Show Notes
In this episode, I speak with Katya Denike, Chief Product Officer at Holland & Barrett, the 150-year-old health and wellness retailer that has become a household name on the UK high street. Having previously worked at McKinsey, Yandex, Ozon, and Beyond 100, she now leads Holland & Barrett's ambitious digital transformation - helping the company evolve from a traditional retailer into a global wellness ecosystem. We cover a lot, including:
Transforming a heritage retailer: Holland & Barrett is delivering double-digit growth through a sweeping digital and cultural transformation, investing in everything from supply chain systems to customer-facing apps. Global vs local: The company builds strong global digital capabilities (like search and e-commerce infrastructure) while tailoring ~20% of the experience for each market to meet regulatory and customer needs. High street resilience: Despite doom-and-gloom headlines, Holland & Barrett is thriving by focusing on product-market fit, preventative healthcare, and efficient tech-enabled operations. The app transformation: Taking the mobile app in-house turned it from a struggling third-party product (<5% of digital revenue, 3-star rating) into a core strategic channel (>30% revenue share, 4.5+ rating). Internal product management is sexy too: Katya insists that logistics, pricing systems, and data management are some of the most rewarding areas for product managers, enabling everything else to work. Team structure: Around 100 people in product, design, and research, split between "firm foundations" (core systems) and "omnichannel customer experience", plus a small but mighty product ops team. Leadership leap: Moving into her first CPO role was daunting, but support from her manager pushed her to take the leap and build a truly independent product function inside the company. Skills for success: Katya highlights high agency, emotional intelligence, and the ability to navigate crucial conversations as must-haves for product leaders.
Check out Holland & Barrett Check out Holland & Barrett's website: https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/, or their careers page: https://apply.hollandandbarrettjobs.com/jobs/vacancy/find/results/. Connect with Katya You can connect with Katya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denikekatya/. You can also check out Katya's podcast, Rocking Cribs & Careers. here! https://open.spotify.com/show/3rheb2Q1YuUvdmeYS8ngqA.
More from One Knight in Product
On this episode, I speak to Jeff Patton, Chief Troublemaker at Jeff Patton Associates. Jeff is a product management consultant, coach and trainer, and the author of User Story Mapping, a book that has helped product teams around the world think differently about how they build software. We talk about why product management fundamentals are still so difficult to put into practice, how AI can help teams succeed or fail faster, and why understanding what customers actually do remains more important than ever. Episode Highlights We cover a lot, including:
On this episode, I speak to Simonetta Batteiger, a product leadership coach, trainer, speaker and co-organiser of ProductTank Cologne. Simonetta began her career in accounting and finance before moving into product leadership while still maintaining a strong sense of the numbers that the rest of the leadership team really cares about. We explore why product teams can be seen as cost centres rather than sources of business value, how to connect product decisions to meaningful financial outcomes, and why the ability to build more quickly with AI makes sound commercial judgement more important, not less. Episode Highlights We cover a lot, including:
On this episode, I speak to the returning Rich Mironov, longtime product management consultant, product leadership coach, and founder of Mironov Consulting. Rich has spent decades working with product leaders, particularly in complex B2B organisations, and is the author of The Art of Product Management and Money Stories. We explore what the current wave of AI-enabled software development really means for product management: why faster code does not automatically create more revenue, where product judgement becomes more important rather than less, and why the role of product may shift away from delivery management towards deeper discovery, commercial thinking, and go-to-market work. Episode Highlights
On this episode, I speak to Eric Ries, entrepreneur, multiple-time founder and bestselling author of The Lean Startup. Eric has spent years working with founders, leaders and organisations on how companies are built, scaled and governed, and later founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange to explore how businesses can pursue long-term profit and purpose. He's back with his new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, just about to celebrate its UK launch. In it, he examines why good companies lose their way, how incentives and governance drive that corruption, and how leaders can build organisations that stay true to their mission as they grow. Episode Highlights We cover a lot, including:
On this episode, I speak to Barry O'Reilly, entrepreneur, executive adviser and author of Lean Enterprise, Unlearn and his latest book, Artificial Organizations. Barry works with senior leaders around the world to improve how their organisations make decisions and perform, and has also spent recent years building and advising AI-enabled companies through Nobody Studios. We discuss what AI changes about leadership when the goal is not simply to produce more output, but to make better decisions. Barry argues that the real opportunity is to use AI to reduce cognitive and administrative load, strengthen judgement, improve organisational context and create more space for thoughtful, high-quality work - without outsourcing the thinking itself. Episode highlights