About Us

We’re problem solvers with a ton of experience—and a whole lot of passion.

We have the successes and bruises to know what works and what doesn’t. Our team comes with decades of real-life experience building digital, physical and IoT products, as well as portfolios in startups and enterprises. 

Even better? We come with a lot of passion to change your company’s product mindset.

What We Do

We help companies like you take the leap to building more successful products. We aim to change the way you think, create and deploy strategy. The result? A competitive advantage, increased job satisfaction and hiring + retaining top talent.

The Pathfinder Journey

2012
The Moment of Impact
Pathfinder founders, Brett Buchanan and Nick Baker, met while working at Gap, Inc., which is recognized as one of the most mature retail technology organizations in the world. It was at Gap, where Brett learned the impact product management could have on a business.
1
2012
2015
The Columbus Product Club
Brett’s love for his role at Gap Inc. inspired him to create the Columbus Product Club, with the mission is to bring people in Central Ohio together to learn from each other and grow the product discipline to rival anywhere in the world.
2
2015
2018
The Path Forward
Through the Columbus Product Club, it became clear that many businesses (particularly those who went through a large Agile transformation) were experiencing similar challenges—predominately a result of not having a product management discipline. Brett and Nick were frustrated by this and decided to start Pathfinder Product as a way to help businesses implement product management and a product mindset.
3
2018
2021
Scaling
As the demand for Pathfinder’s services grew, so did the business in 2021. Services such as recruiting were formally established to satisfy needs of new and existing clients. Brett brought in key thought leaders to oversee hardware consulting, recruiting, and coaching.
4
2021

Meet the Team

brendan

Brendan Gardner

Brendan is a father, husband and a product enthusiast with over 10 years of product experience. From sprawling enterprises to small businesses he has stepped into various needs to help his teams and clients succeed. He loves rolling up his sleeves and solving tactical problems either through coaching or active participation.

brett

Brett Buchanan

Brett has been a Product Manager for over 10 years. For the past 8 years, he has been helping companies grow and improve their product discipline. His specialties include product culture, product development lifecycle (and how it fits into the rest of the organization), developing repeatable strategic frameworks, and executing to a vision.

Dominic

Dom Michalec

Dom’s passion for product began early in his career while working in healthcare IT startups. Since then, Dom has focused on helping Product teams see the Why through the How when it comes to tackling tough problems on behalf of customers and business. Dom specializes in aligning business/product strategies, behavior design, product discovery, and agility.

jen

Jen Tedrow

Jen has over 10 years of experience in product management in companies of all sizes ranging from startup to Fortune 500. Her expertise ranges from tactical execution to product strategy. She is a data-driven, outcomes-based product leader with a background in organizational change management, leadership, and business.

jody

Jody Wunderlich

Jody is an experienced product leader with over 15 years product management experience in companies of all sizes from Fortune 50 to Inc. 5000. She specializes in driving the vision and roadmap for businesses by collaborating with cross-functional partners to deliver successful results for the company and their customers.

justin

Justin Mayer

Justin loves building products, categories, and even companies. His career has taken him from Fortune 100 to startups and everything in between. In that journey, he's curated a skillset of business strategy, design thinking for innovation, and product commercialization. While he dabbles in the software world, the hardware space is where he shines.

nick

Nick Baker

Nick has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to how companies leverage technology and build products. From founding a software business himself to working inside large enterprises, Nick has experience working with companies of all sizes and understands the nuances of how to successfully navigate the challenges and politics that are unique to each one.

raymie

Raymie Smith

Raymie is a product and IT leader with over 20 years combined experience in Quality Assurance, Systems Analysis, Solution Architecture, Digital Transformation, User Experience Design, and Product Strategy & Management. He believes that every role is a customer service role and uses his varied skill set to enable customer success at both the organizational and individual levels.

tammy

Tammy Lawlor

Tammy is an experienced product leader and enterprise coach specializing in large-scale agile and product transformations. Tammy has partnered with organizations and teams in industries as varied as healthcare, education, retail, and financial services in adopting a product mindset and orienting towards a strategy and delivery approach centered around valuable business outcomes.

zack

Zack Kelly

Zack has been a product person for the entirety of his career, though it’s come in many different flavors. He built a company doing automation and later went into consulting for a technology firm where he applied his learnings from his previous roles to help teams successfully implement software solutions and guide them towards success.

shawn

Shawn Leitner

Shawn has been in various Product roles for over 10 years, with experience in both the public and private sector, and in domains such as payments, eCommerce, financial services, and logistics. He is also an avid networker, and strongly believes that Product leaders have a responsibility for recruiting, onboarding, coaching, and mentoring their Product talent.

Kevin

Kevin McCann

Kevin's passion and specialty is helping clients become exceptional at product leadership and product management to create true value and purpose for customers, employees, and businesses. He has over 15 years experience in Product Coaching, Product Leadership, and consulting leadership across startups and Fortune 500 companies.

Let’s Co-Create Positive Product Change In Your Organization