Why work with me?
I bring a wide range of experience and skills to help you succeed. I was an early product leader at Atlassian, where I led JIRA and helped grow the Atlassian Product team to over 150 members on the journey to an IPO and $2.4B ARR. I also led the Atlassian Growth team, doubling customer growth over two years by introducing a free offering and implementing role-based packaging and pricing. Most recently, I served as the Chief Product Officer at Contentful, where I scaled the Product organization from 15 to 65 people, expanded the product portfolio beyond a composable content platform for developers, and introduced offerings for developers, marketers, and designers. This transition turned Contentful into a multi-product company with a market-leading platform, the largest marketplace of apps, the introduction of a new product (Studio), and the successful acquisition of a third product (Personalization). I have also been responsible for Pricing, Growth, Data Science, Product Marketing, and Product Operations functions.
Having built, rebuilt, grown, and transformed teams from 1 to 100 people at small, medium, and large companies, I balance a hypothesis-driven approach with urgency and intensity.
Ultimately, I’m a builder. I drive growth across product and go-to-market models, including Enterprise Sales, Freemium, and product-led growth, to achieve meaningful organizational impact.
Product + Growth Leader
Mairead O’Donovan is a product and growth leader who partners with high growth startups, founders, and builders to launch products and accelerate growth across all stages.
Across the span of her career, Mairead has built and scaled a diverse array of product organizations at category-defining SaaS companies like Atlassian, Contentful, and Microsoft.
Mairead started her career as an engineer, consistently drawn to hyper-growth startups where she focused on transforming new ideas into v1 products and scaling them into billion-dollar businesses.
Focus Areas
Product-led Growth Product Strategy, Packaging & Pricing
Product Definition & Positioning Product Org Design, Hiring, & operating global teams
Product & Solution Marketing Product Processes
Why work with a Product Advisor
Product leadership is hard, especially in high-growth environments, where historically, most product launches in this industry are commercial failures. Additionally, the disciplines of Product Management, Product-Led Growth, and Pricing are evolving very rapidly. It can be exceptionally challenging for a founder or head of product to “learn on the job,” given the high stakes, the heavy demands of product leadership, and the relatively few people with relevant experience and available time to tap for help.
How I help Founders?
The majority of the clients I work with are founders who own the product. In many cases, they do not have experience or training in product management. Additionally, they often come from technical backgrounds and lack experience in managing the business side of a product.
They value having an advisor to help map product best practices to their company's specific needs and a thought partner to fine-tune the ideal customer profile, product strategy, pricing strategy, and go-to-market strategy.
How I help Heads of Product
A significant number of my clients are Heads of Product who have been hired at various levels to run the Product function. Product leaders in high-growth environments must scale and develop as quickly as the company scales. They value having an advisor to help them rapidly develop their craft, not only to perform well in their current role but also to position themselves for promotion into their next role.
