Leslie Neal
Senior leader with expertise in hands-on product management and creating the ways of working that transform how teams build and ship digital products. I have extensive experience across Fortune 50 enterprises, SaaS companies, and startups.
I’ve built marketing technology platforms that drove $40M in revenue, directed product strategy across 70+ teams, and scaled new teams from 0-1.
I’m equal parts product, technical, and domain expert, which means I see the whole problem: what the business needs, what the technology can actually do, and what it takes for people to adopt the result.
Skip to portfolio ↓Core Competencies
Experience
AKQA
Apr 2026 – PresentFreelance Product Lead
- Drive UX decisions, define design requirements, prioritize and approve work, and translate final designs into detailed engineering requirements, annotations, and acceptance criteria
- Review solution architecture during technical discovery, validating API payloads directly to identify and resolve gaps between system-of-record data, BFF services, and design requirements
- Represent product in engineering standups, resolve open questions, and advise client stakeholders on trade-offs and backlog priorities for future releases
- Create and manage the backlog, prepare future-state Figma designs and requirements, and conduct visual QA of the build
Workable Strategy
Jan 2023 – Apr 2026Founder | Product Consultant
- Served as consulting partner to a multi-brand QSR company; transformed product operations, trained product managers, and devised new communication frameworks
- Defined cross-functional digital measurement capabilities, shifting the digital team from activity tracking to outcome-based measurement — read the case study
- Aligned product leaders at a Fortune 50 retailer to achieve digital transformation goals by establishing roadmap strategy, stakeholder alignment, and cross-functional operating models
- Designed and implemented a custom discovery and development framework and product operations playbook for a large, complex enterprise — read the case study
- Integrated AI across all consulting workflows, including synthesis of stakeholder interviews, delivering the output of a three-person team
The Home Depot
Jun 2021 – Dec 2022Director, Product Strategy & Operations Feb 2022 – Dec 2022
Sr. Manager, Product Strategy & Operations Jun 2021 – Feb 2022
- Directed product portfolio strategy across 70+ product teams, defining, naming, and connecting the work into one organizational direction, aligning digital initiatives to corporate goals and securing record-breaking online sales
- Created a unified 5-year roadmap, reallocating $10M of capital to higher-impact initiatives by identifying redundancy and improving cross-functional alignment
- Managed capital investment and resource allocation, and expanded portfolio funding by 4% through performance-focused annual planning and ROI determination
- Served on the product leadership team and as chief of staff to the Head of Product, reviewing and approving major initiatives, acting as proxy, and leading executive communications, quarterly business reviews, and board presentations
- Established and scaled a new product strategy and operations team to oversee product operations and portfolio roadmap prioritization, increasing productivity by 30%
- Developed frameworks for OKRs, value-based prioritization, measurement, and storytelling across product teams
- Led a product special project engaging an external design agency to create personalized, omnichannel solutions for the connected digital and in-store experience; managed the engagement end to end, conducted in-store research, and integrated the resulting concepts into product team roadmaps, increasing customer engagement by 5%
The Home Depot
Nov 2019 – Jun 2021Sr. Manager, Product Management – Marketing Technology
- Defined MarTech strategy and aligned 20+ marketing leaders on personalization roadmap for CMS, CDP, and campaign systems to support omnichannel retail experiences, securing a 115% increase in funding
- Designed MarTech team structure and led strategic hiring of 6 product managers to meet stakeholder needs and technology requirements
- Delivered $40M+ revenue increase through end-to-end product leadership of 10+ enterprise platform teams managing product content, digital assets, and customer data
- Orchestrated build vs. buy evaluation and managed RFP processes for DAM, CDP, CMS, and Campaign Management tools and managed ongoing partner relationships
The Home Depot
Jan 2018 – Nov 2019Sr. Product Manager – Marketing Technology, DAM
- Transformed digital asset management systems supporting product content workflows across retail operations, saving $2M in tech costs and mitigating $10M in legal exposure
- Boosted image reuse by 7x and adoption by 200% by redesigning DAM workflows, implementing metadata standards, and aligning cross-functional OKRs for merchandising, marketing, and online teams
- Built integrations between CMS, DAM, and PIM systems to drive faster delivery of product content, increasing sales by $11M
- Planned and managed UAT and a pilot rollout, incorporating findings into the enterprise launch and sunsetting the legacy DAM
Moxie Interactive
Aug 2016 – Oct 2017Technology Solutions Consultant
- Defined and delivered innovative mobile products and digital service portals for a Fortune 50 telecom, generating $1M+ in new agency business
- Facilitated coordination across 5 internal product teams and 3 agencies
- Owned requirements for account creation, account management, and sign-in features, gathering needs through client workshops, validating them against partner agency designs, and delivering annotated designs in weekly cycles
Aptos
Jan 2015 – Aug 2016Principal Product Consultant
- Delivered 12+ enterprise e-commerce and CMS solutions, increasing client revenue by 25%
- Served as product expert in pre-sales and on client engagements, defining e-commerce, PIM, and CMS configurations and scoping custom enhancements into statements of work
- Acted as product owner for custom enhancements, partnering with engineering and UX on solutions, writing detailed functional and integration requirements, grooming the backlog, and running sprint planning
- Coordinated QA, conducted UAT and final approval, and produced release notes and knowledge base articles in partnership with marketing
- Led professional services team restructure, increasing implementation capacity by 50%
FreebeePay
May 2012 – Sep 2014Director of Product Management
- Owned the full product for a mobile POS platform and led development, building the product that secured $1.2M in funding
- Shaped go-to-market strategy and produced the product materials used by marketing
- Drove a 40% increase in user acquisition and launched white-label offers and payments tools
- Retail Technology
- E-Commerce
- Content Management (CMS)
- Digital Asset Management (DAM)
- Mobile Apps
- Enterprise SaaS
- APIs & Data
- AI Development & Workflows
Kennesaw State University
B.S. Political Science
Selected Work
A portfolio of case studies from client engagements I’ve led and products I’ve designed and built.
From Fragmented Dashboards to a Unified Measurement Framework
Helped a digital team shift from activity tracking to outcome-based measurement that drives strategic decisions.
Read the full story →Building a Shared Operating Model
Coached a marketing ops team to adopt product thinking, moving from reactive firefighting to strategic partnership.
Read the full story →Temporize™
A time management and productivity app designed to help people focus on what matters most.
View project →StoryFlow
Helps product managers turn data and decisions into compelling narratives for any audience.
View project →