A hiring brief · ProductAnywhere · built to be forwarded
Senior product leader — AI platforms.
His career is one pattern at four scales: turning bespoke, client-funded work into reusable platform capability. Most visibly at Absa, where Chat Banking — the banking product built on the NLP supplier architecture he commissioned and negotiated — won Excellence in Innovation (Banking Product) at the Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022.
Recruiters give a first pass 6–11 seconds, so the answer is in this block. The proof below takes about three minutes and keeps every limit attached to its number — because the limits are the credibility.
Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022 — for Absa Chat Banking, built on the NLP supplier architecture Joe commissioned and negotiated. Absa was also named Best Digital Bank South Africa.
The limit: publicly verifiable third-party validation — which is why it leads this page.
automated FAQ interactions on Absa Chat Banking, on the supplier architecture and no-CapEx, usage-based commercial structure Joe commissioned and negotiated.
The limit: he did not build the model, and had left before this was measured.
shipped since 2024 — including entity resolution on pgvector after a written decision against Neo4j and GraphRAG.
Why it matters: it answers “did he build it, or commission it?” — both, at different scales. See the questions.
Most hires and 92.8% of fractional engagements start with one person saying one true sentence to another. Three lengths below; each is accurate, and every number in them survives a follow-up question. If you’re the hiring manager, these are also the TL;DR.
Meet Joe da Silva — he leads product on AI platforms. He commissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking (a publicly verifiable Excellence in Innovation award, Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022) and has shipped nine agentic systems of his own since 2024.
If your team needs product leadership on an AI platform, meet Joe da Silva. One pattern at four scales: ran a six-year digital-agency P&L with up to 30 contractors (three national awards — delivered by the team he hired and led); founded a Founders Factory-backed startup (5,000+ signups; £70,066 spent through month 8, where most pre-seed founders burn £200–500k); then directed Interact Chat Products & AI at Clickatell, commissioning and negotiating the NLP supplier architecture behind Absa Chat Banking — 142M+ automated FAQ interactions on architecture he commissioned but did not build, measured after he’d left. Since 2024 he’s shipped nine agentic systems hands-on. He’s exploring Head of Product / VP Product / CPO roles, remote-first, and takes fractional work. Want an intro?
Subject: Introduction — Joe da Silva, product leader for AI platforms [Name] — meet Joe da Silva. He’s the person I mentioned: six years running a digital agency P&L (up to 30 contractors, 62 named clients across 19 industries), a Founders Factory-backed founder (5,000+ signups on £70,066 of spend through month 8 — most pre-seed founders burn £200–500k by then), then Director of Interact Chat Products & AI at Clickatell, where he commissioned and negotiated the NLP supplier architecture behind Absa Chat Banking. That product won Excellence in Innovation (Banking Product) at the publicly verifiable Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022 and has handled 142M+ automated FAQ interactions — on architecture Joe commissioned, didn’t build, and had left before it was measured. He founded ProductTank Cape Town (first in Africa, opened by Marty Cagan) and since 2024 has shipped nine agentic systems of his own. He’s looking at Head of Product / VP Product / CPO roles, remote-first, and does fractional work. Thirty minutes would be worth your time.
Two requirements each appear in 85% of the senior product JDs Joe has been matched against: AI and platform. Read together, the market is asking one combined question — can you lead product on an AI platform? Row by row:
| Requirement | In target JDs | Joe’s position |
|---|---|---|
| AI / GenAI | 85% | Strong |
| Platform / platform strategy The spine of his story | 85% | Strong |
| Technical fluency / architecture | 79% | Strong |
| Scaling / 1→N Evidenced — tenures are short; see the questions | 68% | Medium |
| Data / metrics | 65% | Medium |
| GTM / commercial | 65% | Strong |
| B2B SaaS | 62% | Strong |
| Fintech / payments / regulated | 62% | Strong |
| Remote / distributed | 59% | Strong |
| Stakeholder / influence | 53% | Strong |
| Emerging / African market | 53% | Differentiator |
| Agentic / agents Strongest current edge — and rising | 38% | Strongest edge |
| Org design / managing PMs Least documented — answered directly below, not hidden | 32% | Weakest |
Every episode below is the same move — bespoke, client-funded work converted into reusable platform capability — at a larger or stranger scale than the last. Every number keeps its limit, because a claim you can interrogate is worth more than one you can’t.
Tagged by the three lanes of his practice’s mark: Leader Expert Builder
The agency later succeeded by his practice, ProductAnywhere.
The pattern, agency scale: a six-year P&L built on bespoke client work, delivered by a machine he designed — an org chart across ten disciplines, up to 30 contractors, 62 named clients across 19 industries.
2011 and 2012, for Media24 titles Sarie.com and YourParenting.co.za.
The limit: agency work, delivered by a team Joe led and hired.
“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.”
Including Vodacom, MTN, Naspers, Media24, Photobox, Citi, Ancestry24, CareerJunction, Moneyweb, Praekelt, Metro FM, Cliffe Dekker, Bandwidth Barn, Grootbos, Sarie, Fairlady, Grazia, YourParenting and 24.com.
Backed by Founders Factory and Guardian Media Group.
The pattern, venture scale: his own company, his own capital discipline, and an AI-platform thesis committed to a dated deck before the market caught up.
total spend through month 8 — structured, invoiced, and allocated across two entities under Founders Factory governance.
The limit: most pre-seed founders burn £200–500k by month 8. The precision is the point.
a dated Camvas deck roadmapping intelligent summarisation, semantic search and automated transcription — before the LLM ecosystem commoditised all three.
The limit: proves foresight and thesis selection, not implementation. The deck is dated — judge the dates.
The enterprise chapter: AI platform capability inside a regulated-industry vendor.
The pattern, corporate scale: he commissioned the NLP architecture behind Absa Chat Banking on a no-CapEx, usage-based commercial structure — turning a bespoke enterprise deployment into reusable, AI-enabled platform capability.
Global Banking & Finance Awards 2022, for Absa Chat Banking; Absa also named Best Digital Bank South Africa.
The limit: publicly verifiable third-party validation — which is why it leads.
automated FAQ interactions on Absa Chat Banking.
The limit: Joe commissioned and negotiated the NLP supplier architecture and the commercial structure; he did not build the model, and had left before this was measured.
on Clickatell’s AI-enabled Chat Commerce platform.
The limit: he piloted the AI capability the growth is attributed to; he did not deliver the growth and was not there when it was measured. Downstream evidence, offered as context — not a claim.
The pattern at the scale of one person, with agents.
Nine shipped agentic systems, built hands-on — including entity resolution on pgvector after a written decision against Neo4j and GraphRAG. This is the “did he build it?” answer: at Absa scale he commissioned and structured; since 2024, he builds.
He would rather hand you these than have you find them. Framed honestly, the first and third are strengths; framed loosely, they collapse under one follow-up.
Each exit has a clean, specific, checkable cause: an acquisition, a restructuring, leaving to found his own venture, and another restructuring. Ask him directly — the answers are short and they name the event, not a feeling.
That is the honest gap — it appears in 32% of the JDs he matches, and it is the least-documented part of his record. The people-building evidence that does exist is real but sits at agency and startup scale: he hired and led up to 30 contractors across ten disciplines at FormFunction; built an eight-person team across four countries plus an eight-person advisory board at Camvas; and recruited the ProductTank Cape Town successor team that still runs it without him. He will discuss it head-on rather than around it.
Both, at different scales — and the distinction is the point. At Absa scale he commissioned and negotiated: the supplier architecture and the usage-based commercial structure that made a no-CapEx deployment possible. The 142M+ interactions and the 224% growth are downstream of that work, measured after he left — he says so here before you ask. Since 2024 he builds: nine agentic systems shipped, including pgvector entity resolution chosen in writing over Neo4j and GraphRAG. And the dated Feb 2022 Camvas deck shows he selected the summarisation / semantic-search / transcription thesis before the LLM ecosystem commoditised it. Foresight, then structure, then hands-on.
ProductTank Cape Town, today — still running without him. Joe founded it in August 2014, the first in Africa; Marty Cagan opened it; Google and sli.do sponsored it; and he handed it to a successor team he recruited.
The limit: he is not the organiser any more. That is the point — the test of a thing you build is whether it outlives you.
In April 2020, from a standing start in lockdown, he founded Remote Product: 17 free, remote events through September 2021, run solo and scheduled across four time zones. This is also, not coincidentally, how this page travels — his network is the product community itself.
The people who said yes to Remote Product:
Plus Marty Cagan — returning for event #14 the week EMPOWERED shipped — Janna Bastow, Itamar Gilad, Giff Constable and Tim Herbig.
Barclays Global Investors · Bupa · Cancer Research UK · Skrill·Paysafe · Powa · 4finance · Simply Business · TransferGo · hiber · Founders Factory · Guardian Media Group · Clickatell · Absa
Earlier: Gijima · Incubeta NMPi · Condor Digital · ooba · Moodia · Hasso Plattner Ventures
References available — route through the person who sent you this page, or ask Joe directly.
If you’re hiring a Head of Product, VP Product, CPO, Director of Product or Head of AI Product — remote-first — you’ve read the receipts; take 30 minutes. If you need senior product leadership sooner, fractional and interim engagements are how Joe works until the right full-time seat lands.
This page is built to travel by introduction. Reply to the person who sent it and it reaches Joe. That channel is deliberate: it converts, and it starts the relationship on trust.
Search “Joe da Silva” on LinkedIn — where 87% of recruiters already source — under his practice name, ProductAnywhere. Based in Cape Town; works globally.