The Product Evolution: Navigating Retail, Leadership, and the AI Revolution with Fabrice Khullar

In the debut episode of On The Pulse, host Ricky Burns sits down with Fabrice Khullar, a product leader who has spent over two decades at the forefront of digital transformation for some of the UK’s most iconic brands. Currently the Director of Product, UX, and Optimisation at Boots UK, Fabrice’s career journey spans senior roles at Sky, Sainsbury’s, and Selfridges, offering a unique perspective on how product management shifts between pure tech and large scale retail. Fabrice pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to move from "delivery" to "discovery," how to handle the high pressure transition from individual contributor to leadership, and why the most important part of a product manager's role in the age of AI might be deciding what not to build. In this episode, we discuss:The Career Pivot: How Fabrice moved from journalism and project management into the early days of product development at Orange and Sky. Retail vs. Pure Tech: The fundamental differences in managing products when your "customers" are right in front of you on the shop floor. The Leadership Leap: Moving from leading a product to leading the people who lead products, and the "dirty word" every leader must master: politics. The AI Revolution: What "vibe coding" means for the future of engineering and how product teams can use AI to accelerate roadmaps without losing the human touch. Agentic Commerce: Why the future of shopping is about "stacking channels" and meeting the consumer in their increasingly messy, multitasking lives. Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction to On The Pulse  02:40 - Fabrice’s journey: From journalism to product management  07:08 - Disrupting the industry: Lessons from Sky and Now TV  11:49 - The unique challenges of product management in retail  15:51 - Why "technical debt" is actually a product strategy problem  22:22 - The transition into leadership: Moving from leading products to leading people  35:53 - AI, vibe coding, and the future of engineering  44:47 - The next decade of retail: Convenience, fragmentation, and agentic commerce  53:16 - Closing thoughts and where to connect with Fabrice  Connect with us:Host: Ricky Burns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardmarcburns/Guest: Fabrice Khullar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrice-khullar-4309153/Produced by: Pulse Group: https://pulserecruit.co.uk/Don't forget to subscribe to On The Pulse for more candid conversations with the leaders building the future of technology and product strategy.