Hire a PM

To: Rosa Lindqvist From: Director of Product Re: Group PM, Patient Payments: recommendation

Recommendation

Hire Joy Adeyemi, conditional on two checks I can finish before Friday (below). I would not hire Dev on the current evidence. If the checks on Joy go badly, I would hold the search open rather than default to Dev, because his file has gaps too.

Why the recorded scores mislead

The recorded scores are Dev 4/4/4/4 and Joy 3/3/3/3, which would make this an easy call for Dev. But I don't trust them, for three reasons:

• They were entered after the debrief discussion, and the Head of Design spoke first. That is a classic anchoring setup.
• The VP Engineering's own pre-debrief notebook said "Joy: 4, strongest leader we've seen." They entered a 3 after the discussion. Uniform 3s for Joy and uniform 4s for Dev look like a group narrative, not independent assessments.
• Dev's scores aren't supported by the interview notes (below).

Evidence, by scorecard area

Analytics (20%) - Dev was asked what metric he moved and answered "we grew the payments platform massively." When pressed, he said "the team shipped 40+ features." That is output, not outcome, and he never gave a number. The Data lead's "Strong" doesn't match their own notes. - Joy raised payment completion from 33% to 47% over 18 months and walked through an experiment that failed and what it taught her. That is directly relevant to our 41% online payment rate.

Product sense (25%) - Dev generated six feature ideas in five minutes, before asking who pays and why. The redesign was creative, but it started from solutions. - Joy spent 15 minutes on who pays and why they don't pay online. She then proposed one change, text-to-pay for the 58% of patients who pay by phone, and discussed its trade-offs. "Slower" is how it looked, but it is the better strategic instinct for a role whose first job is setting payments strategy.

People leadership (20%) - Dev told every story in the first person and said his last PM team "struggled to keep up with me." Two of his references are current direct reports, so they aren't independent. Your contact at his previous company said his team "turned over a lot." That is one informal source, but it is consistent with the interview. - Joy coached a struggling PM into a better-fit role, promoted another, and credited her engineers by name. The VP Engineering's original instinct was that she was the strongest leader we've seen. This role leads three PMs.

Execution and influence (35%, the heaviest weight) - Dev's strength is real here. His deck was "the best we've ever seen," and your contact says he is "great in front of execs." That is evidence of influence upward, though not of execution. - Joy's evidence is thinner. The only concerns are "not much presence" and "not sure she'd command the room with the CFO." Those are impressions, not observed behavior, and nobody has tested them. Her 14-point completion lift is execution evidence, but I want to confirm her role in it. - Neither file has much direct evidence on delivery, such as shipping through Finance and Compliance constraints. That is a gap for both.

My rescoring. These are my judgment, not data. I gave Dev a 3 or 4 on execution and influence, and Joy a 3.

Even generous to Dev on the heaviest-weighted category, Joy comes out ahead. The result is sensitive to the influence score, which is why the CFO check matters.

Risks

1. Executive presence with the CFO. This is Joy's real risk, because the role requires working closely with Finance. But the feedback is vague and unverified, and "presence" comments are also where style bias tends to enter. We should test it rather than assume it.
2. Attribution of the 33%→47% result. I haven't verified what she owned versus what the team or market drove.
3. Dev's strengths are not nothing. He may be a strong operator with weak interview discipline on metrics. But the absence of a single number, combined with the team-turnover signal and the "struggled to keep up with me" comment, is a pattern. For a role leading three PMs, that is the riskier error.
4. Process risk. If we hire on the recorded scores, we are acting on data we know was contaminated.

What I'd check before the offer

All of this fits before Friday:

1. A 30-minute working session with the CFO and a Compliance lead. Joy would take a real case, such as a payment-plan or fee trade-off. Interviewers would score against defined criteria: clarity, handling of pushback, and command of the numbers. This tests the specific concern directly.
2. Targeted reference calls on Joy. I would ask her former manager and peer how she handled disagreement with Finance or senior executives, with a specific example. I would also ask for one additional reference from a Finance or Compliance partner. Nobody has asked this yet.
3. Verify the 33%→47% result. I would ask Joy what she personally owned and how it was measured, and ask her references to confirm.
4. Ask the debrief group to put concrete observations behind "presence." I would also ask the VP Engineering what changed their score from 4 to 3. If the answer is "the discussion" and not new evidence, that tells us something.

If Dev stays in consideration, I would require two things first: a specific metric he moved and how, and two independent references (former peers or reports, not current ones). I am not proposing to hold the process open for him, but it is the bar I'd want met.

Compensation

Joy asks for $230k and Dev for $245k, in a $220–250k band. I would offer Joy at or near her ask. If the CFO session is strong, there is room to move up within the band if needed to close. Her ask leaves headroom for growth, and I don't want to lowball her because she asked for less.

Process note for next time

We should collect written scores independently before the debrief, and have the most senior person speak last. Otherwise the loudest early voice becomes the score.

Bottom line: Joy is the stronger fit on the evidence, with one open question (influence with the CFO) that I can resolve before Friday. I recommend we make the offer if the CFO session and reference checks come back clean.

MEMORANDUM

TO: Rosa Lindqvist, VP of Product FROM: Director of Product, Medvia DATE: October 24, 2023 SUBJECT: Hiring Recommendation: Group PM, Patient Payments

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Rosa,

Following yesterday’s debrief, I have reviewed the scorecards, interview transcripts, and reference notes for our open Group PM role. We are tasked with finding a leader who can set strategy, lift our online payment rate from its current 41%, lead a team of three PMs, and collaborate effectively with Finance and Compliance in a regulated healthcare environment.

The CEO needs our decision by Friday. My recommendation is that we extend an offer to Joy Adeyemi at $230k. We should not hire Dev Malhotra.

Below is the evidence, the associated risks, and the pre-offer checks required to secure Joy.

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1. The Evidence: Why Joy Adeyemi over Dev Malhotra

While the final entered scores (Dev straight 4s; Joy straight 3s) suggest a clear winner, the raw interview notes and hidden dynamics of our debrief tell a different story.

• Product Sense & Problem Solving: Dev is a classic "feature factory" ideator. The Head of Design noted Dev pitched six features in five minutes before asking who pays and why. Conversely, Joy spent her first 15 minutes investigating the root causes of friction—asking who pays and why others don’t—before proposing a targeted, high-leverage solution: text-to-pay tailored to the 58% of patients currently paying via phone. For a critical metric like our 41% online payment rate, we need clinical execution, not a scattershot feature list.
• Analytics & Rigor: The Data Lead’s notes on Dev are a red flag. When pressed on metrics, Dev offered vague marketing speak ("grew massively," "shipped 40+ features") with zero data attribution. Joy provided hard, demonstrable impact: she raised payment completion at her previous company from 33% to 47% over 18 months. Crucially, she also walked through a failed experiment and extracted lessons—proving she understands the complex trade-offs of healthcare payments.
• People Leadership & Culture: Dev speaks entirely in the first person ("I," "my wins") and casually remarked that his last team "struggled to keep up with me." Rosa, you likely noted your contact’s warning that his team suffered high turnover. Joy is the inverse: she coaches struggling reports, promotes talent, and attributes wins directly to her engineers. The VP of Engineering’s pre-debrief notebook literally rated Joy as a "4, strongest leader we've seen," before social pressure in the debrief caused the scores to normalize.
• The "Presence" Bias: The primary knock on Joy during the debrief was a lack of "presence" and a concern about whether she could "command the room with the CFO." This is a subjective trap. We do not need a charismatic showman to present slide decks; we need a strategist who can build bulletproof business cases with Finance and navigate Compliance. Joy’s methodical, customer-first approach is precisely what Finance will trust.

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2. Risks to Manage

• The CFO/Executive Presence Risk: Because the interview panel worried Joy might be quiet in front of executive stakeholders, we must validate her ability to defend her strategy to our CFO and Compliance leads.
• Compensation and Closing: Joy is asking for $230k (right in the middle of our $220k–$250k band), making her a financially sound hire. However, because she is measured and thoughtful, she may take a few days to deliberate. We need to move decisively.

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3. Pre-Offer Checks (To Be Completed by Thursday EOD)

Before we release the offer to Joy, I will execute two final validation steps:

1. Backchannel/Targeted Reference Check: Since our previous reference calls did not explicitly probe her dynamic with Finance or Compliance, I will spend 10 minutes with her former manager specifically asking: “How did Joy handle budget cross-examinations with Finance? How did she partner with Legal/Compliance when building payment flows?”
2. The "CFO Alignment" Test: I’d like to spend 30 minutes with Joy and our current Director of Finance (or you and I) presenting a mock 10-minute briefing on our 41% online payment bottleneck, asking her to walk us through how she would construct the business case for the Q1 roadmap.

Conclusion

Dev is dazzling in a pitch meeting, but his metrics are hollow, his leadership style is toxic to retention, and his instinct is to build before understanding. Joy is rigorous, customer-obsessed, metrics-driven, and a multiplier for her team and cross-functional partners.

Let’s trust the substance over the theater. I am ready to initiate the final check and prepare the $230k offer for Friday morning.

To: Rosa Lindqvist, VP Product Subject: Group PM, Patient Payments — recommend Joy, subject to targeted checks by Friday

Rosa,

I recommend hiring Joy Adeyemi, contingent on validating her ability to set strategy and influence Finance and Compliance. The interview evidence is stronger for Joy on the work this role requires: improving payment outcomes, making customer-grounded product decisions, and developing PMs. Dev’s presentation strength is clear, but the evidence does not support his uniformly exceptional scores.

We should complete focused checks before Friday rather than let either the debrief’s consensus or the deadline substitute for evidence.

Why Joy

Our agreed scorecard—not presentation polish—should drive the decision.

Why I would not rely on the recorded scores

The 4s for Dev and 3s for Joy were entered after the discussion, so they are not independent assessments. The VP Engineering’s contemporaneous note—“Joy: 4, strongest leader we’ve seen”—conflicts with the submitted 3. Combined with the Head of Design speaking first and enthusiasm about Dev’s deck, this creates a credible risk of anchoring and presentation halo.

“Not much presence” and “command the room” are not sufficiently specific hiring criteria. We need evidence of gaining alignment, handling disagreement, and changing consequential decisions—not a proxy based on communication style. This does not prove bias or invalidate every judgment; it means the scores need reconciliation with observed behavior.

I would ask each interviewer to independently reassess their dimension against the original rubric, cite evidence, and explain any change from their pre-debrief assessment. I would not manufacture replacement scores from these notes.

Risks in hiring Joy

• Executive and cross-functional influence is unproven. Strong product judgment will not be enough if she cannot resolve disagreements with Finance and Compliance.
• Group-level strategy remains under-tested. One well-reasoned product proposal does not establish an ability to set a portfolio strategy or allocate work across three PMs.
• Her reported impact needs attribution. We need to understand what she owned, what other changes contributed, and whether the gains were durable.

Dev’s executive presentation skill is a genuine strength. However, selecting him now would require overlooking gaps in measurable outcomes and substantial unanswered leadership questions. His current direct-report references offer a limited perspective; the informal turnover report is also insufficiently substantiated.

Checks before an offer

1. Focused, structured working session with Finance and Compliance. Ask Joy to outline a patient-payments strategy from our 41% online payment baseline, identify missing data, prioritize opportunities, and explain how she would organize three PMs. Introduce a realistic conflict involving collections, patient experience, cost, and compliance constraints. Assess decision quality, listening, trade-off handling, and ability to reach a workable decision—not performance style. A CFO or senior Finance delegate and Compliance partner should score independently before discussing.

2. Targeted reference follow-ups, with Joy’s consent. Ask her former manager and peer for concrete examples of disagreement with a CFO or Finance leader, work with Compliance, strategy ownership, and developing PMs. Verify the 33%–47% result, her contribution, and measurement. Seek an additional relevant cross-functional reference if those references lack direct visibility.

3. Reconcile the interview record. Complete the independent score review and explicitly resolve the leadership-score discrepancy. Document remaining uncertainty rather than forcing consensus.

Friday decision: If these checks substantiate Joy’s strategy and influence capabilities, proceed with her offer. If they reveal a material gap—or cannot establish the essential evidence—I recommend neither, not defaulting to Dev.

Joy’s $230k request and Dev’s $245k request are both within the $220k–$250k band. Compensation should not decide this choice; set Joy’s offer based on scope and internal equity, not simply her lower ask.