Plandek appoints “Craig Smiley” as Chief Product Officer

Charlie Ponsonby

—

Co-founder & CEO

Press Release

Plandek Appoints Craig Smiley as Chief Product Officer

London, UK – Plandek, the Developer Productivity Insight platform helping organizations understand and improve how software is delivered, today announced the appointment of Craig Smiley as Chief Product Officer (CPO).

Craig joins Plandek with more than 20 years of experience leading large-scale product, engineering, and technology transformations across regulated and high-growth environments. Most recently, he served as CPTO at Equiniti, where he led a global organisation of over 1,500 product and engineering professionals. He has also held senior product and engineering leadership roles at Worldpay and Bottomline, partnering closely with executive teams to improve product delivery and align technology execution with business outcomes.

Craig is a long-time Plandek customer and advocate, having deployed the platform across multiple organizations. He joins at a pivotal moment as engineering leaders face increasing pressure to improve productivity and predictability while navigating the rapid adoption of AI tools in software delivery.

“Craig brings a rare combination of deep technical leadership, product thinking, and first-hand experience as a Plandek customer,” said Charlie Ponsonby, CEO of Plandek. “He understands the realities engineering leaders face and the importance of turning delivery data into clear, actionable intelligence. Craig’s appointment strengthens our ability to help customers measure what matters and improve outcomes as they transition to AI-augmented engineering.”

“As AI adoption accelerates, the challenge isn’t access to tools, it’s understanding what’s actually improving delivery and what isn’t,” said Craig Smiley, Chief Product Officer at Plandek. “I’ve seen firsthand how Plandek gives teams that clarity. I’m excited to help build the next phase of the platform and work closely with customers as they move toward more effective, AI-assisted engineering.”

In his role as CPO, Craig will lead Plandek’s product strategy, engineering, and platform evolution, working closely with customers and partners to ensure Plandek continues to deliver trusted insight into delivery performance, constraints, and AI impact.

About Plandek

Plandek is a Software Engineering Intelligence platform that helps engineering leaders understand how software is actually being delivered, where work is getting stuck, and what to improve next. By transforming engineering data into actionable intelligence, Plandek enables teams to deliver faster, more predictably, and with measurable business impact.

For more information, visit plandek.com.

Written by

Charlie Ponsonby

Co-founder & CEO

Charlie started his career as an economist working on trade policy in the developing world, before moving to Accenture in London. He joined the Operating Board of Selfridges, before moving to Open Interactive TV and then Sky where he was Marketing Director until leaving to found Simplifydigital in 2007. Simplifydigital was three times in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and grew to become the UK’s largest TV, broadband and home phone comparison service, powering clients including Dixons-Carphone, uSwitch and Comparethemarket. It was acquired by Dixons Carphone plc in April 2016. He co-founded Plandek with Dan Lee in 2018. Charlie was educated at Cambridge University. He lives in London and is married with three children.