This episode brings you an inspiring conversation with Meenal Relekar, a seasoned product marketing leader, advisor, and PMM coach whose 17-year career spans continents, industries, and transformative moments. From CPG giants like Unilever and L'Oreal to tech powerhouses like DoorDash, Dropbox, and Adobe, Meenal's journey offers invaluable lessons on resilience, customer obsession, and thriving in the age of AI.

🚀 From Brand Manager to Tech PMM: A Cross-Industry Evolution

Meenal's story begins in the consumer goods world in India, where she cut her teeth as a brand manager at Unilever and L'Oreal. But it wasn't your typical marketing role—it was like being a general manager, handling everything from product strategy and marketing to sales execution.

"At Unilever, I learned the importance of research and talking to customers. We used to have quotas for customer research that everyone, including VPs, had as part of their deliverables and OKRs."

Her career took a dramatic turn when she joined Mahindra, India's automotive giant, as the first female hire who wasn't from the industry. Picture this: walking into meetings where colleagues would say "good morning, gentlemen and Meenal." Talk about earning your seat at the table.

But it was at Mahindra where Meenal discovered her superpower: bringing the customer lens to industries that desperately needed it. She was tasked with relaunching failed scooter products—a high-stakes challenge in an industry where product failures could literally cost lives.

💡 The Phone Call That Changed Everything: A Pivotal PMM Moment

Every great product marketer has a defining moment. For Meenal, it happened during a customer service call that would fundamentally shift how she approached her craft.

"A customer called me and said, 'Hey, I almost died because your bike failed in the middle of the highway.' I was like, oh my God, tell me more."

This wasn't about a cream causing a pimple or a minor product hiccup. This was life-or-death. That call led to a month of attending customer service calls, countless field visits to dealerships across the country, and deep dives into understanding every stakeholder in the buying journey.

The result? A successful relaunch strategy built on genuine customer insights and cross-functional collaboration. But more importantly, it cemented Meenal's philosophy: always be customer-first, think through the lens of customers, and then pivot as needed.

🌉 Bridging Industries: The Tech Transition

Moving from automotive to tech might seem like a massive leap, but Meenal's diverse background became her secret weapon. Her first tech role was as the first PMM for AutoCAD's mobile app at Autodesk—a ground-up PMM role that required building everything from positioning and messaging to research methodologies.

At Adobe, she dove into growth product marketing, learning the reforge growth model and mastering the art of experimentation. At Dropbox, she led major pricing studies. At DoorDash, she navigated the complexity of marketplace products, launching their first ad product in just three months.

Each role added new layers to her PMM toolkit, but the core remained constant: deep customer understanding, strategic thinking, and flawless execution.

🤖 PMM in the Age of AI: Embrace, Don't Replace

With AI reshaping the marketing landscape, Meenal's perspective is refreshingly pragmatic. She opens with a quote that's become her mantra:

"It's not AI that's going to replace you, but people who use AI smartly will replace you."

Her approach to AI is two-pronged:

Master the Fundamentals First

"Your fundamentals should be very strong. Go deeper, go broader. Really learn what great positioning looks like, how to segment based on value, how to design pricing that makes sense, how to run GTMs that are more than a checklist."

Treat AI as a Thought Partner

"AI should be treated more like a thought partner. You should go and try out different tools for research, writing, synthesis. Use AI to write better copy based on your core PMM competencies."

One of her favorite AI exercises? Writing a response to something, then asking AI to challenge her thinking and identify improvement areas. It's like having a sparring partner that helps sharpen your strategic thinking.

💰 The PMM's Guide to Pricing Strategy

Few PMMs get deep pricing experience, but Meenal has worked on pricing projects from CPG to tech. Her framework breaks pricing into three critical components:

1. Price Point - The actual numbers
2. Packaging - What goes into each tier
3. Perceived Value - How customers view the worth (the most crucial piece)

"Pricing brings together customer psychology, business strategy, and positioning. PMMs are uniquely positioned to influence pricing because you're close to customers, competition, and market dynamics."

Her approach involves analyzing competitor pricing, understanding customer willingness to pay, identifying key features that matter, and working cross-functionally with finance to understand revenue impact. The key is using research to validate concepts before rolling out pricing experiments.

⚠️ The Three Biggest PMM Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Through her coaching work, Meenal has identified three critical mistakes that hold PMMs back:

1. Misaligned OKRs

"PMMs are not aligning their work to company-level goals. When your OKRs aren't tied to what business is trying to achieve, it's easy to get pulled in every direction."

2. Poor Internal Positioning

"PMMs are usually great at telling stories about customers or products, but they're not strong at positioning their own contributions internally."

3. Insights Without Action

"They gather great feedback from customers and sales but don't always turn those insights into strong, strategic, actionable things which teams can drive."

🎯 Upskilling for 2025: The PMM Playbook

For PMMs looking to future-proof their careers, Meenal's advice is crystal clear:

Master the craft first. Go through all PMM competencies, rate yourself honestly, identify your superpowers and growth areas, then work on both.

Embrace AI strategically. Don't think of AI as a replacement—think of it as a tool that can help you build skills and challenge your thinking.

Build business acumen. Understand how your work ties into company goals, whether it's revenue, retention, or expansion.

🌟 Key Takeaways from Meenal's Cross-Industry Journey

✅ Customer obsession transcends industries - Whether you're selling scooters or SaaS, deep customer understanding is non-negotiable

✅ Diverse experience is a superpower - Cross-industry knowledge helps you see opportunities others miss

✅ Fundamentals + AI = Competitive advantage - Master the basics, then use AI to amplify your capabilities

✅ Pricing is a PMM opportunity - Don't let others own pricing strategy—you have the customer and market insights to lead

✅ Internal marketing matters - Position your own contributions as strategically as you position your products

✅ Resilience builds careers - Being the only woman in automotive meetings taught invaluable lessons about earning credibility

Whether you're transitioning between industries, looking to strengthen your PMM fundamentals, or figuring out how to leverage AI in your work, Meenal's journey offers a roadmap for building a resilient, impactful product marketing career.

The future belongs to PMMs who combine deep customer empathy, strategic business thinking, and smart AI adoption. Are you ready to embrace the challenge?

Stay curious. Stay customer-focused. And remember—great product marketing is about connecting human needs with business solutions, regardless of the industry or technology involved.

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