Oscar Ibars
Twenty-plus years in product, most of it spent where the constraints are real: regulated healthcare, carrier networks, freight marketplaces, and AI systems that had to work in production rather than in a demo.
Why Rarelevel exists
I have hired product leaders, been one, and inherited teams that were half-built. The pattern is consistent: the search goes to a firm that has never run a product org, and the advice comes from someone who has never hired into one. The company pays for both and gets an average of the two.
Rarelevel is the same judgment applied to both problems. If a company needs someone to fix the operating model, I can do that work. If it needs a leader to run it, I know what the seat requires because I have held it — including at a company where the product was the P&L.
How I work
- Direct. Every engagement is scoped and delivered by me, not handed to an associate.
- Written. Decisions get recorded, so the org keeps the reasoning after the engagement ends.
- Evidence-first. Numbers, artifacts and references. If it cannot be shown, it does not count.
Track record
Rarelevel
Founder & Principal. Product advisory, retained search, and the invite-only Rarelevel network. Product Leader Academy, founded in 2024, is the separate training practice — not the source of the network.
Symplast
Head of Product. Shipped Kate, an in-house Voice AI receptionist, to $1.2M ARR across 3,500+ practices; led the React Native migration that added 50% mobile engineering capacity.
Optum
Lead Product Manager. Merged Rx, Patient and Guide into one React Native platform for 13M members: roughly $5M a year off the run-rate, 40% faster feature delivery, GenAI workflows and chat on Epic APIs.
Truckstop
Director of Product, Mobile Platform. AI load matching and location-based search: +35% recommendation accuracy, +22% engagement, −15% churn, −18% empty miles; led the Spanish market launch to $3.5M in year one.
PwC
Led Kaiser Permanente's HIPAA-compliant in-app messaging and AI triage, cutting response time 40%.
ADP
Led the health-benefits SaaS rebuild in React across 32 carriers.
Mastercard
Built revenue intelligence systems across 44 LATAM and Caribbean markets.
Also
Product Leader Academy, founded in 2024, is the learning practice: training, job resources and AI tooling for product managers, which I still build and maintain. It is complementary to Rarelevel, not the source of its membership — the Rarelevel network is separate and invite-only, and Academy enrollment confers no admission to it.
I write about AI product work, migrations and product leadership at oscaribars.com, and publish a weekly AI briefing called SwiftRecap.
Elsewhere
- oscaribars.com — case studies and field notes
- Product Leader Academy
- Case studies on Rarelevel
Direct engagement.
No intermediaries.
Tell us the situation. Oscar replies personally, usually within one business day.
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Direct Email
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Professional Profile
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Community
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Based inFort Lauderdale, Florida · US remote