To celebrate World Product Day 2025 (21 May), we’re highlighting the people behind the role in the University of Exeter’s Digital Transformation Division. Our team of Product Managers bring together a diverse group of professionals who each took a unique path into Product Management, but they all share a common passion for solving problems and creating better experiences for colleagues and students.
Product Management is a strategic role at the intersection of users, technology, and organisational goals. Product Managers (PMs) are responsible for understanding user needs, defining problems, shaping solutions, and working collaboratively with a wide range of teams to bring them to life.
Last week we shared insight into Carla and Allan’s journeys to becoming Product Managers at the University of Exeter, and this week we are focusing on Zoe and Eve’s career paths to their current roles in Product!
Our Product Management Career Journeys
Zoe – Product Manager
“I started my career as a Data Analyst for a data analytics start-up. After a few months working on data entry, improvement and organisation, I progressed into a Project Management role which utilised my organisational and planning skills. I kept close to the core product, owning and managing the company’s Cloud database, running programmatic analysis of that database and managing the database’s client-facing frontend, all of which helped me to gain a deep understanding of the product and our user’s needs.
Project management plays a key part in any product role, and this experience prepared me well for my next position as a Product Owner at a software company. My initial focus in this role was to establish a new product development and release process with the company’s CTO. As part of a cross-functional team, I managed incoming requirements from multiple streams, working closely with developers, testing and support to ensure that user needs and requirements were incorporated into our day-to-day and longer-term product plans.
I love the variety of product management. While core tasks like backlog management, task triage and stakeholder communication are common, no two roles are the same. For example, alongside core responsibilities, I’ve been heavily involved in the improvement of a variety of user-facing processes (including user onboarding, customer support and product release) and in the creation of user-facing product training material. Product management is a great avenue if you’re interested in a varied job working across multiple teams, if you’re passionate about user experience and keen to develop skills in clear information communication.”
Eve – Head of Product
“My journey into Product Management definitely wasn’t a straight line. After studying Psychology at uni, I joined Vodafone’s Graduate Scheme, excited to figure out what makes people tick in a business setting. My first placement in ‘Go To Market’ wasn’t quite the dream start—I hated it, to be honest! But things turned around when I moved into the Digital team to support eCommerce, where I discovered the world of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation). Testing, learning, and constantly improving digital experiences based on real data just made so much sense to me!
From there, I worked on end-to-end customer journey design in a Customer Experience role and then moved into Digital Care, redesigning support content and digital help journeys. All of it fuelled my obsession with creating seamless, user-focused experiences. That’s when I found Product Management and knew it was where I wanted to be.
I threw myself into learning all things Agile—Kanban, SAFe, Scrum—and moved into Product Owner roles across Web, App, and Chatbot platforms. I loved the breadth of knowledge around different technologies this gave me. But after a while, I knew I’d hit a ceiling and needed a new challenge to develop the skills I needed to grow into people management and strategic leadership.
Next I became a Lead Digital Journey Manager, overseeing a strategic roadmap without my own dev team. It was a totally different way of working and a brilliant learning curve. I’m a big believer that career growth isn’t always a straight line—often it’s about stepping sideways to learn something new.
Now, as Head of Product here at the University, I get to lead an amazing team and help shape the digital experiences of our colleagues and students. It’s exciting, it’s meaningful—and best of all, we’re just getting started.
Product Management is a growing and rewarding profession – if you are someone that thrives on collaboration, has a natural curiosity, and enjoys continuous learning, Product Management might be the career for you.”
– Written by Zoe Allen, Product Manager and Eve Carney, Head of Product
Find out more about what we have coming up this month to celebrate World Product Day 2025.
Take a look at our 2030 Digital Strategy.
Read our previous blog post to learn about Carla and Allan’s career paths to product management.