I help founders and product leaders grow into the executive they can become.
Been there, will help with that
Ironically, the leaders I work with are quite good at the job they came from.
But the new role brings new challenges — running functions they've never run, earning a seat with peers who've been there longer, managing up to a founder who moves faster than they can handle, making a team matter strategically when it's been treated as execution nodes.
That transition rarely fails from lack competence or effort. It fails because it requires new skills and perspectives, beyond what made them strong in their specific function: handling ambiguity and conflicting direction, reading the room, choosing when to push and when to hold, turning cross-functional friction into leverage instead of a fight. I thrive in helping people in that transition.
I spent close to twenty years building software products (mostly in Silicon Valley) and the teams behind them. I've led product and design for founder CEOs at companies that grew fast and got hard. Roomote, Metabase, Gladly, Google, YouTube. I became a VP Product without ever being a PM. I created design departments in highly technical companies that didn't believe in it. I push thousands of lines to production daily as I live the AI tsunami.
I've been there, now I'm helping people through it. I've reported to the visionary founder, been a founder myself, run the function I'd never run, sat in most of the seats I'm trying to help align. It's the unique perspective I can coach from.
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Bruno is as drawn to the art and science of coaching & developing people as to the work itself. He pairs it with a natural sense of how organizations actually work: people, incentives, teams, leadership. It’s a hard thing to name, but it makes him very effective at this kind of work.
That plus his unique background – a product management executive with a deep history in design – makes him particularly effective.
When we worked together, his direct reports universally called him the best manager they’d ever had, and he was respected across the org.
Chris Jones · Partner
Silicon Valley Product Group -
Bruno is an incredible listener and mirror. He has a knack for picking up on the subtleties of what people are saying, both verbally and nonverbally.
By not accepting what’s on the surface, he helps others to be the best versions of themselves. He doesn’t tell them how to do something, or whether they’re right or wrong.
Instead, he guides them through a process of self-discovery. And then he synthesizes things without trying (or so it seems), taking complex thoughts and making them simple.
Meagan DeMenna · Chief Marketing Officer
Revmo, CORE, MercuryWorks -
Bruno helps people grow into owning more, with more confidence. He gives you the one insight you need in the moment and trusts you to internalize it, rather than over-explaining or taking the wheel — and he knows when to encourage versus when to have the tough-love conversation.
He’s quite good at getting to the heart of things. His range sharpens this (easily going from technical questions to design feedback to pricing strategy) so he can give a holistic perspective to people who are more narrowly focused, and his energy moves conversations towards action.
Maz Ameli · Head of Design
Metabase, Lookout -
Bruno is the best boss I’ve ever had. He has a depth of experience and cross-disciplinary knowledge to draw on that helped me grow as a leader.
He regularly helped me see things from new perspectives, forced me to re-check assumptions I had, and ultimately helped me navigate situations without ever prescribing a specific path.
Jeff Zych · Design Leader
LaunchDarkly, Pragma, PB&J -
Bruno is uniquely good at listening, synthesizing what he heard and finding signal in the noise.
I’d often talk to him about challenges which felt fuzzy, he’d reply with ‘so this is X’, and boom – he’d be right.
Lucas Coelho · Co-Founder/Partner
Heron Health, Ryft -
Bruno has this superpower in talking about complex things in human terms, with accessible analogies. He looks off to the side for a second and comes back with “you know X? Well, this is a lot like that.”
The net effect is that I’d come in lost about a problem, and leave with at another way to look at it. Most people I see hone straight in on the problem itself, without the wider lens on.
Kyle Doherty · Founding Designer
Twitter, Metabase, Gumroad -
Bruno is brilliantly smart, opinionated yet open-minded, supportive and attentive. He’s the person who helped me build beautiful and inspiring things.
He is among the best leaders I’ve ever worked with: everyone should experience this kind of leadership at least once in a lifetime.
Margaret Rimek · Founder, Marketer
Archestra.AI, Metabase, Pix -
Bruno is one of the best leaders I’ve had the opportunity to work with.
He’s uniquely capable at making complicated things incredibly simple, yet effective. This applies to products, but especially to how people work. I presume you can do that because of your design background, ability to listen, great skill for analogies, and realistic business sense.
Kyle Kacius · Product Leader
Gladly, Symphony, Holy Cow
My Practice
In my coaching practice, I use empathy, experience and a knack for simplifying to help a small number of clients understand their challenges, find a way through, and get to the next level.
Given my mixed background in product, design and engineering, my approach is cross-functional by nature: I help you see things from new perspectives, finding paths forward. See what shapes my thinking is in my writing and bookshelf.
Sessions are held in English or Brazilian Portuguese.
Most engagements are the leader and me, 1-2 sessions a month, built around present challenges: the CEO who's misaligned, the friction with Eng or Sales, the team moving slow (or too fast), the decision you keep circling, the conversation you're dreading. We work on it together, mostly through questions, sometimes with a concrete answer pulled from having been there. You leave each session with immediate action items, and over time, your own system for handling the next one.
Act on it
I only work with a handful of people at once, so fit matters on both sides. A first call is essential to figure out whether we get along and if I can actually be of help.
If any of this resonates at all, let's talk. No pitch, no commitment.