Help - Assess my evidence (ex Product Director, current GovAI/urban AI fellow)

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Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to get your insights on the strength of my application. My career path has been slightly untraditional. I was previously a Product Director (started as a Product Manager) at a large (17,000+ people) enterprise tech company leading both product & business development then quit corporate and have been doing a (paid) fellowship with Cornell University where I work with a local US city government agency to implement AI solutions, all in the name of advancing government innovation with private sector skills & cross-sector collaboration.

I’m trying to figure out how to position my application as my recent work in GovAI/urban AI has been getting more public recognition in the last 1.5 years but my previous role at the tech company fits more neatly into the definition of product-led work.

Here are the LORs I’m considering:

  1. VP of Product from previous job at tech company
  2. VP of Sales from previous job at tech company
  3. VP of Engineering from previous job at tech company
  4. Director of my current fellowship who was previously global policy directors at a Fortune 500 tech company
  5. Former Head of Innovation of Transport for London who knows me through my work on GovAI/urban AI
  6. Director of the tech hub at the university where my fellowship is hosted

Evidence: I’m trying to figure out which ones should go into MC vs OC.

  1. Led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company
  • Reference letter(s) from VP(s) of Product or Engineering
  • Trying to figure out what evidence goes into this criteria: there’s still public facing brochures of the products I managed (that I wrote) and screenshots I grabbed from old roadmap/P&L presentations
  1. Led the marketing or business development at a product-led digital technology company, demonstrably enabling substantial revenue and/or customer growth or major commercial success, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, senior global commercial executives inside the company and/or at company partners/customers, or similar evidence.
  • Reference letter(s) from VP(s) of Sales
  • Same as above: Trying to figure out what evidence goes into this criteria: there’s still public facing brochures of the products I managed (that I wrote) and screenshots I grabbed from old roadmap/P&L presentations
  1. Evidence of speaking at high-profile digital technology sector events, or specialist events for your particular field in the digital technology sector, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings or similar evidence (including event size/attendance estimates where possible).
  • Screenshots of my panel description, speaker profile & photos from Bloomberg CityLab where I discussed using AI to manage urban systems (over 1,000 attendees for the conference though my panel was a breakout session, not main stage)
  • Screenshots & photos from smaller summits around AI for impact/climate (~100 attendees)
  1. Published material in professional or major trade publications or major media about the applicant related to the applicant’s work in the digital technology sector. You must include the title, date and evidence that you are the author of such published material and any necessary translation.
  • Report I published with Cornell University about the fellowship
  • Upcoming paper I will publish with University College of London on AI and urban systems
  • Upcoming article published by a journal on urban systems about my work
  • There’s a Cornell article mentioning the fellowship and my name but didn’t focus on me - probably not worth using

I would greatly appreciate your honest assessment of my profile & evidence as well as any guidance on which LORs / evidence would best support my case.

Thanks a million!

2

The first decision is route. Product Director at a 17,000-person tech company with business development responsibility points towards Talent, not Promise. If you have more than 5 years in tech, the guide describes Promise applicants as “likely to have less than 5 years of experience in technology.” If you applied under Promise, Tech Nation would reclassify you to Talent automatically.

On LORs: three VPs from the same company is a problem. The guide requires letters “from three different well-established individuals acknowledged as experts in the digital technology field,” and assessors consistently flag when all references share an employer. The former Head of Innovation at Transport for London is your strongest external validator because they know your GovAI work independently. Pick one VP from the previous company (Product is the most relevant for MC), the TfL contact, and the fellowship director with Fortune 500 tech background. That gives you three distinct organisations and two people who can speak to different phases of your career.

The published material evidence has a timing problem. The guide requires you to “include the title, date and evidence that you are the author of such published material.” Upcoming papers with UCL and the urban systems journal can’t be used until they’re published. The Cornell report works if it’s independently published by the university and publicly accessible, but a co-authored fellowship report risks reading as institutional output rather than coverage of you. Bloomberg CityLab with 1,000+ attendees is your strongest OC2 piece by far. The smaller summits at ~100 attendees are borderline since the guide requires events “widely regarded as sector-leading” with “at least 100 attendees (not registrations).”

The bigger structural question is how to frame the career pivot. Your previous role maps neatly to MC (“led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team”) but your recent work is at a university fellowship, which isn’t a product-led digital technology company. Internal roadmap screenshots and P&L presentations from your old role are evidence of doing your job, not evidence of recognition. You need external signals from that period - press coverage, customer testimonials, industry awards, or revenue metrics that can be independently verified. Build the MC around the product leadership role with externally verifiable outcomes, and use the GovAI work for OC2 (speaking, published material) where the recognition is already public-facing.

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@Akash_Joshi Thank you so much for your thorough analysis! I have a few follow up questions if you don’t mind:

  1. Definitely taking your advice on the LORs. I’ve seen some applicants submit additional reference letters beyond the required 3. Is it worth considering for my case?

  2. In regards to published content, I plan on applying only after the UCL paper & journal article come out. Would the UCL paper be disqualified as I’m also co-authoring it similarly to the Cornell report?

  3. My previous role is where I fear my external validation may be weakest as there is no public-facing press with my name attached to it. There are customer testimonials & case studies about my product line that refer to my company/team as a whole, and only VPs spoke to press directly. The company is also private so revenue metrics were never published. I know the letter from VP of Product corroborating the impact of my work is not enough. Are there other types of evidence that I should consider?

  4. Additionally, for my personal statement, I plan on addressing the question of “How will the UK digital technology sector benefit from your work?” by citing “creation of new markets” as an example. My answer centers on the emerging market for applied GovAI in UK cities, specifically the gap between what public sector bodies like the GLA need and what private tech companies currently build for them. My cross-sector experience (enterprise product leadership + applied urban AI) is my direct qualification to help close that gap, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Mayoral AI Forum signals that this is an active policy priority.

Would love any feedback on the narrative here as well.

Thank you again.

4

Hi @Anh_Nguyen

You are eligible as a Product Manager, and you can use evidence from your previous role if it is still within the last 5 years. However, Product Management falls under the non‑technical skill category, which requires you to be working in a technical organisation, and a fellowship is not a qualifying role. Also, Cornell University is not a tech organisation. So you need to sort out your eligibility and narrative first.

That said, let’s take a quick look at your evidence.

The authors of your LORs appear to be experts in the sector, and you only need three. You should check the other requirements, such as how long they have known you and your work.

For “Led the growth of a product‑led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company”, it is not about role descriptions or responsibility based activities. It is about what you did as a leader in driving the development of a product or team. Evidence includes official org charts or team pages showing your leadership role, public changelogs of a product you led, press releases or partnership announcements where you were featured or mentioned, and media coverage highlighting product growth with your name included. Reference letters alone are not substantial; you still need supporting evidence. For “Led the marketing or business development”, you must also show how you led, not just brochures or screenshots of roadmaps.

For speaking, you need to show that you were invited because you were recognised, things like invitation letter stating why you were invited and what you are speaking on, either for MC or OC2, you need the recognition element to be met. Screenshots of a panel description, speaker profile, or photos from Bloomberg CityLab can be okay but do not demonstrate recognition. For breakout sessions, you must show that you spoke to at least 100 people in that room.

For “Published material in professional or major trade publications”, the publication must be in a professional or trade journal or media outlet, not a university website. Your upcoming papers may be okay, especially the one on AI, but the one published by a journal on urban systems needs to be clearly positioned or replaced so it is not dismissed as non sector‑focused.

Also, because your are a employee of GovAI and its a paid role, you can’t use this for OC2. Because the criterion require contribution to the sector outside your paid job.

Overall, you need to work on eligibility first, then decide on your criteria and the overall narrative of your application.

All the best.

5

Thank you so much @Raphael!

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@Anh_Nguyen You are welcome.