About
A fractional product leader with 20 years of experience and a track record of walking into complex situations, getting oriented fast, and leaving things better than she found them.
Ballast Advisory started from a simple observation: many companies need senior product thinking, but not necessarily a senior product hire. The gap between "we have a PM" and "we have great product leadership" is wide, and filling it with a full-time executive is often the wrong solution — too slow, too expensive, too permanent for the problem at hand.
Fractional engagement fixes that. You get the experience and judgment of a seasoned product leader, applied at the scope and duration the work actually requires. I've spent six years refining how to make that model work in practice — getting up to speed fast, integrating into existing teams, and producing work that outlasts the engagement.
Before going fractional, I spent 14 years in product roles at Wayfair, Babylist, Pivotal Labs, IBM, and Cognizant — scaling products across e-commerce, consumer platforms, and enterprise software. That range is intentional. I don't specialize in a single vertical because the best product thinking transfers.
Outside of client work, I write about product management and the discipline of building things well at The Product of Everything on Substack, and serve as Vice Chair of my town's Conservation Commission. I'm also a Boston College alum, a 30-year South Shore transit rider, and an obsessive grower of heirloom tomato varieties. You can find out more about the person behind the consultancy at jenfoley.com.
The first job in any fractional engagement is getting oriented fast without disrupting the team. I use AI tooling throughout — discovery synthesis, meeting capture, competitive analysis — and I've published the receipts on what that actually looks like in practice.
Every team is different. I adapt my approach to the culture, the stage, and the specific problem — not to a methodology I'm attached to. The frameworks I use are in service of the work, not the other way around.
The goal isn't to create dependency on a fractional consultant. It's to leave the team with better processes, clearer thinking, and artifacts they can continue to use after I'm gone.
Complex projects have conflict. I've learned to defuse it with humor, keep the room moving forward, and have the difficult conversations when they're needed — constructively, not catastrophically.
"She consistently translated needs into an experience that was intuitive for partners while also enabling the business to scale. Jen is an exceptionally collaborative partner and a true team player. She presses into problems, asks the right questions, and follows through until issues are fully resolved."Meredith Doherty — Head of Business Development, Nift
"She is skilled in guiding a client toward realistic requirements without making them feel managed. When scope started creeping, she helped the client understand the tradeoffs and make informed decisions that protected their budget. That's harder than it sounds. The product we worked on launched successfully and was eventually acquired."Mike Stone — Co-founder, The Gnar
"She had an impressive ability to stay calm, anticipate needs before they were voiced, and keep everyone focused on what mattered most. In moments where projects can easily drift toward pressure, urgency, or expediency, Jen had a way of staying anchored in her values."Josh McCoy — Product Collaborator