-to-one with product leaders, product managers, product operations managers and program managers who are setting up or growing a product operations or portfolio function, or who want to expand the product operations or portfolio management capabilities of their teams. Every session ends with something you can use the next day.
A little more about me
My journey in tech started in the early 2000s, and I led product management for data-driven decision-making products most of my career. Trained as an architect and urban planner, I learned early on to use design and systems thinking in my work. These are strong lenses I bring to product operations and portfolio management.
I practise yoga regularly. On weekends, I love visiting museums and castles across the Netherlands.
I write about portfolio governance, decision-making and product thinking.
You can read the articles in Resources, or follow me on LinkedIn.
What People Say
Rémy Aldasoro,
Principal Product Manager
"I always felt things moved better when she was involved. She brings structure and clear thinking, and she keeps discussions grounded in real data."
Lénaic Guiader,
Data & AI Leader
"The results were profound: stronger cross-functional collaboration, clearer strategic focus, and a culture that prioritized impact"