Wild North Labs Wild North Labs

Fractional Head of Product / Calgary

Product leadership for hardware, software, and the messy middle.

Wild North Labs embeds with companies building hardware-software products, industrial systems, regulated workflows, and platform or admin software. I own the roadmap and sit with engineering until it ships.

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Selected work

Liquid cooling, additive manufacturing, and the product work that cannot be photographed.

Liquid-cooled server interior with CoolIT cold plate, braided coolant lines, and DIMM slots.
Liquid cooling for AI / HPC Direct-to-chip cooling in production servers, including NVIDIA GB200-class platforms. Hardware, firmware, and the product that has to ship around it.
CAD rendering of a tall additive manufacturing machine with open doors, build plate, and operator screen.
From concept to customer One plan across mechanical, firmware, software, and the science around them, so the machine is one competitive product, not a pile of drawings.
SLA 3D printer in a lab with orange UV doors open, a clear printed part on the build plate, and anatomical models on the bench.
Additive manufacturing in the field A printing platform taken from founding through deployments at Stanford Hospital and Mayo Clinic.

Services

What I do

Most first engagements start with a diagnostic, fractional Head of Product, or a roadmap sprint. The rest is how the work gets done.

  1. 01

    Fractional Head of Product

    Embedded product leadership 1-2 days a week: strategy, roadmap, sprint cadence, and stakeholder communication. A 90-day engagement with a hire-or-extend recommendation at the end.

  2. 02

    Product strategy and roadmap

    Turn customer, technical, and commercial inputs into a sequenced 2-4 quarter plan - not a wish list.

  3. 03

    Delivery operating model

    Install Jira, Confluence, backlog hygiene, and sprint cadence, then run the first sprints with the team until it sticks.

  4. 04

    Zero-to-one and beta validation

    Frame the problem, talk to real users, prototype, and set beta success criteria so you know what to commercialize.

  5. 05

    Hardware-software productization

    Sequence mechanical, firmware, desktop, and cloud so a field unit actually ships. Interface contracts, release trains, first deployable configuration.

  6. 06

    Regulated and manufacturing workflows

    MES, QMS, traceability, inventory, and operator UX for environments where compliance and reliability are non-negotiable.

  7. 07

    AI product evaluation

    Working proofs on your actual workflow. Which agentic bets are product, which are internal automation, and which to kill.

  8. 08

    Admin, fleet, and technical GTM

    Enterprise admin and fleet-health tooling, plus positioning and go-to-market alignment for technical buyers.

Approach

How engagements work

Typical retainers run 1-2 days a week for 90 days. A diagnostic is a paid look. A sprint is a named plan, then handoff. I sit with engineering. I do not hand over a deck and disappear.

Retainer

1-2 days / week

90 days of embedded product leadership. Cadence, decisions, backlog. A written hire-or-extend memo on day 90.

Sprint

4 weeks

About three days a week. A sequenced 2-4 quarter roadmap, then handoff. I leave when the plan is in the team's hands.

Diagnostic

Two weeks

Interviews, artifact review, written diagnosis, and a 90-day plan. You keep the document whether we continue or not.

Selected proof

  • Shipped admin and fleet-health features reaching tens of millions of managed endpoints at Microsoft.
  • Commercialized liquid-cooling products for next-generation AI/HPC platforms, including NVIDIA GB200-class systems, at CoolIT.
  • Built and validated a Health Canada-compliant manufacturing execution system from concept through beta customers.
  • Took a proprietary 3D printing platform from founding through deployments at Stanford Hospital and Mayo Clinic.
  • Invented and secured U.S. Patent 12,128,628 B2 for flexible sensor technology in additive manufacturing.

PMP / AWS Certified Solutions Architect / MIT Sloan Executive Education / U.S. Patent 12,128,628 B2

Contact

Start a conversation

Product leadership for hardware, software, and the messy middle.

Gabriel Castanon

gabe [at] wild-north.ca

Calgary, Alberta