Who Should the Head of Product Report To?

We’ve looked into a few questions around the CEO reporting chain. For example, is it a red flag if the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) doesn’t report to the CEO? What about the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)?

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Today, let’s ask the same question about the Head of Product. We’ll take a look at Head of Product reporting chain benchmarks, as well as how much Product Managers (PMs) and Heads of Product make in terms of compensation. 

Who does the Head of Product report to? 

We analyzed the data across 2,411 Pave customers, identifying the senior-most product leader at each of these companies—titles like Head of Product, VP of Product, Chief Product Officer, etc. Then, we looked at who this person reports to: the CEO, the CTO (or the senior-most engineering leader), or another executive.

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At the seed stage ($0-5M capital raised), the Head of Product reports to the CEO about 90% of the time. At later stages ($500M+ capital raised), the Head of Product reports to the CEO about 75% of the time.

Over time as companies mature, it becomes a bit more likely for the Head of Product to report to the Head of Engineering (CTO/VP Eng/equivalent), but having your product leader report to your engineering leader is still in the minority.

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There are numerous pros and cons to the decision here, and all companies are different. One key consideration is the zone of genius for your CEO (particularly if they are also the founder). Are they a product visionary, a sales savant, or an operational wizard? This can certainly have an impact on the reporting structure.

Product Manager Salary Benchmarks

While we’re on the topic of Heads of Product, how much do Product Managers, Managers of Product Managers, and Product execs make in terms of compensation?

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When you’re going through your actual benchmarking and range pricing exercises, it’s best practice to get more granular with your peer set. Here, however, let’s focus on all public companies in Pave’s dataset across all USA locations. 

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As we can see, base salary benchmarks for individual contributors in the 50th percentile range from $111,250 for P1 to $292,420 for P6. For managers, the benchmarks start at $192,756 for M3 and shoot up to $307,019 for M6, the Senior Director level.

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For executives in the 50th percentile, the data shows salary benchmarks of $342,200 for E7 (VP) and $423,000 for E9 (C-Level). 

Equity Benchmarks for Product Leaders

Equity compensation is another crucial benchmark to consider. First, let’s look at the gross intended annual new hire equity for the product management ladder.

We’ll call out the total equity ownership benchmarks for VPs of Product and Chief Product Officers separately, because they are staggering.

For an E7 (VP Product) in the 50th Percentile, the total equity ownership benchmark is $2,486,551. For E9 (Chief Product Officer), it’s $6,197,688. 

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