🔸 Are You Stuck Here? 🔸
You have a good product, yet growth has slowed, adoption feels unpredictable, and the team is working harder without seeing the same results. The more tools and meetings you add, the more progress seems to stall between idea and delivery. It is frustrating to watch promising ideas lose momentum before they reach the customer.

🔸 There Is a Better Way 🔸
Most teams try to fix these symptoms with more process. What actually needs repair is the holistic product experience. I believe growth-stage companies win when they build experiences that work for customers and the business. That is the work of Product Experience Architecture. I help teams shorten the time from idea to validated impact by crafting products customers love and businesses trust.

🔸 My 3 Step Plan for Your Success 🔸
Through the PX360 Builder Advantage, I help growth-stage teams turn product development complexity into clarity, connection, and measurable results.
1️⃣ Diagnose Friction: We uncover where poor product experience (external and internal) is negatively impacting flow so teams can move with purpose.
2️⃣ Align the Builders: We connect product management, design, and engineering to buyer and user goals and outcomes.
3️⃣ Accelerate Impact: We shorten the idea-to-impact cycle and translate product work into adoption and growth.

🔸 Proof This Works 🔸
I have used this framework with HealthTech, FinTech, and EdTech leaders to replace stalled launches with real momentum. Many see adoption gains within 60 to 90 days. My background in product strategy and delivery taught me that when clarity leads, impact follows. Because this work is deep and collaborative, I partner with a limited number of companies each quarter who are ready to build differently, not just faster.

🔸 Your Next Step Is Clear 🔸
If you want to leverage product experience to drive customer and business outcomes, let’s talk. I offer a 30-minute Product Experience Clarity Session to pinpoint where friction hides between idea and impact. This is a working session, not a sales call. You will leave with clear insights whether we work together or not.

➥ Book your session: https://cal.com/natemjones/clarity-session

Nate Jones

Thomas Edison reminds us, “Vision without execution is hallucination.”
The opposite is true as well.

Crafting product experiences that hold up when users, buyers, and boards look closely | Product Experience Architect | HealthTech • FinTech • EdTech | Fractional & Advisory

Recently, I had the opportunity to get meta about how I operate in a fun conversation with Karina Mikhli. There's always something to learn by having to explain your nuanced, battle-hardened, sometimes silly processes and systems to others.

Founder, Fractionals United® | Global community for current and aspiring fractional leaders | Async First

Nate Jones is a regular during my Monthly Choose Your Own Reading Adventure book club at Fractionals United®, so I know he's an avid reader and super structured with his time. I was thrilled to finally have a chance to discuss how he handles being productive while juggling clients and life—and I picked up a useful tip or two!

Thank you for the lovely chat, Nate!

I chatted with Nate Jones, a fractional product, UX, and technology leader and FrUn community member, about how he stays productive across multiple cl

Open article: Fractional Productivity with Nate Jones by Karina Mikhli • 3 min read

Northrop Grumman

Senior Systems Engineering Manager

Leverage and implement AI to support PS business/ LMDS Division (as a start), thus positively impacting programs costs and schedule. 

Assigned by CIO to lead the implementation of an integrated engineering tools pools request that provides visibility to the requestor and approver on TIERs levels and cost impacts.

Assigned by Director of Production Planning to lead implementation of the new Kanban system in building FIN3 to support GEM63 (Amazon Kiper) program schedule and cost. 

Assigned by Director of Business Development to support the SMART Motor team with purchasing parts on time while meeting Cyber and Export Control regulations.

Implemented teams' skills matrix to align employee development and coaching with business needs and career growth. As a result, two people in the team were promoted, while another one moved to another department as he outgrew his current role.

Partnered with Propulsions Systems business unit (three sites in Utah, 4000 users) to achieve business goals while leading enterprise services' service improvements, and drive execution demonstrating achievements/critical metrics. 
•	Managed a yearly budget of $52.4 mil: $16.3 mil in engineering tools/ enterprise provided software, $9.6 mil in IWOs, $21.9 in CIO allocations, and $4.6 mil in business budget allocated to enterprise services.
•	Led the service and process improvements, reducing the number of escalations from ten/ week to less than three/ week.
•	Led and executed enterprise services costs reduction that in six months saved PS business $1.2 million in Engineering Tools costs, and $700K in miscellaneous costs while improving service quality.
•	Partnered with digital transformation, enterprise services, and business to discuss and develop an initial strategy to support factory of the future and 24/7 IT/ OT support.
•	Led a cyber team that planned and executed moving legacy manufacturing equipment and devices to the Northrop Grumman network to meet CMMC requirements

Senior Program Manager Enterprise Services/ Business Improvement

PSSC/ Minuteman III Ordnance program

Provided leadership, strategy, and direction to the program team while leveraging the skill sets of each team member, to successfully develop and meet program goals and plans as per contract objectives.

Responsibilities:
• Led the development and execution of program plan and IMS. Plans/ IMS schedule are aligned with contract objectives.
• Conveyed budget and scope to VSET leads (operations and engineering): scope, schedule and budget and follow up on execution with each VSET leads
• Coordinated the performance of program functions (such as supply chain, contract, finance, and operations) 
• Identified and assessed risk with appropriate mitigating actions
• Managed budgets and updated EAC performance for interval reviews
• Forecasted financial performance and staffing needs with input from the Operations and Engineering teams.
• Guided and provided feedback on repair line processes, materials, tooling, facilities and suppliers based on lessons learned and customer feedback.
• Drove technical excellence by setting program standards, working closely with technical team, balancing risk, and delivering performance.

Program Manager Air Force Programs, Minuteman III

Laborie

• Spearheaded innovative solutions that sped new resin and material qualification while fostering first-in-class operational efficiencies and engineering throughput; rebuilt failing teams to start and completed 26 projects within 1.5 years. 
• Being promoted within seven months from a Senior Engineering Manager to an Associate Director of Engineering. 
• Elevated engineering team credibility internally with successful process manufacturing improvements, CAPAs and NCRs completions, sustaining engineering, new product introductions, and production support. 
• Realized exceptional productivity with team of 14 manufacturing engineers, equipment technicians and molding technicians, designing and qualifying new equipment, improving processes. 
• Lead two engineering team organization optimization, reduction of production costs and improving FPY by using DMAIC and simple problem solving, PM and TPM implementation, and supporting daily production needs on an annual $8M budget.

Associate Director of Engineering

• Spearheaded innovative solutions that sped new resin and material qualification while fostering first-in-class operational efficiencies and engineering throughput; rebuilt failing teams to start and complete 24 projects within 6 months. 
• Elevated engineering team credibility internally with successful process manufacturing improvements, CAPAs and NCRs completions, sustaining engineering, and production support. 
• Realized exceptional productivity with team of 14 manufacturing engineers, equipment technicians and molding technicians, designing and qualifying new equipment, improving processes. 
• Lead reduction of production costs and improving FPY by using DMAIC and simple problem solving, PM and TPM implementation, and supporting daily production needs.
• Within first 6 months, started and completed 13 projects, some backlogged for more than two years and realized 95+% on-time projects delivery.
• Invited input from quality manager, production manager, and plant manager to develop engineering project portfolio with monthly visual reporting on KPIs and resource utilization, and focused outcomes on needs of business over individual demands.
• Rescued revenue (plus $4M) by completing new resin qualification in four months.
•  Created four parallel projects to qualify a new resin as a result of supply chain challenges because of Covid pandemic.
• Welcomed RA and Quality input to eliminate a 510K and BSI submission that will delay the qualification by minimum one year.
• Defined leadership strategy for engineering team composition, alignment, and skillsets, for business responsiveness.
• Developed skill matrices to train engineers on competencies required to serve 5-year business roadmap.
• Managed engineering team capacity to support new projects and daily production requirements.
• Managing engineering operations team to complete new technology transfer from California to Salt Lake City- in process and first time for this site

Senior Engineering Manager

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

Once again returning to the military / defense contracting industry, I brought all my experience leading engineering programs (large teams and budgets) to bear on this engagement. Specifically, I led the business to grow revenue while driving operational changes that cut our costs considerably for this provider of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) tactical mission processors, network routers, Ethernet switches, and embedded board-level products. 

Our strategy was strong but scope creep was cutting into our margins. I took control of this project management issue with our engineering team, aligned them to an accountability plan, and grew our business 7 figures in 2 years. At the same time, we cut our development timelines and launched 3X new products. 

Of note, my operational strategies touched our top lines as well as our margins. I set rigid yet attainable operational goals, including eliminating backlogged engineering change notices (ECNs) and standardizing our approach to resolving technical failures. These changes moved our engineering team to functional leadership within the company. 

Overall, my leadership strategy elevated not only our functional contributions but also our visibility to our customers, in that improving the way we solved technical problems internally rescued international client relationships as well continued to serve our domestic customers. I am certain that the training and development / team leadership I infused into our department gave our team the lift it needed to showcase our competencies and support the company overall. Equally important, I led the site relocation from Utah to Canada.

Executive leadership: Executive strategy | Customer engagement | Revenue growth | Team development | Team accountability

Moog Medical Devices

This program manager role was my second in the medical device industry. Although I was quickly recruited into my next position, I brought a novel perspective to engineering leadership that had a few enduring impacts. 

Substantively, I worked with the engineering, management, and executive teams to identify the roadblocks to product development and management of scope. Through strategic communication and clarity of messaging, I set the tone to achieve one key product’s first significant advancement in product development in 2 years. 

On the back end, I developed a strategy to manage engineering sustaining projects—management of upgrades and fixes to maximize or extend their utility and market value. When I arrived, there was no clear, centralized program for handling product lifecycles, so engineering resources were stretched thin. I worked with the team to identify where the maintenance and upgrades overlapped, which enabled us to redeploy 50% of the engineering hours previously dedicated to overseeing these product revisions. As an engineering team, we became faster, leaner, and much more productive as a result.

I also believe that my institution of an Agile process, superseding our prior waterfall approach, not only influenced our ability to align our existing resources efficiently but also allowed us to move more quickly and accelerate delivery beyond the levels previously believed possible.

Executive leadership: Vision | Executive strategy | Engineering program management | Operations leadership

Senior Program Manager Enteral Pumps Product Line

Stryker

Once again extending my executive leadership, I moved into the first of two positions in the medical devices industry leading engineering project management. Coalescing my executive leadership to achieve strategic performance goals, I once again contributed to product launches as well as atypically enabled the engineering team to directly influence sales.

On the product management side, I influenced our executive team to understand the underlying causes of significant delays with a technology valued at 8 figures. The keys to these conversations were transparency and clarity: Giving the executive leadership team my detailed assessments helped them understand the reasons for the setbacks—and provided lockstep pathways forward toward commercialization.

My contributions to the internally facing teams were just as impactful. For example, by categorizing and tracking our technology mandated to expire by FDA regulation, we had a dashboard tool that monitored potential for sale of these products into other countries according to their local regulatory environments. We thus eliminated aging product from our warehouses (without consigning FDA regulatory-expired but still valuable materials to unsellable status) and increased the top line. The development of this project centered on analysis but succeeded through exceptional communication across engineering, product management, and executive strategic teams.

As well, I implemented a number of technologies that tracked additional resource data about our inventory, process, and products. Equally important, I led a product line relocation within Utah.

Executive leadership: Product design | Product engineering | Program management | Executive strategy | Executive communication | Stakeholder management

Senior NPI Project Manager

NetDocuments

Highlighting the diversity of my engineering executive leadership and project management abilities, I took on a product manager position in the IT industry.

As NetDocuments’ newest search function that had been in stasis for a few years, I combined product leadership with program management to jumpstart development (layering new technologies into the product) and define a timeline for launch. Interestingly, as much as the new Microsoft ESP platform was novel to the organizational overall, it was my direction of the culture shift and alignment to the goal that got the project back on track and moving through its planned timeline and budget milestones.

Along those same lines, and during this time, I also shifted into a more customer-facing persona, working with the team to resolve stagnating client complaints and to rescue clients’ business. Again, this was more of a cultural and philosophical shift, through which I offered up an elevation of existing leadership to resolve the issues and save the client relationship.

Finally, I launched datacenters in Australia and UK—without ever leaving our home office. By gathering information on what had been explored before and fitting those data points into a comprehensive analysis of what still needed to be done by local vendors and internal teams, I created a seamless and fully remotely led plan that accomplished our goals.

Executive leadership: Remote strategy | Program Management | Project Management | Milestones | Scheduling | Budgeting | Agile / Scrum

Information Technology / SaaS: Senior Project Manager

L3 Communications

I was hired as an operations program manager to lead 28 projects (capital, international, Homeland, repairs) valued up to several millions of dollars each. My strategies centered on engineering and manufacturing efficiencies, to maximize project values for L3’s bottom line as well as to increase our customers’ commitments to working with us as partners on DOD-critical projects.

My leadership centered on improving project timelines and costs while delivering to customers as contracted. With strong, transparent communication, and an unshakable dedication to success, we exceeded profitability goals and a great number of time schedules, while achieving superior quality metrics (case in point: ask me about how we compressed a 3-month repair of Air Force One into a single day).

Executive leadership: Risk identification | Project management | Production scheduling | Profitability | Cost controls

Operations Program Manager III

Executive Strategist I Engineering Program Visionary I Operational Excellence I Corporate Profitability

Professional Brand: Serve, Learn, Do

Continuous learning is a necessity for me. My philosophy is that if I stop learning then is game over. 

As a leader I want to use my skills, experience, and knowledge to help the business, maximize profitability, provide quality products and expand by retaining customer confidence. I am adept at streamlining processes so people can do their job easier. Providing stability in the workplace so that employees can support their families and contribute to the success of the business is a priority for me.  I have the ability to build cohesive teams that function together at the highest level of effectiveness.

I am a professional with over 20 years demonstrated history as a high performer working in various roles such as Operations, Engineering, and Program Management in various industries and technologies (8+ in DoD. My contributions include saving companies' money $ multi millions).

I have 10 years of experience in Program Management, 7 years in Design Engineering, and 10+ years in Manufacturing and Operations. I am well-rounded with Experience in all phases of program leadership, including: Research and Development, program start up and Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD), Full Rate Production (FRP), IRAD and CapEX funds, technology transfer and ramping up production to meet sales, EVMS, Costs and schedule control, aging and repairs, and DoD proposals.  My experience includes working with FFP, CPFF, CPAF contract structures.
 
Education: BSME, MBA in Tech Management and Commercialization, Master Project Management certificate, and Lean Manufacturing certificates.

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Elena Balasa, MBA

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Elena Balasa, MBA

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