Product Strategy & Growth

I help teams
get aligned,
move fast,
and grow.

A decade inside Adyen, Uber, Onfido and more — now working directly with the teams that need it most.

Book a discovery call → See how I work ↓
From chaos to clarity —
in days, not months.
Payments & fintech specialist
Workshop-first, always
When everything is automated, collaboration is the edge
Every voice in the room matters
Experience from Adyen, Uber, Onfido & more
Product Strategy · Growth Facilitation · Payments & Fintech · North Star Metrics · Design Sprints · Checkout Optimisation · Team Alignment · Growth Experiments · OKR Planning · Discovery & Validation · Product Strategy · Growth Facilitation · Payments & Fintech · North Star Metrics · Design Sprints · Checkout Optimisation · Team Alignment · Growth Experiments · OKR Planning · Discovery & Validation ·
The challenge

Speed without direction.
Direction without input.

The talent is always there. What's missing is the structure to surface it.

?
01
Velocity of coding mistaken for progress
Teams ship fast but nobody stops to ask why. Direction is lost before a single line lands in production.
02
Strategy lost in translation
Intent set at one level, unrecognisable by the time it reaches the people building.
03
Talent that never surfaces
Without the right structure, the loudest voice wins. The best ideas stay unheard.
04
Complexity where clarity should be
Payments, conversion, and monetisation are where I'm most passionate — and where tangled logic most often stalls growth. I know how to untangle it.
About
Stefania Colombo

Not a consultancy.
A thinking partner.

A decade inside some of Europe's most ambitious product organisations — Adyen, Uber, Onfido, Paddle, GetYourGuide, Rocket Internet. I kept seeing the same breakdown: not a talent problem, but a structure problem.

Teams moving fast without asking why. Strategy and execution living in separate worlds. The best ideas staying unheard.

So I built a way of working that fixes exactly that. Structured collaboration. Clear decisions. Every voice in the room contributing.

As AI automates more of how we build, the edge won't be the tools — it'll be the teams who know how to think together. Human alignment is not a soft skill. In the age of AI, it's the hardest edge you can build.

GetYourGuide
Marketplace Growth & Marketing Expansion
Early career
Rocket Internet
Business Development — E-commerce
Adyen
Product Manager — Checkout & Payments
Onfido
Senior Product Manager — Identity Platform
Uber
Senior Product Manager — Growth & Payments
Paddle
Senior Product Manager — Monetisation
Most recent
What I do

Surgical intervention —
workshop, sprint,
or fractional.

Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute discovery call. No commitment, no ambiguity.

WEEK 1
Strategy Sprint

One week. One critical question. Validated assumptions and a clear path forward.

1 week · project
Growth Diagnostic

Audit of metrics, funnel, and retention. The highest-leverage lever you're not pulling.

2 weeks · project
£€
Payments Advisory

Deep checkout, billing and monetisation expertise. Untangling complexity for scale.

project · retainer
North Star Definition

Align on the one metric that matters. Build a framework the whole team believes in.

1–2 weeks · project
Ongoing Advisory

Monthly retainer. I stay close to your context and help navigate decisions as they happen.

monthly · retainer
?✓
Discovery & Validation

Early user signal before you build a single line of code. De-risk before you commit.

2–4 weeks · project
Workshops

Structured sessions.
Real outcomes.

One focused day replaces a month of back-and-forth. Teams leave with decisions they actually stand behind — in person or remote.

Alignment
Strategic Alignment

Surface hidden assumptions, expose real blockers, converge on a shared direction.

M T W T F
Ideation
Design Sprint

Five days to answer a critical question through prototyping and user testing.

Objective KR 1 KR 2 KR 3
Planning
OKR Planning

Set targets the team believes in. Connect daily work to company outcomes.

Hypothesis Test Learn
Growth
Growth Experiment Machine

Hypothesis, metrics, decision rules. Stop guessing, start compounding.

The bigger picture

When everything
is automated,
collaboration is the edge.

AI is changing how products get built. The teams that win won't be the ones who automate the most — they'll be the ones who think together better. Human alignment is not a soft skill. It's the hardest edge you can build.

you PM Eng UX Data
How I work

Fast to start.
Built to last.

01
Discovery call

30 minutes. Understand your challenge, figure out if I'm the right fit. No obligation.

02
Early discovery

1–2 structured sessions to fully understand your team, product, and problem.

03
Proposal in 48h

What I'll do, how long, what it costs. No ambiguity, no surprises.

04
I get to work

I embed fast and deliver value from the first session.

FAQ
Who do you work with?
Founders, product leaders, engineers, designers, and cross-functional teams at startups, scale-ups, and enterprises. Anyone who builds products and wants to move with more clarity, alignment, and purpose.
What does an engagement look like?
Strategy Sprint or Design Sprint: 1–2 weeks. Growth diagnostic: 2–4 weeks. Ongoing advisory retainers: 3–12 months. Everything scoped clearly upfront.
In-person or remote?
Both. Workshops work best in-person — the energy and focus is unbeatable. I'm based in the Netherlands and work regularly across Amsterdam and Italy. Advisory and strategy work is seamless remotely. I adapt to what works for your team.
Do you speak at events or run offsites?
Yes — on product strategy, payments, growth, and collaboration. Reach out and we'll figure out what makes sense.
Why fractional?

The way companies hire
expertise has changed.

"Companies want to operate this way. It's so costly to hire full-time. Fractional leaders who come in and deliver are exactly what the market needs."

A quarter of companies now use fractional leaders — bringing in sharp, specialised thinking for exactly the problem they have, without the overhead of a permanent hire. The model is growing because it forces clarity on both sides: what the problem is, what success looks like, and how fast you can get there.

This is why I work the way I do — structured, focused, and with a clear outcome from day one.

Fractional doesn't mean less committed.
It means more focused.

Let's talk

Ready to get
unstuck?

A product challenge, a team spinning its wheels, a growth question you can't crack. A 30-minute call costs nothing and usually clarifies everything.

Book a free discovery call →