Product conferences are full of success stories. Launch metrics going up and to the right. Frameworks that solved everything. Teams that transformed overnight. What you rarely hear are the stories about the parking lot tears, the meetings that went sideways, and the moments when a product leader realised they were the problem, not the process.
At PR_D_CT DAY 2024, Samia Suys delivered one of the most refreshingly honest talks of the day. A self-described nerdy product professional, Samia drew from three distinct chapters of her career: a global enterprise where she managed product for hardware companion apps at Barco, a governmental organisation where she owned the Ketnet product at VRT, and a startup where she served as VP of Product at Cheqroom. Each chapter came with its own spectacular failure, and each failure came with hard-won lessons.
Her talk is not a retrospective from a position of detached wisdom. It is a direct, personal account of what went wrong, why she did not see it coming, and what she would tell her past self if she could.
