incubation: 8 proof points
Rows on the facts page whose own text or source section carries "incubation". The product name links the page with the full text. All skills.
| Role | Product | Situation | Task | Action | Result | Year | Skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk | CagriSema Digital discovery programme for CagriSema, the company's top drug asset | CagriSema was the first drug to span two therapy areas, diabetes and obesity. Each business unit ran independently with their own priorities and budgets. | Define what digital initiatives should accompany the drug, get both business units to agree, and get it funded. | Started with the problem, and uncovering the new user journeys to create a shared understanding of the problem space across both units. Then ideation: 128 candidate ideas, cut to a shortlist of 5, assumption-tested with prototypes, 4 recommended, each with a funding-gated rollout. Navigated the programme through internal governance. | Funding secured for a portfolio of 4 digital initiatives (a first). Aligned two business units on a common digital strategy (also a first). | Feb 2022 - Feb 2026 | AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget |
| Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk | Digital Incubation Digital incubation unit for branded digital engagement, evaluating build, buy and partner solutions | Asked after Wegovycare to scale its ways of working across the product organisation: to work across silos and help move the organisation from solution-first project thinking to a product model with an outcomes focus. | Build the unit that shapes the organisation's next big bets, and make problem-first the default. | Built the incubation unit entirely through influence. Designed a portfolio model and a gated incubation pipeline. Wrote the discovery playbook. Coached the incubation PMs. Secured funding and managed resourcing and cross-charges for the incubation teams. Evaluated build, buy and partner options for each bet. | Moved the business from solution-first to problem-first, and from output to outcomes. | Feb 2022 - Feb 2026 | AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget |
| Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk | Product Operations standards, artefacts, ways of working | A wider remit across the product pipeline, to complete the move to a product operating model. | Establish metrics across a portfolio of 12 products. | Set product artefacts and quality standards: gate model and deliverables, product-ops metrics, portfolio reports, business case templates, problem and north-star statements. | Helped product teams connect work to commercial outcomes. | Feb 2022 - Feb 2026 | AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget |
| Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk | Head of Patient Products Patient Solutions, a portfolio of consumer engagement products (companion apps adjacent to the medicines) | Interim reorg of product teams before the Wegovy Pill project. | Lead 6 experienced PMs building consumer engagement products, managing by outcomes; for a period, before moving into the pill team where the need was greatest. | Individual coaching and weekly experiment sharing; made individual product metrics public. | Broke product silos, established weekly demos and experiment sharing, encouraged learning loops. | Feb 2022 - Feb 2026 | AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget |
| Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk | project steercos Chaired project steercos. Flipped the format from status updates to interactive co-creation | Steercos were project management checklists: project not product focused, and unsuited for high-uncertainty discovery-stage products. | Chair project steercos. | Flipped the format from status updates to interactive co-creation. | Cross-functional VPs moved from product sceptics to advocates. | Feb 2022 - Feb 2026 | AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | prototyping and user interviews Ways of working across LEO Innovation Lab's product teams | Anthropologists were on staff at the lab, but product teams outsourced the investigation and got learnings second-hand. | Raise the quality bar across the lab, not just his own team, without a mandate over the other teams. | Championed design sprints and user testing. Made rapid prototyping and direct user interviews standard practice across all product teams. First product lead to present mistakes and learnings at the company all-hands. | Prototyping and user interviews became the norm across the lab. The monthly all-hands moved from vanity metrics to mistakes made and lessons learnt. | Nov 2016 - Jan 2020 | AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, turnaround, 0 to 1, startup, team leadership |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | testing beats opinions How design disagreements get settled | At Host Europe, as design manager in a PRINCE2 waterfall setup, a passionate argument with a graphic designer, each convinced their idea was right. Neither knew about testing. | A decade later, at LEO Innovation Lab, the same disagreement with a product designer: he preferred A, Tom preferred B. | They agreed to test it that afternoon. | Users preferred something entirely different, option C. The poor decision was anchoring on their own ideas and locking out better alternatives. Detaching from ego changed everything: it is not about who has the best idea, it is about creating space for learning. | 2005 and about 2017 | AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, turnaround, startup, team leadership |
| PM/GM at LEO Innovation Lab | LEO lab model LEO Innovation Lab as an operating model | LEO Pharma could see digital disruption coming to healthcare. Its answer was an arm's-length innovation lab: better to disrupt ourselves than let a competitor do it. Keeping it separate made sense: different thinking, different ways of working, experts from all sorts of fields. A true melting pot. | Build and ship ventures inside that model, and get them home to the core business. | They did. The lab was incredibly agile, with rapid learning cycles and brilliant peers, but too remote: the innovations struggled to find a home in the core business. | The lab worked in isolation; the parent ship sailed on unchanged, and the model was not sustainable. Disruption cannot be outsourced to a separate unit and grafted back on later; the parent has to change too. That conclusion took Tom to Novo to try the harder bet from inside. | Nov 2016 - Jan 2020 | AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, turnaround, startup, team leadership, remote |