Interview with Silvana de Santis, Head of Product 💖

L' productteam (is at the crossroads of business objectives and user needs. Its mission? To offer a solution with a fluid and easy-to-use interface. But that's not all.

In this article, our brilliant Head of Product, Silvana de Santis, explains in detail the daily routine of her team.

Interview with Silvana de Santis, Head of Product at Hyperlex, the enterprise-wide contract management solution

Can you tell us about your background and what motivated you to join a legaltech like Hyperlex?
I have been working in the product sector for several years, particularly for B2B SaaS solutions. For a long time I worked on products with a strongartificial intelligenceeven though AI is a means to an end and not the end goal! And I'm passionate about this environment: there are many challenges and I really enjoy it!

In your opinion, is it important to have a legal background to practice this profession?

No, not especially! At the product, you have the opportunity to work in completely different areas, without having a specific background in one sector.

Of course, there are specificities linked to the business of our users and the PM (Product Manager) or the Product Designer must become experts in the field.

But having a diverse team, with people who have had different experiences, is anything but a hindrance: it is a real strength.

Ultimately, our aim is to simplify complex tasks and make them accessible to everyone, and many of our users handle contracts without legal expertise.

What other teams do you work with?

With everyone! In the product team, we are at the crossroads of business objectives and user needs. We are in constant contact with all Hyperlex teams.

Of course, we work with the technical and AI teams, but we also talk daily with the sales people, the customer successmarketing, to make sure that everything we do serves our customers and the business.

What are your working methods?

The team's goal is to solve user pain points to impact business KPIs.

We therefore attach great importance to the "discovery" phase, taking the time to conduct many user interviews to identify the main bottlenecks and prioritise the objectives for the quarter.

Even before starting to develop the features, the team defines the success metrics, which will allow to understand if we have a visible impact on our objectives.

We then work with the development teams to co-construct the various solutions so that they best respond to the problems identified.

Once the features are deployed in production, therefore, we are responsible for monitoring these KPIss, gathering qualitative feedback and iterating on the different parts of the product.

What is the most important quality of a Head of Product for you?

It's hard to pick just one, as it's a very varied job... I'd mention three that I think are super important:

Team development. The main objective is to create autonomous teams that can develop and grow every day. This involves recruitment, coaching, but also the establishment of a strong product culture. This is surely one of the main tasks for the Head of Product, and perhaps the most complex one, as it involves identifying and developing talent and building a healthy environment where they can work serenely, without being afraid to take risks or make mistakes.

The product vision. The Head of Product defines a long-term product strategy to support the company's vision. He or she is responsible for implementing it, communicating it and also ensuring that the teams take ownership of it in order to transform it into action in the short term. This means thinking about the future as well as the present, remaining flexible to adapt to changes, but ensuring that the focus remains on the business objectives.

Last but not least, a good dose of soft skills will enable the Head of Product to create real cohesion with the other teams. You work with all the company's departments on a daily basis, you have to understand their problems and create a relationship of trust that will enable you to accept and understand the various decisions.

What motivates you to get up in the morning?

Knowing that all the work we do on a daily basis has a real impact on our users, that we are really helping them by allowing lawyers to focus on specific tasks and operational staff to understand complex and difficult processes.

And there's a great atmosphere at work, and working in a good mood is always an added motivation!

What are your biggest challenges as Head of Product?

Working in a startup is a challenge for everyone! Developing the team, keeping the product strategy on track, and remaining flexible can be quite complex at times. But that is also the motivating part of the job. There is rarely satisfaction when things are too simple!

What are you proud of?

My team, of course! I'm lucky to work with motivated and very competent professionals. Product Managers and Product Designers work every day with the sole aim of solving our users' problems, with a large dose of humility!

Do you have a message for legal departments looking for a contract management solution?

Today, a CLM tool is almost a must-have to accelerate business and make exchanges more fluid, which are increasingly done remotely with the rise of teleworking.

But Hyperlex is not a simple CLM solution!

In addition to reducing the time required for signatures and centralising data, Hyperlex also allows legal teams to have greater control over the entire contractual portfolio. Thanks to our AI technologies, for example, lawyers can be alerted automatically of possible risks on a contract and focus on high value-added tasks.

Would you like a demonstration of our product? It's right here 👇!