Jack Wood, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Komodo

Having moved from the UK to New Zealand over a decade ago, Jack has really made a home living and working Christchurch.

Ahead of the Fast Forward careers event in Christchurch, we caught up with Jack to learn more about his role at Komodo, what he get's up to in Christchurch outside of work and why now is such an exciting time to be a part of the Komodo journey.

If you are curious about working for a high-growth, Christchurch based startup, come and join Jack and a range of other friendly startup folk for a virtual chat at Fast Forward, November 17th.

If you boss was to compare you to an animal, what do you think they chose and why?

Armadillo - Hard on the outside, soft on the inside...literally his words, not mine.

Outside of work, what do love about living in Christchurch ?

Mountain biking & snowboarding for the more extreme side of things. We have a fantastic MTB park here that's roughly 15 minutes from the city. We've got some great ski fields in Canterbury as well (I think Mt Hutt typically wins best NZ ski field every year?).

I do also love dining out, finding new restaurants and bars with friends and family. There seems to be a new one opening up every night here at the moment.

To be good at your role, what do you think are the three core competencies?

Prioritisation - Prioritisation is the single-most important part of product management. We have to ensure we're consistently delivering the things add value to our customers, whether directly or indirectly, but that the timing of a project makes sense at a particular time, too.

Adaptability - Things change frequently in startups. You have to be able to adapt to change, get very comfortable with it and ensure you remain open-minded at all times.

Seeing the big picture - While I spend a lot of time planning out elements in our shorter-term product roadmap, you have to always think bigger, too. Thinking about where we want to be in 12 months, 5 years, 10 years and beyond is key to our overall mission and success.

Why is now such an exciting time to be working at Komodo?

We're making great progress, but we're still a blank canvas. This is the perfect time to join us if you want to leave behind a legacy and directly impact how a company grows and evolves.

With every new team member that joins Komodo, we see how the dynamic changes for the better, how we improve and we begin to build a really cool culture where people love coming to work. It's addictive and really quite magical.