John Schmidt

John W Schmidt is a product leader and coach with extensive experience in the technology industry. He served as Director of Product Management at Capital One from January 2014 to July 2023, where he focused on technology and talent transformation, modernization, and innovation in banking.1 His work at Capital One emphasized cloud-native, mission-critical capabilities, including credit card online servicing, ML/AI, SaaS platforms, Agile delivery, data transformation, platform product management, NLP, and DevSecOps.1

Prior to his role at Capital One, John was involved in several entrepreneurial ventures:

1. He founded Inventing Mostly in 2008, pursuing various innovation projects and advisory positions.1
2. He co-founded and served as CTO of Cobrain Company, developing an innovative recommendation platform powered by machine learning.1
3. He held leadership positions at companies like Sapient, Match.com, and The Motley Fool.1

Currently, John is:

• A Product Leader and Coach (self-employed since July 2023), advising founders, CPO/VPs of Product, and teams at startups and enterprises.1
• A Lecturer at the University of Virginia (since August 2023), where he created and delivers a Product Management course for the Accelerated Master's Program.1

John holds a BASc in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo (1991-1996).1 He is multilingual, with proficiency in English, French, and German.1