Cedric Strickland, in practice.
Product leader building billion-user products at Google and Microsoft since 2013, today Head of Product for Gmail Enterprise & AI, and founder of Neua, an independent applied-AI product lab.
- Role
- Product & AI Executive
- Based in
- Seattle, WA
- Currently
- Google · Neua
The short version.
I'm a product executive and computer scientist. Since 2013 I've built products that reach billions of people (Windows at Microsoft, Gmail Enterprise and its AI roadmap at Google) by pairing strategy with machine learning and shipping the result.
At Google I own the AI-first roadmap for Gmail Enterprise, including the agentic work that shipped publicly as Gemini Spark and Google Workspace Studio. Before that I led a 60-person cross-functional Windows organization at Microsoft; earlier, as a senior product manager there, I shipped semiannual Windows releases to more than 900 million active devices. At Neua I run an independent applied-AI product lab.
Formation
I've been working since high school. Notre Dame was paid for by the Gates Millennium and QuestBridge scholarships and by whatever jobs fit around class, campus venue promotions, a stadium concession stand, a restaurant's marketing and IT, and two summers teaching math through a Texas State outreach program. My professional career started in 2013, at Microsoft. But the habit started earlier: work out what the job actually needs, then go build it. That hasn't changed. It's also why I wrote and illustrated My Black Job, a book about the range of careers a Black kid is allowed to imagine, and why I taught software management at the University of Washington.
Professional Journey
Head of Product, Gmail Enterprise & AI
- Set product direction across a 90+ person cross-functional organization spanning engineering, technical program management, design, research, and data science
- Own product vision, strategy, and roadmap for roughly a third of Gmail, spanning Gmail Enterprise, the Gmail delivery service, and compliance, inside a Google Workspace business Google reports at 3B+ users and 13M+ customers
- Led the Gmail side of the March 2026 US launch of Google Account username change, letting consumer @gmail.com users change their address while keeping their account, inbox, and data, and co-authored Google's developer guidance for the platforms it affected
- Own the AI and agentic surface for Gmail Enterprise: enterprise AI features and experiences, personal agents, and the no-code automation shipped publicly as Gemini Spark and Google Workspace Studio
- Drive growth and monetization strategy for Gmail Enterprise, and shape how its features scale across Google's paid tiers, from small businesses and solopreneurs to Google One consumers
- Turn VP, director, and CISO level requirements from named Fortune 500 accounts into shipped roadmap, and clear the product blockers on enterprise migrations onto Google Workspace
- Lead Gemini-in-Gmail feature strategy covering UX, quality, and trust readiness, plus compete strategy against Microsoft 365
- Lead regulatory product design for the EU DMA, the DSA, and German FCO Case B7-70/21
- Product lead for DSA compliance across Gmail, Google Chat, and Google Groups, and wrote the first implementation of the Google Groups controls, which the Groups engineering team then reviewed, refined, and shipped
- Presented "Reimagine email: Introducing AI power for Gmail" at Google Cloud Next '26
- Community Lead for Google Washington, serving 200+ full-time employees
Founder
- Run an independent applied-AI product lab shipping 6 live products, with 7 more in beta or development, on a shared platform of 54 in-house packages
- Architect and write the platform: a TypeScript monorepo of 54 shared packages, Cloud Functions with Firestore and Postgres services, and the CI, quality-gate, and release tooling that makes shipping at this cadence possible for one person working with agents
- Built Neua Nexus, an agentic team workspace where human teammates and AI operators share the same queue
- Built Vibe Check, a code-analysis toolchain that gives AI coding agents production-readiness feedback loops, distributed through an MCP server
- Founded Neua Publishing House and released its first title
Principal Product Management Lead
- Led Windows commercial and consumer product strategy across a 60-person organization spanning product, program management, and engineering; hired and promoted product managers within that organization
- Led the Windows secure supply chain response to Executive Order 14028, protecting eligibility for major US federal contracts
- Owned the backend build and publishing stages of the Windows Update delivery pipeline
- Cut toil 40% and increased release agility 2.5x with Release365, an intelligent rollout portal
- Brought Microsoft Teams Rooms to Surface Hub
Adjunct Professor, Software Management
- Designed and lectured CSS 566: Software Management
- Taught 30+ graduate professional students through the full program
- Partnered with businesses to source the practical capstone program
- Research focus: how GenAI changes software work, from practitioner opportunity and human-in-the-loop practice to workforce upskilling
- Shipped production applications to partner businesses
Senior PM, AI & Machine Learning
- Shipped semiannual Windows releases to 900M+ active devices with a 40+ person team
- Built the ML rollout and experimentation platform for OS releases, cutting recurring engineering cost 90% and rollout cycles from weeks to days
- Increased incident detection 10x with ML anomaly detection
- Shipped an on-device reboot-scheduling ML model that lifted consumer CSAT 40% and drew national press
- Shipped the Creators Update privacy overhaul: out-of-box setup rebuilt so users explicitly choose their privacy and diagnostic settings
- Partnered with the Xbox team on the 2019 launch of Xbox Game Pass for PC (now PC Game Pass), driving its go-to-market through Windows
Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer
- Co-founded a social podcast app for shared listening and group spaces, and led product, research, and design end to end, including early monetization strategy, while working on the engineering team
- Built the prototypes, designed the backend database schema, and owned the storage architecture; pitched prospective investors and acquirers
Product Manager, Consumer Growth
- Activated the first 100M Windows 10 users through the reservation experiment and the Get Windows 10 app
- Moved 500M+ Windows 7/8 devices onto current releases
- Reached 50M+ commercial and power users with Windows Update Assistant and the Media Creation Tool
- Owned DISM, the Windows command-line tool for servicing OS images
- Transformed Windows into an over-the-air release platform
- Blue Egg Cross-Organizational Award (2015) for the Media Creation Tool, which cut media-related support call volume 84% in four months, +10 points CPE
Areas of Expertise
AI & Machine Learning
Leading AI platform strategy, implementing ML models for billion-user products, and driving Generative AI initiatives.
Product Strategy
Defining vision, roadmaps, and investment strategies for enterprise and consumer products at scale.
Business Growth
Defining growth and monetization strategy for consumer and enterprise products at global scale.
Leadership Excellence
Building and leading high-performing cross-functional organizations of 60+ people.
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Founding successful ventures, driving 0-to-1 products, and fostering innovation culture.
Enterprise & Compliance
Managing regulatory compliance, risk foundations, and government partnerships for critical systems.
The receipts.
Semiannual Windows releases shipped to 900M+ active devices as Senior PM, AI & Machine Learning at Microsoft
Activated the first 100M Windows 10 users through the reservation experiment and the Get Windows 10 app
Led a 60-person cross-functional Windows organization as Principal Product Management Lead
6 live products and 7 more in beta or development on a shared platform of 54 in-house packages, built at Neua since 2024
Off the clock.
My Black Job
A Story of Black Careers, a children's book about the range of careers a Black kid is allowed to imagine. Written and illustrated by Cedric Strickland, published in 2025 by Neua Publishing House, and sold through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Bookshop, and library systems.
- Reimagine email: Introducing AI power for Gmail, Breakout session at Google Cloud Next '26 in Las Vegas, introducing the AI capabilities coming to Gmail Enterprise.
- CSS 566: Software Management, Designed and lectured the graduate software-management course at the University of Washington, teaching 30+ graduate professional students through a full capstone program.
- My Black Job: A Story of Black Inventions, Forthcoming from Neua Publishing House.
- Google Cloud Next '26 · Las Vegas, 2026
- Google PMConnect · Chicago, 2025
- Texas State MathWorks · San Marcos, 2022 & 2025
- Panelist, Black Tech Mixer by TechRise Global · Seattle, 2024
Currently writing an adult literary fable about judgment in the age of intelligent machines.
Say hello.
I'm most active on LinkedIn and welcome meaningful conversations about technology, leadership, and innovation.
- /cedstrickland
- Resume
- PDF · two pages
- GitHub
- /cedstrickland
- Neua
- /Neua-Labs