Product leader & venture builder

Hi, I'm Francis.

I build, launch, and scale digital ventures, helping ambitious teams move from promising ideas to products, platforms, and technology businesses that can grow.

Francis Xavier Labiran

Venture Builder

Product leadership for the messy middle.

I have spent more than a decade working across startup studios, consultancies, corporates, and venture teams. The throughline is simple: I help teams make better product decisions when the route from insight to launch is still uncertain.

My work sits between strategy and execution: shaping propositions, leading cross-functional teams, building MVPs, improving operating models, scaling live products, and creating customer experiences across loyalty, fintech, insurance, travel, marketplaces, subscriptions, and emerging technology.

Shaped, launched, and scaled products across loyalty, insurance, travel, payments, dining, connectivity, and consumer experiences.
Helped founders and corporate teams move from rough opportunity spaces to validated propositions, MVPs, live products, and growth roadmaps.
Built practical AI-assisted workflows, including automation and conversational UI patterns that reduce product, support, and operations drag.

Trusted By

Experience with startups, scaleups, studios, consultancies, and global organisations.

A selection of organisations and brands connected to my product, venture, advisory, and consulting work.

Media Highlight

Francis Labiran x Sylvain Duranton.

A conversation with Sylvain Duranton, CEO of BCG X, recorded in April 2023.

Francis Labiran x Sylvain Duranton (CEO BCG X)

How I Work

Useful strategy, grounded in what it takes to ship.

I am most useful when teams need someone who can move between customer insight, product craft, commercial thinking, technology, and delivery without losing the thread.

Venture Builder

I work with teams at the point where an idea still has too many possible futures. I help turn that ambiguity into sharper propositions, clearer roadmaps, and products that can actually reach customers.

Product & Tech Advisor

I advise founders and venture teams on product strategy, technology choices, operating rhythm, and the decisions that shape both early momentum and long-term resilience.

0-1 to Scale Product Leader

I bring enough strategy to choose the right direction, enough delivery discipline to get the product into the world, and enough operating experience to help it keep improving after launch.

Selected Work

A few signals from the work.

Not a full CV. Just a set of public-safe examples that show the kind of product, venture, advisory, and automation work I do.

  • Venture Lead Product Manager

Building a travel insurance ecosystem connected to loyalty and rewards

Venture product leadership across proposition, roadmap, delivery, partnerships, and launch readiness.

  • Travel
  • Insurance
  • Loyalty
  • Venture Lead Product Manager

Automating customer support with a HubSpot agent at IAG Loyalty

Using AI-assisted automation to improve customer support workflows and reduce operational drag.

  • Customer Support
  • AI Automation
  • HubSpot
  • Loyalty
  • Product & Tech Advisor

Product and tech advisor for Kinhub.tech

Advisory support across product strategy, technology decisions, and early product momentum.

  • Advisory
  • Product Strategy
  • Technology
  • Product Lead / Venture Builder
  • Anonymised

Launching a consumer loyalty platform for a major retail brand

Helping a large organisation move from loyalty strategy to a digital customer experience at scale.

  • Retail
  • Loyalty
  • Consumer
  • Chief Product Officer / Product Leader

Building MVPs across a portfolio of startup ideas

Product leadership across multiple early-stage ventures, from concept to prototype and MVP.

  • Startup Studio
  • Consumer
  • Platforms
  • Founder / Product Lead

Rebuilding Wordjar as an AI-assisted publishing platform

A personal project exploring publishing infrastructure, editorial workflows, and AI-assisted product development.

  • Publishing
  • Creative Technology
  • AI

Focus

The spaces I keep coming back to.

Consumer behaviour, loyalty, embedded services, conversational interfaces, venture design, and the operating systems that help teams keep learning after launch.

  • Consumer loyalty and rewards
  • Fintech and insurance
  • Conversational customer experiences
  • Connectivity
  • Automotive
  • Marketplaces
  • Subscriptions
  • 0-1 product development
  • Venture building
  • Product strategy
  • Digital Service Design
  • AI-assisted workflows

Work with me

Building something ambitious?

I am open to advisory, fractional, contract, and senior product leadership opportunities with teams working on meaningful digital products and ventures.