30 years inside programs like yours.
Led by Waqar Hashim — Former Chief Engineer at General Motors, VP Engineering at Lordstown and Faraday Future, with more than $5B in launched products. When complex hardware programs become unstable, this is the experience you need in the room.
Complex product development naturally creates execution drift
Even experienced, well-funded teams encounter roadmap instability, rework cycles, and delivery uncertainty as products grow more complex. The challenge is rarely a lack of effort or capability.
It is usually the result of growing execution complexity across engineering, operations, product, and leadership — compounding faster than coordination systems can absorb.
That is a structural problem, not a people problem. Waqar has navigated this at GM scale and at EV startup scale. The failure modes are identical. The recovery approach is the same.
Roadmap drift — priorities multiply, ownership blurs, and execution slows without any single decision causing it.
Cross-functional friction — engineering, product, and leadership develop different understandings of what matters.
Decision delays — with more complexity comes uncertainty, and decisions that should take days start taking weeks.
Cost and schedule pressure — the downstream result of upstream instability, often visible only when expensive to reverse.
Some of this might sound familiar
These patterns emerge gradually. They are not signs of failure — they are signals that execution complexity has grown beyond what current coordination systems can absorb. Most teams experiencing this have strong people working hard — the issue is structural, not individual.
Roadmap priorities shift faster than teams can execute against them
Engineering and business leadership no longer share a clear picture of what ships next
Rework cycles are increasing — teams revisiting decisions that felt settled
Milestones keep slipping despite high team effort and no obvious single cause
Product decisions are taking longer or reopening after they were made
The board is asking questions about delivery that are hard to answer confidently
Teams are working hard but forward momentum feels unclear or stalled
Cost overruns are appearing without a clear event that caused them
These problems become significantly more expensive the longer they go unaddressed. The right moment to bring in outside support is before they compound into something harder to reverse.
Three ways we help teams stabilise execution
Every engagement starts with understanding what is actually happening — not what it looks like on the surface. We work alongside your team, not above it. All engagements are fixed-scope with defined deliverables agreed before we start.
Product recovery assessment
A focused 2–3 week diagnostic identifying execution bottlenecks, alignment gaps, and hidden risks. The same structured approach used on billion-dollar GM vehicle programs.
- Execution risk map
- Roadmap stabilisation priorities
- Recovery recommendations
- Board-ready output
Execution stabilisation sprint
90 days embedded with your leadership and engineering team. Developed from recovering production momentum at Lordstown Motors under significant financial pressure.
- Roadmap realignment
- Cross-functional coordination
- Product decision support
- Milestone credibility recovered
Fractional product recovery advisor
Ongoing senior advisory drawing on 30 years at GM, Faraday Future, and Lordstown — OEM-grade execution discipline applied to the growth-stage environment.
- Dedicated senior advisory access
- Spans roadmap, cost, team, delivery
- Monthly structured review
- Board-ready reporting support
Not a consulting firm. A recovery practice.
Most consulting firms study your problem from the outside and hand you a report. Product Recovery Group comes in, operates alongside your team, and stays until the execution is stable. Here is exactly what that difference looks like in practice.
Typical consultants
Arrive with a pre-built framework
The solution is decided before the problem is understood. Your situation is fitted to their methodology, not the other way around.Deliver a report and leave
You receive a document. The execution problem remains. The team is left to implement recommendations without the person who made them.Work at advisory distance
Observations from the outside. No visibility into the actual day-to-day decisions, blockers, and team dynamics that are causing the drift.Create ongoing dependency
Open-ended engagements with no defined exit. No transfer of capability to the internal team. The need for the consultant never diminishes.Product Recovery Group
Diagnose before prescribing
Week one is always a structured diagnostic. No assumptions carried in. The recovery plan comes from understanding your specific situation — not a template.Defined scope, defined exit
Every engagement has a clear deliverable and a defined end point. You know exactly what you are getting and when it will be complete before we start.Embedded alongside your team
Working directly with engineering, product, and leadership — inside the decisions, not observing them. 30 years of operating experience in your room.Exit with capability transferred
Every engagement ends with the internal team owning the outcome — documented frameworks, decision tools, and ways of working that require no ongoing external support.Rapid diagnostic
Interview stakeholders, review materials, map the real problem — not the presenting symptom. No assumptions carried in.
Recovery plan
Restructured roadmap, revised timeline, cost model, or direction assessment — with clear ownership and milestones both sides agree on.
Implementation support
Weekly check-ins, blocker removal, and course corrections as new information surfaces. Embedded, not observing from a distance.
Hand back and exit
Documentation, decision frameworks, and a clean exit that leaves the team with full capability and zero dependency on us.
Upstream of commercialisation — where execution instability starts
Product Recovery Group operates at the stage where programs begin to drift — before problems compound into manufacturing and scaling failures. This is a distinct and critical layer that most NPI and manufacturing firms do not cover.
Waqar has operated across this entire lifecycle — from concept at GM through prototype at EV startups to launch and production. Product Recovery Group focuses on the execution instability zone because that is where intervention has the highest return on investment.
The people who call us are already in motion
Our clients are not looking for a framework. They have a specific execution problem and need someone who has been in their exact situation — at scale — and knows how to resolve it without disrupting the team.
COO & operations leaders
Brought in to stabilise execution. Has mandate and budget. Zero attachment to prior decisions.
VP of engineering & product
Understands the technical problem. Needs external credibility to drive organisational change.
Technical program managers
Judged on execution predictability. Already believe in alignment and roadmap discipline.
VC operating partners
Need a fast, objective read on portfolio execution before the problem becomes irreversible.
Built for complex product environments
We work exclusively with hardware and deep-tech companies where product development timelines are long, costs are high, and the price of execution drift is significant. These are environments where Waqar has operated directly — not advised from a distance.
What people say after working with Waqar
Verified recommendations from founders, executives, and investors across automotive, EV, and hardware programs. Drawn from LinkedIn and direct engagements spanning more than two decades of operating work.
"This guy's the real deal. Waqar is a remarkably well-rounded engineering leader with the knowledge and temperament to guide seasoned technical teams. After his departure, the sentiment among leadership was unanimous: 'We really need Waqar.'"
"He brings structure, urgency, and results. Waqar took over a struggling high-volume program and rapidly broke down issues into logical groupings, driving focus where it mattered most. Within months, quality, throughput, and cost targets were back on track."
"Calm under pressure — one of the most critical leadership skills in complex environments. His ability to listen, think methodically, and guide teams through design decisions earned trust quickly and consistently."
"A rare ability to organize complexity into execution. Waqar takes extremely complex programs and organizes them into actionable, accountable execution plans. His integrity and people-first leadership make teams want to work with him."
"Supremely professional with an analytical product development mind. He brings calm to chaotic meetings, synthesizes perspectives, and proposes balanced paths forward. Exceptionally effective at leading both new product development and existing product issue resolution."
"Waqar consistently helped startups rapidly assess what 'good' looks like in product development, then translate that into actionable strategies. His practical guidance enabled founders to overcome technical challenges and stay on track toward commercialisation milestones."
30 years inside programs like yours.
Waqar has spent his career inside the most complex product development environments in the world — and the last several years specifically helping companies recover when those environments break down.
He has been Former Chief Engineer on programs that won JD Powers awards and 5-star NCAP ratings. He has been VP Engineering at EV startups operating under board pressure with shrinking runways and launch dates that could not move again. He has seen execution drift at GM scale and at startup scale. The failure modes are structurally identical. The recovery approach is the same.
Product Recovery Group exists because that specific combination of experience — OEM discipline, startup operating reality, and the pattern recognition that comes from doing both — is exactly what a Series A or B hardware company needs when its product program becomes unstable.