Darrin Johnson
Organizations bring me in when they can feel something isn’t working but can’t quite name it. I help them see the system clearly — the platforms, the teams, the decision-making — and then build what’s needed to move forward. Not a slide deck. The actual capability.
Enterprise platforms, product operating models, and the organizational architecture that makes them governable.
What I Do
Create Clarity
Most organizations don’t have a strategy problem. They have a visibility problem. I surface what’s actually happening so leadership stops guessing and starts acting.
Build Capability
I’ve built product teams from zero at five organizations. Not by importing a framework — by listening to what’s broken, hiring for character, and building practices that stick after I leave.
Convert Insight to Revenue
The signal is usually already in your data, your users, your operations. I find it and turn it into something that generates money. A repositioned 911 platform. A market nobody else saw. A channel strategy that drove half the sales.
Architect Systems & Organizations
The platform and the org chart are the same problem. I work on both because one without the other doesn’t hold.
How I Work
Systems Diagnosis
I trained as a physicist. I still think in forces, constraints, and dependencies — I just apply it to platforms and organizations instead of particles.
Governance Without Bureaucracy
Principled guardrails that accelerate delivery rather than constrain it. Structure should create freedom, not paperwork.
Executive Translation
I can talk to the engineer and the CIO in the same meeting without switching slides. That’s not a soft skill. It’s the skill.
Ground-Truth Validation
I’ve read server logs at 2AM, drive-tested devices on highways, and taught myself shell scripting to keep a system alive when I was the last person standing. When I advise, it’s from the details up.
Who I Work With
CIOs & IT Leaders
Modernizing legacy platforms at enterprise scale — navigating the politics, architecture, and organizational change that comes with it.
Founders & Product Leaders
Scaling B2B products past early traction into repeatable operations, sustainable teams, and defensible revenue.
Organizations Without a Product Practice
Building product management capability for the first time — the roles, rituals, and operating model that make it stick.
Emerging Leaders
Stepping into broader scope, ambiguity, and cross-functional complexity — and learning to lead through it rather than around it.
If you need someone to validate a decision you’ve already made, I’m probably not your person. I’m most useful when you actually want to know what’s true.
get in touch ↓Convictions
Understanding precedes architecture. I don’t redesign systems I haven’t listened to first.
Build for the organization you’re leaving behind, not just the problem in front of you.
Complexity isn’t the enemy. Confusion is. Make the system understandable and the direction is obvious.
Selected Impact
Grew a platform product from v1 to $7M annual revenue — including a channel strategy that drove 50% of total sales.
Applications brought into a governable model for enterprise modernization and service ownership.
Expanded a connected-home user base tenfold by discovering an adjacent B2B market through user research, creating $1.8M in recurring revenue.
Reduced cross-team planning time by consolidating eight product teams into a shared planning increment process.
Built product teams and practices from scratch at five organizations — hiring, coaching, and establishing operating models that outlasted my tenure.
Selected environments
Retail · Telecom · Media · IoT · SaaS · Rail Safety · Wireless · Enterprise Platforms
Selected roles
Director of Product · Group Product Manager · Platform Lead · Strategic Advisor · Transformation Lead
I’m selective about the problems I take on. If yours is messy, high-stakes, and consequential — that’s where I do my best work.
or reach me at darrin@darrinj.cv