If you want my résumé, you can view or download it to the right.
But I'm kind of fond of the narrative approach, too, and you might also want to read the extended edition below.
You can download my résumé if you want the styled PDF.
But I'm kind of fond of the narrative approach, too, and you might also want to read the extended edition below.
Every leader I've ever met started somewhere completely different than where they ended up. My path took me from poetry to product management, from fixing paper jams to spearheading platform migrations. What I've discovered along the way is that leadership isn't about having all the answers, it's about creating environments where people can do their best work.
My journey taught me that the most valuable skills aren't technical specifications or management frameworks, but rather the ability to build trust, establish effective systems, and help teams navigate through the chaos to deliver exceptional results. This is the story of how I learned these lessons and why I'm now dedicated to helping others do the same.
I went to college and studied Religious Studies and Creative Writing (Poetry) because back in the early 2000s, people thought just having a degree mattered more than what you studied. At the same time, I took a job as a student worker in the university computer labs because, well, learning is great but it doesn't pay the bills.
Even though I was just a minimum wage lab monitor who mainly fixed paper jams and kept an eye on things, I already knew quite a bit about computers when I turned 18. So when the university got hit with a virus that shut down financial services and the bookstore, I somehow ended up leading the cleanup efforts because no one else knew how. When they started setting up wireless internet, I wrote the instructions on how to connect. And when the university changed its name and needed to move 6000+ computers to a new network without bothering users, I figured out how to do it quickly and led the team on the project.
This led to me getting hired full-time at Missouri State, where over the next few years, I ran several big projects, became a manager, and navigated through budget cuts while meeting growing demands. By the time I left, I had secured more funding for my area, and we won the "Best Service on Campus" award multiple years in a row—quite different from the "Helpless Desk" nickname we had when I started.
Despite my original college plans, I discovered I really enjoyed working in IT, especially project management. I started a Master's program in Project Management and found a job at a consulting and software company called Adaptavist. My years working with Atlassian software at the university, plus my other experiences, made me valuable as a consultant and, surprisingly, set me up as one of the world's leading experts on Atlassian.
Over the next few years, I helped many companies' teams work better together. I also helped Atlassian create a certification program by contributing to exam designs, writing questions and answers, developing study materials, and teaching at conferences. When my CEO asked me to take over the training department, I built teams from scratch to develop online learning, write documentation, and create a training plugin for Jira.
While I loved Adaptavist and my team there, I felt my career had hit a ceiling unless I moved to the UK. I started looking for my next challenge and joined Stride to lead a new product they were building.
When I arrived, they had been working for eight months with no real product leadership. There were smart people there, but they were either spread too thin or new to product management. This particular product was complex, and they needed someone with software development knowledge who could guide the product. There was no roadmap, the code had no testing and was buggy, and everyone was stressed and burning out.
During my seven months as Director of Product Management at Stride, I built a 6-month roadmap, figured out how to integrate an acquisition, unblocked hiring, pushed the team to fix 4 months of technical issues while delivering 2 releases and getting 2 more halfway done, and earned my teams' trust.
My last major project at Stride was analyzing a company we bought that had a product similar to the one my team was building. I figured out what to keep from that product and how to integrate it with ours.
In fall 2022, I interviewed with CoinDesk for a Senior Product Manager role. This person would work between editorial and engineering to manage their content system, Arc XP, and develop features to help journalists, video producers, podcasters, and others who created content at CoinDesk.
The interview team was skeptical at first because I lacked journalism experience, but they quickly saw that I had experience in many different areas. By the end of the interview process, my future boss shared that what he really needed was a director who could handle everything end-to-end to improve their product and engineering processes, deliver more value, and reduce chaos. He asked if I would do director-level work and get a handle on everything, not just the content system, with the hope of promoting me to a more fitting title in six months.
True to his word, 6 months after being hired in December 2022, I was promoted to Director of Product Management, and my boss considered the title backdated to when I started since I was doing the work all along.
At CoinDesk, I led product management for CoinDesk Media, working with brilliant engineering teams to build features supporting journalism, market data, indices, and multimedia content. I spearheaded a complete migration from Arc XP to Sanity.io, resulting in dramatic improvements to site performance, resilience against attacks, and accelerating our development cycle from months to weeks. I developed a new vision for cryptocurrency price pages that leveraged our journalism strengths to tell the story behind market movements, significantly increasing search traffic through our mobile-first approach.
Not long after Bullish acquired CoinDesk in November 2023, I was one of the last senior leaders left and I helped our new executive leadership understand CoinDesk's revenue streams, initiatives, operations, and strategic direction. I successfully integrated new product and engineering teams following the CCData acquisition in October 2024, mentored product managers joining our team during a reorganization, and managed up to 30 concurrent projects while consistently delivering on target objectives.
Throughout my time at CoinDesk, I increased engineering throughput by nearly 3x while decreasing defect rates, boosted user engagement, and provided initial product leadership for multiple initiatives including a mobile application and subscription products before transitioning them to dedicated ownership.
After my time at CoinDesk ended in March 2025, I've been fully focused on growing Fieldway – a company I had started earlier while balancing my full-time responsibilities.
I started Fieldway after meeting with product teams and leaders at dozens of companies. The surprising truth that people shared with me was that most everyone didn't know what they were doing. Most product leaders came from different disciplines such as design, marketing, or engineering and they lacked leadership or management experience or training. Very few people with the title "product manager" had been in the field for more than a few years, and none had received any training. Everyone was overworked and scrambling to keep up. If they did know anything about product management, it was formal frameworks, and they bolted these into their team hoping they'd be a panacea, but they weren't.
I love people. I love you as a leader and I love your team members. I know that may sound weird, but it's a choice I make, and it's why I started Fieldway. I want to help your life and work be better. I want to help you and your team have a healthier work-life balance. I want you to be able to go home at 5 pm on Friday, not worry about work over the weekend, and be excited on Sunday night to go back to work instead of dreading it.
Through Fieldway, I do this by helping leaders be better. If the leaders are better, the organization and teams are better. I produce eLearning and provide coaching and consulting to help individuals and organizations grow. I draw on my 20+ years of experience leading teams through acquisitions, platform migrations, and organizational change to offer practical guidance rather than theoretical frameworks.
My approach isn't about complicated methodologies or the latest management buzzwords. It's about establishing effective cadences, building psychological safety, and creating sustainable delivery processes that help teams collaborate effectively while maintaining work-life balance. It's about teaching leaders how to triple their team's throughput while improving quality and reducing burnout – something I've consistently achieved throughout my career.
With Fieldway, my goal is to help you improve and move forward without needing me forever. I'll teach you and your employees the skills needed to make your company better and your customers happier. I care deeply about your success and your customers' experience, and those will always be my priority.
Learn more at Fieldway.org.
Matthew brings energy and enthusiasm into every room. His ability to apply his vast product and project management skills while garnering the support of the development teams that he manages is impressive! I am grateful for his mentorship and his contagious desire to never stop learning and becoming better in all things, professionally and personally.
Jackie Witchko
Product, Program & Operations Leader
Immediately after joining our team, Matthew's experience, knowledge, and value became apparent. He clearly articulated the "why" behind the project to which he was assigned, improved processes, and gained team buy-in.
Matthew is a strong leader, able to mentor and teach, and he has a breadth of experience and understanding across many industries and supporting companies at all stages of their journey.
Jennifer Richardson
Director of Product
Matthew has that rare ability to see both the forest AND the trees. A gifted strategic thinker, an engaged people manager and a creative and innovative solutions architect.
Any organization that is fortunate enough to work with Matthew will be far better off for having done so.
David Fabie
AVP - Global Assignments and Culture
Experience tells the story best. Take a few minutes to explore my portfolio, where you’ll find examples of my work, the impact I've had, and how I define and measure success.
Unleashing CoinDesk's Digital Potential
Revitalizing CoinDesk's Price Pages
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