Tom Drugan
Partner & Principal Consultant, Product Leadership
Austin, TX
Tom is a 25-year product and digital veteran who has built product management teams from scratch, launched marketplaces in senior care, and now helps clients apply AI to research, design, and delivery without losing the strategy underneath.
On your project
Tom brings product leadership. He sets roadmaps, builds the operating rhythm, and keeps teams honest about what they are actually solving before they start shipping. Clients who need a product function stood up, not just designs delivered, work with Tom.
He also leads AI enablement at Slide UX. His team uses AI daily to accelerate research synthesis, design production, and internal operations on real client engagements, and he brings those methods into client teams.
Before joining Slide UX, Tom was a Slide UX client for six years across multiple companies, which shaped how he runs engagements from the other side of the table. He joined the firm in 2019 and became a partner in 2022.
Why this work is personal
A gravel truck hit Tom's mother's car during her morning commute. She survived with multiple broken ribs and traumatic brain injuries, and was placed in a medically induced coma.
Tom was 31, newly engaged, and her only child. He became her legal guardian. She moved in with him and his fiancée, and for ten months caregiving became his second full-time job: coordinating appointments, managing medications, driving her to therapy, and tracking her progress. He helped her relearn how to fold laundry, use a phone, prepare a meal, and eventually how to drive again, starting in empty parking lots.
She regained enough independence to live on her own with support, though she was never the same. She passed away in 2017.
Tom's product career after that point has been a deliberate line: SeniorAdvisor, CareGivers.com, A Place for Mom. He describes the work as building the tools he wished he'd had during the crisis.
→ Go deeper with Tom’s story in brain change, aging and care
Before Slide UX
At A Place for Mom, Tom was Director of Product Management, where he built the product management discipline and team from the ground up and launched the CareGivers.com Home Care Marketplace, the Senior Living Finder mobile app, and a redesigned A Place for Mom website.
He was Director of E-commerce at HumanN, a Senior Product Manager at RetailMeNot leading personalization, loyalty, and member experience, and founder and Head of Product at Naymz.com, a professional networking community that grew to 1.7 million members. He currently serves as Fractional Head of Product Management at KindHealth AI.
Tom holds a BS in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed the Product Strategy program at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
“Tom is very professional and attentive, facilitating all of our meetings, keeping detailed notes, and keeping us up-to-date with the project status.””
Outside of work
Tom is a Chicago native who relocated to Austin in 2012. He is a husband and the father of twin boys, and spends most of his free time trying to keep up with them.
Schedule a consultation to talk through your goals, pricing, timeline, and whether we're a fit for your team.