Blair Reeves - Senior Director of Product, Salesforce - airfocus Product Hero

Who is Blair Reeves?

Blair Reeves is director of product management at Salesforce, as well as a prolific writer and blogger. He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University — The Fuqua School of Business. 

Blair has filled a number of prestigious positions during his career. He’s been a program specialist at IntraHealth International, senior product manager at IBM, principal product manager at SAS - Customer Intelligence. Today he holds the title of Salesforce’s director of product management. 

He currently resides in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with his wife and young daughter. 

What is Blair Reeves known for?

Blair Reeves is known as a wearer of multiple hats. As the director of product management at Salesforce, Blair maintains an active presence online through his blogging and appearances on various industry websites or podcasts. He tends to share honest insights based on his own first-hand experience of product management at multiple companies.  

He is also the founder and director of the Long Leaf Pine Slate, created to flip North Carolina’s “gerrymandered Republican legislature”. 

Blair is remarkably open about his perspectives on product management, productivity, and creativity. His extensive body of written work offers a number of eye-opening views on product management. We particularly like his Medium post "How should Product Managers spend their time?".

In the post, Blair shares advice that other product managers can act on to streamline their processes and boost efficiency. Like what, you ask? Blair says: "decline meetings and leave them early when you’re not getting or adding any more value" and "every hour you spend ruminating over your competitor’s latest white paper is an hour you didn’t spend improving your product".

Blair shares more wisdom in the book Building Products for the Enterprise: Product Management in Enterprise Software, co-authored with Benjamin Gaines. 

What does Blair Reeves’s book tell us about product management?

Blair Reeves’ and Benjamin Gaines’ book Building Products for the Enterprise: Product Management in Enterprise Software focuses on various key topics related to enterprise software and product management. 

For example, Reeves and Gaines present in-depth explorations of the fundamental differences between enterprise and consumer products — in terms even product novices can understand.

They also look at one of the main challenges for product managers: identifying customer and user problems. Reeves and Gaines share their views on why this matters, as well as breaking down the benefits of effective collaboration based on real knowledge of an organization. 

The book is designed to serve as a guide for readers who may already be in product manager roles, those who aspire to this position, and anyone with an interest in enterprise software. In the book’s foreword, Todd Olson (Pendo.io’s CEO and Co-founder) suggests it "may well become [enterprise product managers’] ‘bible’" — high praise indeed.