Dara O’Sullivan Chief Product Owner, DISCO, Kmart+Target
Her career spans roles as Iteration Manager, Product Owner, Delivery Manager and now Chief Product Owner of Kmart’s high-impact strategic program, DISCO, where she leads up to five squads working in parallel to deliver business-critical outcomes.
Dara is deeply passionate about delivering customer-centric solutions that drive measurable value. Her mantra—“take time to fall in love with the problem, especially the complex ones”—reflects her ability to tackle ambiguity with a clear, strategic lens. With a sharp analytical approach and a strong foundation in agile practices, Dara leads high-performing teams that consistently deliver results aligned to Kmart’s customer and business goals.
Session How Kmart unleashed new value from within
We brought together software developers, fashion designers, planners, buyers, and other specialists to create a cross-functional innovation hub that fundamentally changed how we operate.
By combining 3D design, process reengineering, and custom software development—all aligned through a shared framework and outcome-driven OKRs—we delivered millions in savings and reimagined how work gets done.
But it wasn’t easy. We encountered resistance, faced technical roadblocks, and had to align teams with vastly different mindsets and ways of working. This session isn’t just about what we achieved—it’s about how we overcame real-world challenges and turned them into opportunities for lasting innovation.
Designed to decouple strategic delivery from traditional forms of agility within the bus, this approach centers on clear roles, clear governance, and cross-functional leadership. We’ll walk through the core elements that made it work.