Leading at Scale: Stakeholder Management Lessons from Google and Capital One

Leading at Scale: Stakeholder Management Lessons from Google and Capital One

PDMA Seattle | April 15, 2026

Description

Stakeholder misalignment can kill product velocity and suck the life out of product managers. How can you avoid crushing your spirit and your product? In this talk, Luke shares battle-tested lessons for navigating disagreement, breaking impasses, and getting executive buy-in— drawn from product leadership at Google and Capital One.

Learning Objectives

  • Empathy and curiosity are the biggest PM superpowers for stakeholder management: use them to understand deeply before you seek to be understood.
  • Find alignment at some level, and “friendly escalate” genuine tradeoffs: most misalignments are about how/who (vs what/why), but sometimes escalation is not just a last resort —it’s necessary.
  • Use head and heart to communicate: great communications (especially to executives) leverage both qualitative stories and quantitative data.

About the Speaker

Luke Swartz Luke Swartz

A Stanford CS and Symbolic Systems grad, Luke Swartz transitioned from serving on U.S. Navy nuclear submarines to a prolific tech career. He spent 12 years at Google as a PM, architecting AI/ML recommendation infrastructure that drove $1B+ in revenue, followed by a tenure as Senior Director of Product at Capital One, leading the mobile UI infrastructure platform. He has a wonderful wife and two kids.

Get Involved in the kHUB ad

What did you think of this post?

Start a conversation with your peers by posting to our kHUB Discussion board! Browse trending posts and reply to other thought leaders OR start your own discussion by clicking "Post New Message."

Start a Discussion

If you don't have an account with us, create a guest account or become a member today and receive exclusive access to all PDMA member benefits. Please note that both members and non-members are welcome to participate in the kHUB.