Product Leaders to Watch: Life Cycle Engineering Product Leader on Building a Product Culture

  • Podcast Podcast
  • April 26, 2024
Tara Holwegner CPM, CPTD, PMP, CMRP

Life Cycle Engineering, Product and Intellectual Property Manager

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How can product leaders build a product culture within their organization?In this episode of the Product Leaders to Watch series hosted by Cognizant Product Director Chenny Solaiyappan, Life Cycle Engineering Product Leader Tara Holwegner speaks on building a product culture. Tara discusses investing in people and developing future leaders. She expresses interest in learning about new industries and how products apply human-centered design and AI. Tara also highlights examples of using digital technologies for remote coaching and predictive maintenance in industrial operations. Tune in to the 400th episode of Product Talk to learn what makes great products, product managers, and a strong product culture within an organization!

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Show Notes

  1. Tara has 17 years of experience leading digital and traditional products.
  2. She emphasizes building a product culture and inspiring others within her organization.
  3. Investing in people and developing future leaders is critical for success.
  4. Human-centered design and AI applications in products are areas of interest.
  5. For workforce development, consider remote coaching and AR/VR.
  6. Predictive maintenance and analytics help prevent disruptions.
  7. Products should solve problems, delight users, and consider full lifecycles.
  8. Great products are both simple and elegant.
  9. Product managers must balance business needs with customer focus.
  10. Communication, collaboration, and leading through influence are important skills.
  11. Successful products require project management, technical skills, and understanding the product lifecycle.
  12. Advocating for teams and creating a valued product culture within an organization is key.
  13. Product leaders need determination, adaptability, grit.
  14. Digital technologies inspire innovation in manufacturing and industrial operations.
  15. Upskilling and rescaling efforts help prepare workforces for new technologies.
  16. Submissions from industrial/manufacturing sectors are welcomed.
  17. Expressions of human-centered design in submissions will be looked for.
  18. AI applications in products submitted will be of interest.
  19. Great products should make the world a little or a lot better.
  20. Product managers should trust in their leadership skills and impact.

About the speaker

Tara Holwegner CPM, CPTD, PMP, CMRP
Life Cycle Engineering, Product and Intellectual Property Manager

Tara Holwegner is an award-winning product manager with a focus on developing and managing digital and traditional products and services that ensure excellent customer experience, meet revenue goals, and drive organizational performance. She also has a passion for business transformation and support organizations undergoing a change to increase adoption and proficiency. As a content generator Tara publishes in industry articles/blogs, produces videos, presents at conferences, and successful practices with professional communities

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About the host

Chenny Solaiyappan
Mphasis, Vice President

Chenny Solaiyappan is a seasoned product and venture leader with nearly three decades of experience building and scaling enterprise healthcare and government technology platforms. He is currently Vice President, Products at Mphasis, where he is focused on transforming core claims administration platforms into scalable, AI-enabled learning health system for the commercial, self-funded, and TPA markets.

Previously, Chenny spent over 15 years at Cognizant’s TriZetto Product House, where he founded, built, and scaled the ClaimSphere® suite of products and pioneered the Quality-as-a-Service (QaaS) business model. His work helped health plans unlock more than $1B in value-based payments, while repositioning quality measurement from a regulatory obligation into a Learning Health System. Today, ClaimSphere supports tens of millions of lives across leading U.S. health plans.

A recognized thought leader in value-based care, digital quality measurement (dQM), HEDIS, CMS Stars, FHIR interoperability, and population health analytics, Chenny has played a key industry role as HL7 Da Vinci Business Co-Chair for the TriZetto portfolio. He regularly speaks at national forums including NCQA, RISE, AHIP, INFORMS, and Health Plan Alliance.

Chenny is also the host of the Care Catalyst Podcast, where he interviews healthcare executives, innovators, and policymakers on the future of whole-person care, AI, and health equity. He brings an Entrepreneur-in-Residence mindset to large enterprises—combining strategy, product execution, and storytelling to transform complex systems into scalable, customer-centric platforms.

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