Referral dossier — built to be forwarded · ProductAnywhere · Cape Town / remote-first / works globally
Senior product leadership for AI platforms. Four times, at four scales, he has turned bespoke, client-funded work → reusable platform capability.
Independent builder, 2024–today: nine agentic systems shipped. Seeking Head of Product · VP Product · CPO · Head of AI Product · Director of Product — permanent. Interim and fractional, immediately.
Thirty contractors · eight people · an enterprise banking platform · solo.
Proof, with the limits stated — each tag says what his role actually was
Excellence in Innovation — Banking Product, Global Banking & Finance Awards; Absa also Best Digital Bank South Africa.
VerifiedThird-party and publicly verifiable — which is why it leads.
Automated FAQ interactions — Absa Chat Banking.
CommissionedCommissioned & negotiated the NLP architecture and commercial structure — not the model-builder, and gone before it was measured.
Agentic systems shipped, 2024–now.
BuiltBuilt and operated by him — including pgvector entity resolution after a written decision against Neo4j and GraphRAG.
Members — ProductTank Cape Town, today.
LedFounded 2014, first in Africa; handed to a successor team he recruited — still running without him.
Across 34 job descriptions Joe has been matched against — about 260,000 characters of requirements and gap analysis — AI/GenAI and platform strategy each appear in 85% of postings. Not two separate 85%s: the same 85%.
Same slice of postings → one combined question, not two requirements.
“Can you lead product on an AI platform?”
His position, requirement by requirement — self-assessed, evidence-linked, weaknesses marked:
Frequency = share of the 34 matched job descriptions. Position = self-assessment against the evidence in §02–§03.
Turning bespoke, client-funded work into reusable platform capability — first as a business, then as a founder, then inside an enterprise, now with his own hands. The market's 85% question runs straight down this line.
Six-year P&L. An org chart across ten disciplines, up to 30 contractors, 62 named clients across 19 industries, 3 national Bookmarks awards. The pattern starts here: client-funded bespoke briefs, systematised into capability that outlives each one.
Scale: up to 30 contractors8 people across 4 countries, an 8-person advisory board, 5,000+ signups, £70,066 spend through month 8. In February 2022 the deck roadmapped intelligent summarisation, semantic search and automated transcription — before the LLM ecosystem commoditised all three.
Scale: 8 people, 4 countriesCommissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking on a no-CapEx, usage-based structure — supplier architecture chosen and negotiated by him, model built by the supplier. Receipts: 142M+ automated FAQ interactions, and 224% YoY growth on the AI-enabled Chat Commerce platform. Both carry limits — stated in full in §03.
Scale: enterprise banking platformNine agentic systems shipped — built and operated by him. Current edge: agentic product work, including pgvector entity resolution chosen in a written decision against Neo4j and GraphRAG. The commissioning hand and the building hand, finally the same hand.
Scale: solo, shippingEvery number below carries its stated limit. The limit is the credibility mechanism: it says exactly how far each receipt reaches — and no further. “Read” is a one-word judgement of how hard it holds up in a follow-up.
Excellence in Innovation — Banking Product, Global Banking & Finance Awards. Absa was also named Best Digital Bank South Africa.
Publicly verifiable third-party validation — which is why this receipt leads the ledger.
Automated FAQ interactions, Absa Chat Banking.
Commissioned and negotiated the NLP supplier architecture and the commercial structure; did not build the model, and had left before this was measured.
Year-on-year growth on Clickatell's AI-enabled Chat Commerce platform.
Piloted the AI capability the growth is attributed to; did not deliver the growth, and was not there when it was measured. Downstream evidence, not a claim.
The Camvas deck: intelligent summarisation, semantic search and automated transcription — roadmapped before the LLM ecosystem commoditised all three.
Proves foresight and thesis selection, not implementation. The deck is dated — judge the dates.
National Bookmarks awards — Sarie.com and YourParenting.co.za (Media24 titles), 2011 and 2012.
Agency work delivered by a team Joe led and hired.
Camvas spend through month 8.
Most pre-seed founders burn £200–500k by month 8; this was structured, invoiced and allocated across two entities under Founders Factory governance.
ProductTank Cape Town members today — 4.7★, 22 events listed.
He is not the organiser any more. That is the point: he founded it (Aug 2014, first in Africa), recruited a successor team, and it runs without him. Full story in §05.
Written for the person about to run that check — so nothing below is news to them.
Senior roles run about a year each. The endings have clean, checkable explanations — an acquisition, two restructurings, and his own venture. Ask the references (§07); that is precisely what they are for.
It appears in only 32% of the matched postings — the market asks less often than you'd think, but where it asks, his file is thinnest. What evidence exists: an org chart across ten disciplines with up to 30 contractors (FormFunction), and 8 people across 4 countries (Camvas). If the role is majority people-management, weigh that honestly.
Said plainly: at Clickatell his job was to choose the architecture and negotiate the commercial structure, then hold the supplier to it. Framed loosely this collapses under one follow-up; framed precisely it is the senior job. And since 2024 the record closes from the other side: nine agentic systems built and operated by him.
1,966 members · 4.7★ · 22 events — today
Founded August 2014, the first ProductTank in Africa, opened by Marty Cagan, sponsored along the way by Google and sli.do. He recruited a successor team and handed it over; the limit above is the point — it runs without him.
17 events · Apr 2020 – Sep 2021
Free, remote, run solo from a standing start in lockdown, sessions scheduled across four timezones. Marty Cagan came back for #14 — the week EMPOWERED shipped. The speakers who said yes to an unknown lockdown series:
Marty Cagan · Roman Pichler · Jeff Gothelf · Janna Bastow · Itamar Gilad · Giff Constable · Joe Leech · Marcus Wermuth (Buffer) · Sarah Waldner (GitLab) · Clement Kao · Alex Mitchell · Tim Herbig · Dave Martin · Ross Chapman
Portraits from the Remote Product archive, 2020–2021
Employers & venturesBarclays Global Investors · Bupa · Cancer Research UK · Skrill·Paysafe · Powa · 4finance · Simply Business · TransferGo · hiber · Founders Factory · Guardian Media Group · Clickatell · Absa
EarlierGijima · Incubeta NMPi · Condor Digital · ooba · Moodia · Hasso Plattner Ventures
62 named clients across 19 industries. Logos are from the agency archive; a few clients appear in more than one variant, hence 63 files. Twelve shown to start.
“FormFunction's quick and professional service, the can-do mentality, and the collaborative nature of our relationship have been the key to the success of sarie.com, the second largest women's website in SA.”
Maryke Cumpsty · Digital Editor, Sarie.com, Media24
This page has no contact form and no inbox — on purpose. It is built to travel hand-to-hand, because that is how these engagements actually happen. If someone sent you this, you already have a route in. Here is the kit.
Joe da Silva — senior product leadership (Head of Product / VP Product / CPO / Head of AI Product / Director of Product), Cape Town-based, remote-first, works globally. His through-line: four times, at four scales, turning bespoke client-funded work into reusable platform capability — MD of FormFunction Digital (2007–2013; 62 named clients, 19 industries, 3 Bookmarks awards), founder-CEO of Camvas (Founders Factory + Guardian Media Group; 8 people, 4 countries), Director of Interact Chat Products & AI at Clickatell (commissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking — 142M+ automated FAQ interactions, commissioned and negotiated, not built; Excellence in Innovation, Banking Product, Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022), and independent since 2024 with nine agentic systems shipped. Weakest area, honestly stated: org design at senior scale. References available on request. Open to permanent senior product roles; available interim/fractional immediately.
Joe da Silva — Head of Product / VP / CPO (AI platforms), Cape Town / remote-first. Commissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking; has shipped nine agentic systems solo since 2024. Interim/fractional now, permanent next. References on request.
Head of Product · VP Product · CPO · Head of AI Product · Director of Product
Remote-first · Cape Town-based, works globally · interim & fractional immediately, permanent next.
Ask whoever shared this page for the introduction — that is the channel this dossier is built for.