I'm Gary Arlen. I write books and essays about product, transformation, and the craft of making complex things make sense — and I help companies do the same.
Books
Three books on product, transformation, and AI — all on Amazon.
A practice-first guide to implementing a Product Operating Model inside a traditional organization. Not the theory — the actual work: team design, discovery discipline, and the cultural change required to make it stick. Written from inside a transformation, not from a conference stage.
Read on AmazonThe companion to Transform — the book rebuilt as a working curriculum. Structured lessons and exercises for teams actually implementing a Product Operating Model, designed to be worked through, not just read.
Read on AmazonA working product manager's field guide to AI. Discovery, prioritization, and building with language models — written while shipping production AI systems, before most organizations had figured out the vocabulary.
Read on AmazonWriting
I publish regularly at The Transform Sub — essays on product strategy, AI, transformation, and why so much of modern work feels the way it does.
New essays land at The Transform Sub. Subscribe free →
Work With Me
That's the work I've done my whole career — first as an agency copywriter for Porsche, Harley-Davidson, and IKEA, and now as a product executive shipping production AI systems in one of the least glamorous, most demanding industries there is: freight.
I consult with a small number of companies on narrative strategy — the story a company tells about what it's building and why it matters. That work usually looks like one of these:
Your company is doing real work with AI, but nobody outside the building understands it — not customers, not investors, not your own employees. I help you find the narrative that's actually true and actually lands.
You're changing how your organization works, and the change is stalling because people don't understand the why. I've led this transformation from the inside and written the book on it. The story is half the work.
Your product is better than your pitch. I help teams find the narrative spine of what they've built — for launches, fundraising, sales, or the board.
Engagements are small by design — typically a focused sprint of a few weeks, not a retainer.
About
Gary Arlen is the pen name of Gary Koelling. I spent a decade as an agency copywriter at Colle+McVoy and Carmichael Lynch, writing for Porsche, Harley-Davidson, IKEA, American Standard, and Best Buy. At Best Buy the writing turned into building — early enterprise social platforms, then digital products, then a decade of independent product consulting across logistics and retail.
Today I'm Director of Product Practice at Bison Transport, where I lead product teams and have shipped production agentic AI systems that process real freight orders every day. I hold a BA in Journalism & Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota.
I write because the through line of all of it — the ads, the products, the AI — is the same: making complex things make sense.