I turn AI from a demo into product that moves the business.
Founder of Product Leader Academy, a 1,000+ member community and jobs platform for product leaders. I set product, UX, and engineering strategy and ship production code. Before that I built an in-house Voice AI receptionist at Symplast, and merged three apps into one platform for 13M Optum members.
Product leadership across
15+
years in product
13M+
users reached
$10M+
ARR and first-year revenue
1,000+
Product Leader Academy members
About Me
A Head of Product who sets strategy and ships production code, with a bias toward AI that earns its place in the product.
Fifteen-plus years building AI, mobile, and platform products across healthcare, fintech, and SaaS, at Optum, Truckstop, PwC, ADP, and Symplast, where I led product, UX, and engineering. I own strategy, but I also sit in the codebase: at Symplast I built an in-house Voice AI receptionist, and a set of focused agents on a unified analytics platform. Production systems, not slideware.
I care about the parts of the job AI can't do: finding the problem worth solving and the judgment to ship the right thing. Product Leader Academy is the current job. The Voice AI at Symplast is the prior proof.
Led product at Optum, Truckstop, PwC, ADP, Mastercard, and Open English, from $3.2B benefits platforms to 13M-member healthcare apps.
Built an in-house Voice AI receptionist and production agents, plus GenAI workflows and AI load-matching. Real systems in users' hands, not demos.
Owns strategy end to end (APIs and marketplaces, payments, SSO, and accessibility) and reports the tradeoffs to the board in revenue, retention, and cost.
A sample of what I've shipped this year.
Product leadership isn't only strategy decks. These are products I designed and built myself in 2026.
Product Leader Academy
Execution-first training and community for product leaders. 1,000+ members, real projects, mentorship, a jobs board.
Stay in Lakeland
A production AI concierge that answers guests across voice, SMS, and web from one brain, grounded in live local data. A business I founded and run.
swiftrecap
Autonomous AI newsletter for engineers and PMs; aggregates RSS, Reddit, GitHub and HN into a weekly digest.
HaloPT
Operating system for independent in-home PT: signed SOAP, desk packet, and MD one-pager.
Medikarta
Independent EHR research and clinic-side ombuds for aesthetics, plastics, and medspa. Clinic pays.
imperfit
Chat-first AI nutrition coach for people who won't log meals. Three-second voice or photo logging on edge AI.
Professional Experience
Fifteen years across healthcare, fintech, and SaaS, from $3.2B platforms to my own venture.
Product Leader Academy
Founder & CEO
Dec 2024 - Present
Founded and grew a product-management education, community, and jobs platform to 1,000+ members: a free tier, a premium AI coach, an AI model arena, a jobs board, and a Certified Product Leader 360 credential. Sponsoring a U.S. Department of Labor registered apprenticeship to create an AI Product Manager occupation, filed with the DOL and the Florida Department of Education.
Symplast
Head of Product
Nov 2025 - Aug 2026
Led product, UX, and engineering for Symplast, the leading mobile EHR, practice management, and CRM for plastic surgery and medspas, serving 3,500+ practices. Built Kate, an in-house Voice AI receptionist that added $1.2M in ARR, plus two production agents on a unified Postgres analytics platform. Migrated the native iOS and Android apps to a single React Native platform, closing feature-parity gaps and raising engineering capacity 50%. Drove a growth push that doubled the CRM client base and added another $3M in ARR, bringing new ARR to roughly $4.2M. Owned the patient journey end to end and drove single sign-on, an open API and partner marketplace, payments and CareCredit, and accessibility, reporting tradeoffs to the board in P&L terms.
Optum
Lead Product Manager
Feb 2025 - Oct 2025
Merged three mobile apps (Rx, Patient, and Guide) into one React Native platform for 13M members, cutting roughly $5M a year and speeding feature delivery 40%. Built GenAI workflows, a personalized home screen, and a chat interface on Epic APIs and LLMs to raise engagement and take load off the call center. Advised the mobile center of excellence and trained teams on experimentation, accessibility, and AI adoption.
Truckstop
Director of Product, Mobile Platform
Oct 2023 - Feb 2025
Built an AI load-matching system with ML and LLMs that raised match accuracy 35%, cut churn 15%, and reduced empty miles 18%. Ran the Spanish-market launch, a $12M TAM opportunity covering localization, go-to-market, outbound, and support, that brought $3.5M in first-year revenue. Automated retention and payments with Salesforce and REST APIs, adding $500K in ARR and opening a $2.5M opportunity.
PwC
Senior Product Manager, Healthcare & Financial Services
Apr 2021 - Oct 2023
Launched HIPAA-compliant in-app messaging for Kaiser Permanente that cut response times 40% and raised engagement. Built AI triage in mobile apps that improved care coordination and cut unnecessary visits 20%. Rebuilt a consumer healthcare app used by 3M people a month with accessible patterns and journey mapping, raising engagement 15%.
ADP
Senior Product Manager, Platform
May 2018 - Apr 2021
Built the AWS SaaS platform for ADP's $3.2B benefits business, connecting 32 carriers and 2 brokers; adoption rose 35% and launch moved up 60 days. Rebuilt benefits selection with customization, price comparison, and best-fit picks, raising completion 30% and speeding decisions 40%. Built a vision-AI and RPA tool that validated Excel uploads against clean data, supporting concepts projected to add $50M over three years.
Open English
Product Owner
Jan 2015 - May 2018
Grew the B2B side of a language-learning SaaS to over $3M in ARR, with 14% higher retention, 86% course completion, and 30% better call-center efficiency. Led a Salesforce Cloud migration with DocuSign, search, and Tableau that raised client retention 8% and revenue 17%.
Mastercard
Program Manager
Aug 2010 - Dec 2014
Built revenue forecasts and Tableau dashboards across 44 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to improve reporting and decisions. Rolled out a quality framework that raised delivery speed and quality 43% and supported contactless-payment work.
Case Studies
A few projects, and what changed because of them.
An in-house Voice AI receptionist
Symplast
Built an in-house Voice AI that answers real calls for 3,500+ plastic surgery and medspa practices. $1.2M ARR. Not a vendor wrapper.
Challenge
Practices were missing after-hours and overflow calls. A vendor wrapper would have made the bill grow with every successful call, and an 800-millisecond pause on the phone reads as a dropped call.
Solution
Brought voice in-house. Split the work into small agents for scheduling, intake, and routing, grounded on a unified Postgres analytics platform so it could see the real calendar. Measured booked appointments and contained calls, not transcript vibe.
Results
- $1.2M ARR from the receptionist
- Two production agents on a unified data layer
- Calls contained without a human on high-volume booking and reschedule
- CRM growth of $3M ARR on the same product org
Voice AI
in-house receptionist
A production AI concierge across voice, SMS, and web
Stay in Lakeland
I founded Stay in Lakeland, a local guide for short-term-rental guests, and built its core: an AI concierge that answers guests on the phone, over text, and on the web from one brain, grounded in live local data.
Challenge
Short-term-rental guests ask the same questions at every hour: the WiFi password, the gate code, where to eat that is still open, how to book another night. A host cannot answer them all, and a generic chatbot that invents an answer is worse than silence when a guest is standing at a locked door.
Solution
Built one AI concierge that answers across voice, SMS, and web from a single brain. It uses tool calls to pull live data (restaurant hours from Google Places, local events, weather) and only reveals a property's private details when that booking is active. It runs on Vercel AI Gateway with a fast primary model and an automatic fallback, with guardrails so it never invents a venue, never claims a booking is confirmed, and hands off to a human when it should.
Results
- One AI concierge serving voice, SMS, and web from a single brain
- Live tool calls (Google Places, events, weather) instead of guessed answers
- Private property info gated to active bookings only, a real security boundary
- Advertiser-funded model: local businesses pay to be recommended, not a cut of bookings
One AI concierge
voice, SMS, and web
Freight Marketplace Platform
Truckstop
Developed a mobile marketplace platform connecting freight carriers with shippers, implementing sophisticated matching algorithms and location-based search functionality.
Challenge
The freight industry relied heavily on manual processes and phone calls to match carriers with available loads, creating inefficiencies and missed opportunities for both parties.
Solution
Created a mobile-first marketplace platform with real-time load matching, location-based search, and pricing transparency. Implemented features for saved locations, recent searches, and direct communication between carriers and shippers.
Results
- 35% improvement in AI load-match accuracy
- 22% increase in user engagement; 15% reduction in carrier churn
- 18% decrease in empty miles across active carriers
- $3.5M first-year revenue from the Spanish-speaking market
What colleagues say
Recommendations from the leaders and engineers I've built with.
“I had the pleasure of working with Oscar at Symplast, where he managed our engineering team. Oscar is the kind of manager every engineer hopes to have: approachable, supportive, and an exceptional problem solver. No matter how complex the challenge, he was always willing to help, provide guidance, and remove obstacles so the team could succeed. He creates an environment where engineers feel trusted, encouraged to grow, and empowered to take ownership.”
Senior Mobile Engineer · React Native & Expo Specialist
“Working with Oscar has been an absolute privilege. He is a truly exceptional leader: visionary, highly strategic, and capable of seeing not only where the world is heading, but the exact steps required to turn those big ideas into reality. What constantly amazes me is his ability to keep pace with multiple complex projects at once without ever losing sight of the big picture. Above all, Oscar is a deeply kind person who puts the human being first.”
UX Designer · Product Designer
“Oscar is a thoughtful, strategic, and execution-driven product leader who played a key role in transforming Truckstop's mobile experience into a high-value e-commerce platform. His ability to align product strategy with business growth and drive cross-functional success makes him an invaluable asset to any team.”
SaaS Product Leader, Platform Specialist
“Oscar is an incredible product leader and an equally great team leader. He led a number of efforts for Spirit within the mobile app space, including localization, accessibility, and personalization. His ability to break down problems into actionable steps empowers his team with confidence. Oscar might have the most impressive executive communication skills I have seen.”
User-Centric. Mobile First.
“Working with Oscar as a Product Manager was a standout experience. Unlike many PMs, Oscar has a strong grasp of technical concepts and strikes a rare balance between engineering, architecture, and user experience. His leadership created an environment where both product and engineering thrived.”
Software Engineering Manager
“I worked closely with Oscar on a number of initiatives, and relied on him to bring energy, passion and vision to a range of the challenges and opportunities created by our growth. He is a relentlessly entrepreneurial thinker who brings intensive focus resulting in great outcomes.”
Product @ Deluxe | AI & Fintech Leader
“Oscar was able to establish deep trust and relationship with the team and key stakeholders in a very short time. He is highly organized with a sharp focus towards customer experience, highlighted in all aspects of his work whether wire-framing with UX, architectural approach with engineering, or shaping product vision with business leaders.”
Cloud Transformation | AI/ML Solutions
“Working with Oscar Ibars was an inspiring experience. His mobile-first innovation strategy and seamless platform coordination accelerated value delivery for carriers. His creativity in Spanish localization ensured high-quality experiences on time, despite backend constraints. He's a visionary product leader who turns ideas into impact.”
Principal Product Manager @ Truckstop
“I rarely come across real talents who stand out like Oscar. His ability to handle multiple projects while managing multiple senior team members was unlike any I've seen before, and made a dramatic increase in the productivity level of our company. As a team member or a leader, Oscar earns my highest recommendation.”
CEO @ CruisingStores
Bring in a product leader who ships.
A few ways teams bring me in, from a fixed sprint to ongoing leadership. Every one ends in shipped product, not a deck. The best next step is a conversation.
AI Product Sprint
From AI demo to a production feature in 90 days.
90 days · ~2 days/week
Best for: Teams sitting on AI potential but stuck at the prototype stage.
- The highest-value AI use case, chosen and de-risked
- An operating model your team can run without me
- One AI feature shipped to real users: Voice AI, an agent, or a GenAI workflow
- Your PMs and engineers leveled up to keep shipping
Fractional Head of Product
Senior product leadership without a full-time hire.
Ongoing · 1–2 days/week
Best for: Founders and teams that need product direction now, not a three-month search.
- Product strategy, roadmap, and operating cadence
- Org and hiring design, plus coaching for your PMs
- AI woven into the roadmap where it earns its place
- Board- and investor-ready reporting in P&L terms
AI Product Advisory
A senior sounding board for your product and AI bets.
Monthly retainer
Best for: Product leaders who want an experienced second brain on call.
- Working sessions on strategy and roadmap
- AI use-case vetting: what to build, what to skip
- Async access for the calls that can't wait
Think there might be a fit?
Not sure which fits? Book 20 minutes and we'll figure it out.