Eric Heymann

Former CIO, HRS

profile picture: Eric Heymann

With much enthusiasm I recommend Deborah Causton for senior product engineering leadership roles, such as CPO or SVP Product Engineering, for future engagements.

I know Deborah Causton from my time as CIO of HRS, where she has taken on the role VP Product Development. I was honored to have the opportunity to work with and learn from her. Deborah Causton has impressed me beyond scale as a deeply engaged, knowledgeable, experienced, laser-focused, fast decision maker and inspiring leader.

Our joint department consisted of more than 250 employees, internationally distributed across four locations. The organization was suffering from a lot of organizational, technical and cultural legacy. It had become a business risk due to lack of efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. The task was to create a modern product engineering organization, fostering both independent and customer centric teams.

During the required transformation, Deborah Causton has not only proven her product experience, ambition, empathy, deep product knowledge and vast experience, she also owned the business plan and budget for the new organization and the product roadmap, supported by the vision, mission and strategy she developed. At the same time, she‘s technically savvy; her deep understanding of the needs of software and platform engineering helped to drive the execution of the engineering strategies. She understands and values technology, supports and drives technical decisions as required. For her, technology is an asset and indispensable for innovation and scale.

As a result, the agile transformation improved culture, innovation, efficiency and effectiveness across all teams, many-fold. The changes implemented enhanced product quality and overall outcome of the joint department.

Deborah Causton has a unique set of strengths. Her experience is a huge source for powering digital businesses, developing ambitious but realistic product strategies including vision and mission. She creates alignment with stakeholders and demonstrates leadership by setting clear boundaries for everyone to perform.