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Cheta Anietie-Effiong is the VP Product Manager at JPMorganChase, based in London. In an Ask Me Anything (AMA) webinar, Cheta shares how the King’s Product Management Career Accelerator helped her structure years of hands-on product experience and land a senior role while still on the programme.
Learning product the hard way
Cheta began her product career at a startup. It gave her real experience fast, but very little structured learning. As she puts it, at a startup you’re often “scrambling to figure stuff out”, and that can leave you unsure whether you’re doing the right thing.
She knew the work, but she wanted the frameworks behind it and the confidence to make the jump to a more senior role. The King’s Product Management Career Accelerator had sat “on my vision board” for a couple of years before she finally enrolled.
Is it right for someone already in product?
Cheta had three reservations before she signed up. The first was cost. Talking through the payment options with an advisor helped, and she chose to see the fee as “an investment in myself, and an investment in my skills and in my career”.
The second was time. She’s honest that the programme is demanding: “It’s very, very time-consuming in the best way possible.”
The third was whether the Career Accelerator was only for people without PM experience. Reading about a past learner in a similar position to hers settled that question.
Real PM work in every assignment
The project-based approach was one of the reasons Cheta chose this programme. Every assignment mirrors the job: “you do get given assignments, and those assignments are actual tasks that you would do as a product manager in real life.”
Her Course Facilitators, product managers themselves, showed how each framework is used in day-to-day product work. That depth held up for someone already in the role: she found it “so, so useful, even as, you know, a PM myself already.” She also brought real problems from her own job to the facilitators, asking, “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?” and found them very responsive.
The programme also helped her with product language, something she’d found hard to pick up on the job: “Learn how to speak like a PM, act like a PM.” One of her favourite parts was building her own low- and high-fidelity prototypes.
Making it work around family and a full-time job
Cheta studied as a working mum with a young baby, and she doesn’t pretend it was easy. There were late nights. She worked through course material in the evenings after her baby had gone to bed and on parts of the weekend.
What helped most was going to as many live sessions as she could, which ran at lunchtime or in the evening. Attending “as many of the live sessions as and when they were happening” meant she never built up a big backlog. Recordings were there when she missed one, and she often rewatched sessions she’d already attended.
A Success Manager, a coach, and a 3am WhatsApp group
Support is built into every Career Accelerator. Early on, Cheta’s Success Manager sent weekly lists of what to complete, which she found really helpful. Her 1:1 sessions with her Career Coach gave her space to talk through her thinking and decisions, including the emotional side of returning to work after maternity leave, and to get clear on what she wanted from her next role.
Then there’s the cohort, a mix of career starters, career changers, and experienced PMs from different industries. Learners set up their own WhatsApp group, where “you can find people at 3am asking questions, and somebody will respond.”
Confidence, one presentation at a time
Each assignment ends in a presentation, pitched as if to stakeholders and kept to a set time. In her first two, Cheta felt flustered. By her most recent one, something had shifted: “oh wow, okay, I’m learning, I’m getting better at this.”
For her, confidence and presentation skills are the most valuable things she’s gained. As she explains, “as a PM, you definitely need to be confident”, because so much of the job is talking to senior stakeholders.
The interview that felt different
Cheta was already applying for roles when she started the programme, aiming to land a senior position by the end. Instead, she secured her VP role within the first two months.
She believes the programme teaches you to think like a PM, which she sees as one of the main things interviewers look for: how you analyse scenarios, present data and make decisions. What stayed with her was how the interview felt.
Partway through, she caught herself thinking, “you actually know this stuff”, and she walked out thinking, “I left that interview feeling like, yeah, I think I got it.” Whatever the result, she says, “I felt like I did a good job, and I did myself justice, and I think that’s so important.”
Name the gaps, then close them
After almost a year away from work, Cheta says, “I had a lot of imposter syndrome.” Her approach was to name the gaps and close them: “Okay, I accept that I don’t know XYZ, how can I then know XYZ?”
She also warns against comparing yourself with people who’ve been in product for a decade: “They were also beginners at some point, right?”
For career changers, her advice is to use the domain knowledge you already have, translate your existing skills into product terms, and volunteer for digital projects where you work now. As she reminds the audience, “You might not have this PM title, but you have the PM experience.”
And to anyone still on the fence, her message is the one she’d give her pre-programme self: “take the plunge.”
Have the experience? Add the structure.
Formalise what you already do and build the confidence to step up with the King’s Product Management Career Accelerator.
Six months, part-time and fully online, with 12 months of 1:1 career coaching and a certificate from King’s College London.
Download the brochure to see the full curriculum and how the support works.
This King’s College London programme is designed and delivered in partnership with FourthRev.
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