# Ali Maaxa, Ph.D.

> Innovation | Incubation | Discovery | Startups | Product-Market Fit/GTM Workshops | Author & Podcaster | AI/ML Product Strategist 2018- (ex-AWS AI, Meta AI, New Relic AI, Recreation.gov)

Location: United States, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/alimaaxaphd

Founder of ProductTheory - helping innovators rocket to revenue through science-backed product-market fit and AI-powered product strategies. Available for fractional PM, PMM, GTM, R&D.

I specialize in transforming product assumptions into market-proven strategies through structured customer discovery and AI-enhanced validation frameworks. With 20+ years leading 0-1 innovation at AWS, Anaplan, and New Relic, I now provide fractional product leadership for startups, emerging founders, and rogue product leaders who need to nail their launch in the AI era.

As a former Big Tech product manager turned fractional strategist, I bring enterprise-grade discovery methods and AI product expertise right-sized for startup budgets. My frameworks have powered successful launches for AWS SageMaker, Recreation.gov, and leading SaaS platforms, with particular depth in AI/ML product development and responsible AI adoption.

Currently providing fractional product leadership and consulting for innovators at Meta, Intel, and Booz Allen through ProductTheory, plus co-leading the AI Governance Group. You'll find my insights in the Culture of Cloud Podcast and "Science & Storytelling of Knowing your Customers."

Areas where I provide fractional support:

📍 AI product strategy and responsible adoption frameworks
📍 Product-market fit sprints and validation for technical products
📍 Customer discovery and ideal customer targeting
📍 AI governance and strategic implementation
Design partner programs and early revenue validation
📍 Fractional CPO/VP Product leadership for AI-enabled companies

I love tackling questions like: "We've built powerful AI capabilities, but we're not sure who will actually pay for it or how to position it responsibly for market success."

I'm passionate about:

📍AI products that amplify human potential rather than replace it
📍 Startups solving real problems with breakthrough AI innovation
📍 Technical products that democratize access to powerful capabilities
📍 Responsible AI development and governance frameworks
Building bridges between AI technical possibility and market reality

## Work Experience
### Fractional Product Leader, Innovation Strategist, Speaker, Author @ ProductTheory.io
Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area
Research, strategize, and innovate AI-powered, highly technical, and niche products across diverse contexts: high-tech SaaS platforms to public sector solutions, managing projects from startups to $3M public contracts, including: 

*Meta AI (Principal, Research & Discovery), 
* 17 High-Tech Stealth Startups (VPN, Data Security & Drift, Developer Tools)
*Booz Allen (Government Tools Re-Platform, 31.5m accounts, 131.1m sessions/year)
*Intel (R&D, She Will Connect platform for Digital Africa)
*AI + EdTech (Peer-to-peer platforms, youth & ethical AI, regulation & compliance)

Developed SAiAF framework for organizational AI governance based on comprehensive product discovery, now adopted by 14+ organizations for AI implementation strategy

Co-founded AI Governance Group, delivering workshops and thought leadership on responsible AI product development.

### Director, Product Experience (AI-Augmented CX + UX + Market Insights) @ CharacterStrong
Jan 2025 – Present | United States
Built and directed an AI-augmented insights function from scratch, combining UX, CX, and market insights into clear strategic signals; used end-to-end workflow and tooling analysis to orchestrate process & vendors

Integrated AI tools for rapid product discovery, progressive prototyping (Figma AI), and iteration to accelerate Time To Release (TTR); trained team and stakeholders to harness these tools and tasks for data-driven product development

Leveraged AI analytics (Pendo AI), jobs-to-be-done surveys, and context-engineered qualitative data (Gong AI, Support Calls, CRM notation) for product, UX and information architecture transformation

Led cross-functional initiative to adopt & apply Jobs to Be Done framework, generate user journey maps to serve them, and instrument analytics tools to benchmark product improvements.

### Product Marketing Manager @ Stealth AI Startup
Jan 2025 – Present | Greater Seattle Area

### Professor, Behavioral Science @ Pierce College
Jan 2024 – Present

### Fractional PMM: AI/ML Change Management, Product Leadership, Adoption & Governance @ AI Governance Group
Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area
Leverage customer discovery to productize a SAiAF (Strategic AI Adoption Framework).
GTM strategy. Thought leadership, panels, keynotes.

### Principal: Product Strategy @ Anaplan
Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Portland, Oregon, United States
Conducted deep customer discovery in partnership with sales with 73 enterprise teams, understanding real customer needs and translating insights into product roadmap priorities that drove retention wins with S&P Global, J&J, and LinkedIn

Developed end-to-end journey maps and JTBD frameworks through direct customer interaction, reducing time-to-value by 40% and doubling feature adoption across enterprise customer base 

Established continuous discovery approach working closely with customers through interviews and research studies, aligning C-suite stakeholders and informing $2 million increase in product investments 

Collaborated with cross-functional product teams to deliver lovable experiences while maintaining strategic focus on measurable product growth

Product Manager: Customer Process Mapping: a productized offering to serve customers in their Anaplan adoption, integration, and governance journeys. The value prop was to reduce Time To Value and Total Cost of Operations for planning across business units.

### Lead: Product Strategy: Amazon Artificial Intelligence @ Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area
Led and strategized user research and field discovery for Amazon SageMaker, an open-source platform for AI/ML innovation.

Product strategy for AWS AI/ML and audit manager, shipping production features with quality/latency/cost optimization that serves 300k active users

Led GTM for new AI/ML acquisitions 

Developed frameworks for Jobs to be Done and journey mapping across AWS product org, improving cross-team alignment and reducing time-to-insight for development teams

Supported 6 teams building customer-obsessed AI/ML products from 0-1, contributing to acquisition decisions worth $600 million

### Senior Product Manager: Product Incubator, Artificial Intelligence @ New Relic, Inc.
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020
Researched and incubated 0-1 AIOps product, conducting enterprise customer research (AT&T, Disney, Starbucks) that validated business case and contributed to $600k seed funding

Delivered state-of-industry analysis and thought leadership that informed GTM strategy and positioned company as market leader in AIOps space

### Visiting Professor: Behavioral Science @ Portland State University
Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area

### Product Strategist, Research & Development, Seattle SoundTransit, OregonMetro Tools, Recreation.gov @ FCV Consult
Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Portland, Oregon Area
At FCV, I led teams in research strategy and execution on a series of high-stakes, high visibility projects with major impact. 
*Research Lead, Major Transformation: Seattle SoundTransit Signage
*Research Lead, Major Site Replatforming: Recreation.Gov
*Research Lead, Digital Tools, Apps and Replatforming: Oregon Metro (Oregonmetro.gov)

### Innovation Strategist @ C'EST WHAT?
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Portland, Oregon Area

### Senior Director, R&D @ Sound Transit
Jan 2018 – Jan 2018

### Director, Service Design @ Booz Allen Hamilton
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Various

### Senior Director, R&D @ Metro (Oregon regional government)
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017

### Professor Digital Cultures, Director: Digital Africa @ Virginia Tech
Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 | Blacksburg, VA
Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology, Africana and Women’s and Gender Studies at Virginia Tech, where I teach courses on digital Blackness, postcolonial and feminist media studies, social movements, and media anthropology. I have published and presented on the complicated role of digital media in regime change in the Islamic world (including the 2012 elections in my long-term fieldsite of Dakar, Senegal), as well as the importance of digital media to community and ritual life as they intersect with national and global political economies. Direct Digital Africa, a research project that examines the emergence of new digital technologies (as well as the “off-label” use of existing technologies) across the Global South. I am seeking funding and partnerships with university-based digital designers based on collaboration with globally-underserved populations.

### Director @ Digital Africa: A Research Group
Jan 2013 – Jan 2017
Director, Digital Africa: a research project (drawing from the fields of Human Computer Interaction and Anthropology of Innovation) that examines the emergence of new digital technologies (as well as the “off-label” use of existing technologies) across the Global South. I am seeking funding and partnerships with university-based digital designers based on collaboration with globally-underserved populations.

### Visiting Professor: Digital Media and Global Cultures @ William & Mary
Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | Williamsburg, VA
Here, I researched and taught on topics including the digital humanities, digital cultures, media, anthropology and ethnographic research, writing and editing, and culture. I received an NAACP Outstanding Faculty Award for my teaching work and numerous grants and fellowships for my research. In addition to training and leading teams of undergraduate researchers in conducting original ethnographic work and digital design in my media anthropology and digital undergrounds courses, I chaired an international convention on popular media and culture (IASPM) and led a working group on the digital humanities. A list of some of the publications I produced during this time is linked below.

### Chair, IASPM-US Conference @ INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR MUSIC INC
Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | Louisville, Kentucky Area
Chaired the annual meeting of IASPM-US at the invitation of organization leadership; successfully gathered grant funding, managed 700 paper proposals and associated scheduling; planned and executed programming, keynotes, and schedule.

### Course Content Developer, Curriculum Designer, Instructor @ William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 | Chapel Hill, NC
Plan curriculum, design course plans, write original textbook content, implement assessments, evaluation. You can view one of my courses at the link below: http://ccocomm142.web.unc.edu/
using the password: popular

### Course Instruction and Curriculum Design @ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jan 2005 – Jan 2013 | Chapel Hill, NC

### Mellon/ACLS Fellow, Global Research @ The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 | Dakar, Senegal
I ask how Senegalese women develop critical, “off-label” uses of popular technologies to amplify their work: the widespread audio recording of ritual events to cell-phone sim cards, for instance, or the heavy tagging of digital “selfies” to replicate traditional modes of portraiture and prestige.

### Data Visualization and Documentary Filmmaker @ Digital Africa: A Research Group
Jan 2007 – Jan 2011 | Chapel Hill, NC
2016 “Reverberation 2: Women Praise Singers of Urban Senegal” Director.
2015 Director/Curator, “Generation Fly to Fly.”
2011 "Reverberation 1"
2008“Home of the Double-Headed Eagle: Visionary Vernacular Architecture” Co-Director with B. Graves.
2008 Soul Business: Commerce and Community in a Durham, North Carolina Holiness
Storefront Church. (Documentary Website, 2008-12)
2007 Material Mississippi: Material Cultures of the Mississippi Delta (Documentary Website)
2007“Let the World Listen Right.” Co-Director with B. Graves and J. Williams. 2006 • UNC Screen Arts Series, Featured Film.


## Education
### Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Communication and Media Studies, Anthropology
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

### Certificate: Product Management for Engineers (enrolled July 2020 in complete 2022), End-to-end product management for highly technical teams and products
Cornell University

### Certificate: Market Strategy (enrolled July 2020 in complete 2022), Research, Analytics, Modeling, Decision-Making, Distribution, Global Marketing
Cornell University

### Certificate in African and African American Studies
Duke University

### Master’s Degree in Folklore
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

### Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, Art
Grinnell College


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alimaaxa
- Website: http://www.producttheory.io

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Last updated: 2026-04-05