You've earned your seat.
Now let's upgrade it.
A 4-month mastermind for diverse product managers and product marketers ready to better decode corporate politics, close the gap on unwritten rules, enhance your EQ, and build a career plan that gets you to the next level.
You're not imagining it.
The data confirms what you already know.
Every number below represents a system not a personal failure. Understanding the data is the first step to building a strategy that works inside it.
chance of
You're doing the work.
The results aren't adding up.
This mastermind is for you if:
- You're a diverse PM or PMM with 5–15 years of experience operating at the next level but the promotion keeps not coming.
- You've been told you're "not ready" but no one can tell you specifically what ready looks like for someone at your level.
- You're doing excellent work that keeps showing up in someone else's presentation or getting credited to someone else's name.
- You have mentors. What you don't have is a sponsor someone putting your name in rooms you're not in.
- You've watched less experienced colleagues get promoted on the same timeline you were told you needed more time on.
- Your company's DEI programs are being rolled back and the safety net you were counting on is disappearing.
- You're exhausted from code-switching, tone-policing, and performing a version of yourself that isn't fully you.
- You're ready to stop surviving corporate America and start navigating it with strategy, community, and a plan.
This mastermind is not for you if:
- You want a feel-good program that avoids the hard conversations about race and corporate power
- You're not willing to be honest about what's actually happening in your workplace with yourself or the cohort
- You can't commit to showing up for yourself and the team throughout this 4-month process
- You believe the solution is to work harder and hope leadership eventually notices
- You're looking for a networking event with a mastermind label on it
Four months.
Build your next level career framework.
Each month builds on the last from identity to strategy to navigation to action. You don't just learn. You build a plan that lives beyond the program.
- S1 → Introductions, origin stories, and the cost of code-switching. Members share backgrounds, name their challenges, and establish the cohort's psychological safety container.
- S2 → Leadership identity and values. Build your personal leadership manifesto who you are as a leader, on your own terms, before anyone else defines it for you.
- S3 → The 12 unwritten rules of corporate America operating against Black professionals every day that nobody puts in the employee handbook. Every member gets the floor.
- S4 → Hot seat sessions. Each member walks through their specific situation the real thing ailing them in their environment and the cohort responds with strategy, not sympathy.
- S5 → The 48 Laws of Power mapped to the unwrittens. Members identify which laws are being used against them and the counter-moves available in response. Strategy over suffering.
- S6 → Power mapping, sponsor activation, and difficult conversation playbooks. The tools for the hardest situations they face prepared responses, relationship maps, energy protection plans.
- S7 → Career level-up plan workshop. Every member builds their 90-day plan with dated actions, named people, and specific outcomes across three lanes: career, relationships, and leadership.
- S8 → The declaration. Each member presents their plan to the full cohort, makes a public commitment, and signs the pay-it-forward covenant. Graduation. Send-off. What comes next begins now.
You don't just attend.
You produce.
Every member leaves with a portfolio of career assets built progressively over 4 months constructed from their actual situation, not a generic template.
The rules nobody told you
but everyone enforces.
Month 2 and Month 3 are built around the 12 unwritten rules that most affect Black professionals in corporate America. We don't just name them we map them to the 48 Laws of Power and build your counter-moves.
Simple, transparent
pricing.
One program. Everything included. Choose the option that works best for your budget.
- All 8 live group sessions (90 min each)
- Accountability partner pairing
- All core deliverables + worksheets
- Monthly goal check-in forms
- 4 live guest speakers (one per month)
- Private cohort community channel
- Alumni network access
- 30-day post-program alumni check-in
Full payment due upon acceptance. Saves $200 vs. payment plan.
- All 8 live group sessions (90 min each)
- Accountability partner pairing
- All core deliverables + worksheets
- Monthly goal check-in forms
- 4 live guest speakers (one per month)
- Private cohort community channel
- Alumni network access
- 30-day post-program alumni check-in
Billed monthly over the 4-month program. No long-term commitment beyond the cohort.
Employer reimbursement
Most mid-career professionals have $1,000 to $5,000 in annual professional development budgets they don't fully use. Both pricing options fall within most employer reimbursement thresholds. We provide a formal invoice and a business case letter you can take directly to HR.
Corporate & team pricing
Bringing 3 or more colleagues from the same organization? We offer corporate cohort pricing and can build a private cohort for your company's diverse product professionals. Contact us directly to discuss terms.
All prices in USD · Payment plan billed monthly · Employer reimbursable
Built by someone who
has been in the room.
Marcus D. Sallis, MBA
"I built this program for the version of myself who needed it ten years ago and for every Black product professional who has been told to wait, been told to soften, been told to be patient, while watching the door stay closed."
Marcus Sallis is a highly motivated, revenue and customer-focused product executive with both B2C and B2B experience in product strategy, product management, and product marketing in both large corporate and entrepreneurial ventures. With over 20 years of experience across Semi-conductor, telecom, mobility, consumer, gaming, sports betting, and college athletics where he has earned the reputation as the go-to subject matter expert (SME) on voice of the customer, product strategy, GTM, portfolio growth, and executive buy-in which has delivered user, revenue, and market share growth in every corporate role over in this career.
| Industries Worked In |
|---|
| Semi-Conductor |
| Telecom |
| Mobility |
| Consumer |
| Gaming |
| Sports Betting |
| College Athletics |
Learfield Sports – Sidearm Sports Division
VP of Product
As a member of the Senior Executive Leadership Team, led a team of 23 product-oriented professionals to execute product development, roadmap development and innovation, market intelligence, and design for a product portfolio that supports more than 300 Division I college sports programs including fan engagement, AI, NIL, and digital advertising.
Fanatics Inc – Betting and Gaming Division
Senior Director, Head of Product Marketing
As a Senior Leadership team member, led product storytelling, positioning, GTM execution across all omnichannel marketing to launch the Fanatics Sportsbook application and website. Today, the "Most Rewarding Sportsbook" has reached $2B Annual Revenue with 8% market share.
E-Fuse, Inc (Series A Gaming Start-up)
VP, Head of Marketing
As a Senior Executive Leadership team member, stood up the first marketing organization which included product, content, social, PR, brand and creative services which led to a 3x revenue growth through 60+ esports events in partnership with some of the top gaming companies in the industry in Epic Games, Electronic Arts, and Activision Blizzard.
Electronic Arts (EA)
Director, Product Management
As a Product Management Leader, evangelized product management as a core discipline within the Customer Experience org. Built a new product line in partnership with EA's top game studios to capture real-time player feedback and insights a first for the organization's in-game services.
Travel · Mobility · Telecom · Entrepreneur
Product Leadership – Multiple Roles
Led cross-functional technology teams across market assessment, new business identification, and product delivery driving substantial revenue and market share growth in each role across industries before joining gaming.
Texas Instruments · First 7 Years
Strategy, Product Marketing, and Field Sales
Managed a $100M TI/Motorola mobility business and a global account management and support team. Built foundational expertise in cross-functional product leadership, B2B go-to-market, and revenue accountability before business school.
Education
BS in Computer Engineering
Iowa State University
MBA
University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business
What happens when diverse product
professionals stop navigating alone.
"I've had three mentors for two years and none of them have ever said my name in a room I wasn't in. This program gave me the language to understand why and exactly what to do about it."
Kenny Donahue
Senior Product Manager, Learfield/Sidearm Sports
"Month 3 was the most honest conversation I've ever had about corporate politics. Nobody sanitized it. Nobody told me to just work harder. We talked about the actual game being played and how to play it."
Product Marketing Manager, Fintech
Cohort Member
"I came in with a vague feeling that something was wrong. I left with a power map, a sponsor activation plan, and a 90-day plan with actual dates and actual names. This is what preparation looks like."
Group PM, Healthcare Technology
Cohort Member
What you need
to know.
Diverse product managers and product marketing managers with 5–15 years of experience navigating mid-to-senior corporate roles. You're not early career. You've proven yourself. And you're hitting the ceiling that the data says exists at exactly this level the one nobody officially acknowledges but everyone experiences.
Most leadership programs teach general skills in a room that doesn't understand your specific experience. This program starts from the documented reality of what diverse product professionals face the unwritten rules, the sponsorship desert, the post-DEI rollback and builds strategy from there. The cohort is the room. The context is already understood. The work is purely forward-looking.
Two 90-minute sessions per month for four months. Plus bi-weekly check-ins with your accountability partner (typically 30 minutes) and monthly written goal check-ins. The capstone plan is built in stages across the program not all at once at the end.
Yes, and most mid-career professionals have between $1,000 - $5,000 in annual professional development budgets they don't fully utilize. We provide a formal invoice and business case letter you can take to HR. The cost of this program would fall within the typical eligible range.
Because this is not a course, it is a community. Sixteen people means every member gets the floor and hot seat session throughout the process. Every accountability pair is meaningful. Every declaration in the final session is witnessed by people who know your full story. The size was a deliberate choice. We value quality over quantity.
A 30-day alumni group check-in. A private cohort community channel that belongs to the members not the program. A structured 90-day follow-up to close the loop on your action plan. And an alumni network that grows with every cohort. The program ends. The community doesn't.
If you've been waiting for the right time to invest in your career it's already here. The unwritten rules aren't waiting. The post-DEI rollback isn't waiting. The promotion cycle you're targeting isn't waiting. Apply. We'll have a conversation. If the fit isn't right, we'll tell you honestly.
Your next level is
waiting on a plan.
Stop figuring this out alone. Apply for The Product Inner Circle and walk away in four months with the strategy, the community, and the 90-day plan that changes your career.
Apply for Next CohortApplications reviewed on a rolling basis · Cohort fills quickly · Early applicants receive priority review