Product Lead

Applico Capital is the leading venture capital firm focused on the $8 trillion B2B distribution industry. Through our learnings and understanding of the industry, we are building a tech startup, currently in stealth, to solve the industry's biggest problems as it comes to unlocking AI-enabled synergies.

Our mandate is to leverage AI and modern technologies to reimagine the role of the traditional distributor and transform how the entire industry operates.

We are looking for highly technical builders who thrive in entrepreneurial, scrappy, and collaborative environments.

We are seeking a Product Lead to run point on product strategy, design, and execution for our newly created technology team. Reporting directly to the CTO and/or Head of Product, you will help define the roadmap for AI platforms and tech-enabled capabilities that transform how customers, branches, and distribution operations run. This role also owns the design and user experience function, ensuring that both customer-facing and internal tools are intuitive, adoptable, and impactful.

You will be joining an entrepreneurial, startup-style team within a stable and established business, with the mandate to leverage AI and modern technologies to enhance customer and employee experiences while accelerating growth. Success requires being both nimble in execution and deeply empathetic to existing business stakeholders, driving adoption at all levels from frontline branch and sales staff to senior executives.

Over time, you will grow a small but highly effective product and design organization.

• Run point on product management and product design/UX functions
• Define product vision and roadmap in close partnership with business executive leadership
• Build and mentor a diverse team of product management and design/UX professionals
• Foster an innovative, collaborative, AI augmented, and automation-heavy, CI/CD, and data-driven culture
• Translate customer and business needs into digital solutions that integrate best-of-breed third-party solutions, creating differentiated capabilities that leverage AI and other modern technologies
• Work closely with business stakeholders to build empathy for current challenges and ensure new solutions are adopted and trusted
• Ensure adoption by making these AI-driven tools simple, usable, and integrated into corporate and branch workflows
• Collaborate closely with engineering, data, and AI leaders to deliver measurable outcomes
• Utilize AI tools for prototyping, workflow automation, and iterative design

• 6+ years in product leadership roles, managing teams of product managers, including experience managing design/UX utilizing agile and lean best practices
• Background in B2B distribution, MRO, or contractor-focused industries preferred
• We are seeking candidates with a strong technical foundation in Gen AI, SaaS, and cloud delivery
• Proven ability to deliver digital platforms that integrate with ERP/CRM systems
• Demonstrated use of AI tools (e.g., LLMs, low-code prototyping, AI-augmented design)
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to champion customer-centric design in a technical environment