Product at Heart is jointly organized & curated by Petra Wille and Arne Kittler.

We share passion for nicely curated ways of bringing curious product people together. And we strongly believe that it is important to expose product people to new impulses, to topics that may challenge them and trigger them to reflect. Because of this we do not want to be a mainstream conference that serves the same standard topics every year.

Between 2017-2022 we successfully organized MTP Engage Hamburg in collaboration with the great folks at Mind the Product. Since 2023 we have been running Product at Heart as an independent product conference.

Petra Wille is a seasoned product leadership coach and author who has been instrumental in enhancing product team dynamics since 2013. Her journey began in software development at Hubert Burda Media, followed by roles that honed her product management acumen at SAP and XING. Her leadership evolved through positions as Head of Product and Managing Director at tolingo, paving the way for her career as an independent consultant and coach, where she focuses on nurturing the personal growth of product managers.

Her first book, STRONG Product People: A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers, released in January 2021, has become a staple in the product community worldwide. Following its success, Petra published STRONG Product Communities, a comprehensive guide to fostering product communities of practice, drawing from her rich experience and research.

Arne started his career at digital creative agency Fork Unstable Media and spent formative 10 years working for for global brands & retailers. From 2011-2022 he worked in various product leadership roles at XING, most recently as VP Product.

In 2022 Arne joined Facelift, one of the leading European SaaS solutions for Social Media Orchestration, as CPO.

Arne is a strong believer that early alignment always pays off and escalation can be OK. He sees strong similarities between good product managers and good rock bassists (guess which instrument he plays…)

We are happy to collaborate with a team of lovely people:

Lisa Radel
Antti Heikkonen
Tobias Freudenreich
Shaun Russell
Mirja Bester
Björn-Torge Schulz
Bernd Fauler
Lotta Eckardt

Our event is only possible with the help of great volunteers. We schedule our volunteer assignments in such a way that everybody also gets to see some of the content they are keen about. Volunteering is also a great chance if you are new in product and want to connect with new, likeminded people.

If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up here.