My name is Yvan Kammelu, and my path into product management has been shaped by science, data, marketing, and a lot of redirection.

I grew up between Abuja, Nigeria, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, before moving to Montreal in 2017 to study Kinesiology at McGill University. At the time, I was on a pre-med path, driven by an interest in health, performance, and human behaviour. Halfway through my degree, I became increasingly curious about business and systems thinking, which led me to add a minor in Economics (the best I could do without delaying my graduation date). I graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology, a minor in Economics, and the honour of serving as valedictorian.

After McGill, I spent two years working in public health as a research and data analyst. I was still preparing for medical school, but through my work with data and my reflections while applying for the McCall MacBain Scholarship, I realized that many of the problems I wanted to solve were not only medical. They were also strategic, operational, and product-driven.

That realization led me to McGill’s Master of Management in Analytics program, where I built skills in data analytics, machine learning, strategy, and business problem-solving. Through case competitions, applied projects, and later work in marketing, I became especially interested in how insights turn into decisions, how products are brought to market, and how teams build solutions around real customer needs.

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Today, my interest in product management feels like a natural evolution. Health science taught me to understand people. Analytics taught me to work with evidence. Marketing taught me how products connect with audiences. Product management brings all of that together.

My journey has not been linear, but it has made me a stronger builder, strategist, and problem solver.