Meet Alan Rosh, our first Leadership Profile of the year! Alan is the Chief of Staff of PMI Mass Bay Chapter and has been with PMI Mass Bay since January 2025.
Alan has over 15 years of experience in product management, where he has contributed to major products at Asics and New Balance. While Alan serves on our leadership team, he is pretty new to project management. Let’s take a deeper dive into Alan’s career, and how he got to where he is today!
Alan spent most of his life working in the world of sporting goods, until he eventually landed a role at New Balance, working at the center of the product lifecycle—shaping ideas, coordinating teams, and ultimately seeing products he helped create worn by people every day. When asked about his experience with project management, Alan says he has never been a project manager during his career in sporting goods. At the end of his time at Asics, Alan was looking for a change. He found out about project management and pursued his PMP certification, completing in December 2024.
What’s the difference in product vs project management?
Upon receiving his PMP, Alan wished he had learned about project management sooner in his career. One of the greatest challenges he faced was not being a natural rule follower—an approach that often conflicted with the structured nature of product management. While Alan excelled at understanding the roles of each team member he worked with, he saw himself as the center of the wheel, balancing both execution and collaboration. Earning his PMP brought a pivotal realization: there is a reason timelines, calendars, and priorities exist. He came to understand that the key distinction in project management is the emphasis on managing the work rather than doing it alongside every team. Looking back, Alan believes that managing priorities more intentionally would have made both his work, and the work of those around him significantly easier. Today, he encourages anyone pursuing product roles to at least take a PMP course, noting that while product and project management are distinct, their fundamental processes are far more similar than most people realize.
How did Alan get involved at PMI Mass Bay?
Upon completing his PMP, Alan spontaneously signed up for a PMI Mass Bay event at the last minute, not knowing what PMI was, but believed it would be a great networking opportunity. He attended the meeting, and met our current president Chet Lang, who helped him get into volunteering. At the time, Alan wasn’t looking at a particular role, but when he heard that the marketing team was looking for volunteers, he was all in.
Coming in with a limited skillset, Alan was ready to get involved in any way he could, and he always had an interest in learning more about social media, ”It’s cool to think about what are the triggers to make someone stop. What stops the scrolling? There are so many hidden skillsets that people don’t even realize.”.
Alan joined in on planning for the annual Professional Development Conference. Under high pressure due to last minute changes, he came up with a marketing campaign to highlight speakers, a logo, and motto. As he continued, he found himself taking on various projects without a home or owner. His accomplishments during PDC planning led him to the Chief of Staff position for the chapter.
Every so often, a volunteer joins the chapter and makes a truly outsized impact on our work—and Alan is a perfect example of that. From the moment he joined the marketing team, it was clear that while he may humbly downplay his project management experience, his career has equipped him with an exceptional ability to collaborate, align people, and bring out the very best in teams. Over time, Alan became a trusted contributor across multiple areas of the chapter, supporting our Professional Development Conferences and serving as a steady connector between teams. He has a rare talent for helping people see priorities clearly and move work forward in a way that feels effortless. Add in his great sense of humor and calm, low-key style, and he’s simply a pleasure to work with. It quickly became obvious that Alan would be an outstanding Chief of Staff for the chapter—working alongside me to drive critical projects forward and support our leaders in the most thoughtful, effective way possible.
–Chet Lang, PMI Mass Bay President
The secret– being a lifelong learner.
A trait that stands out in Alan is his enthusiasm for learning. His experience in product management allowed him to learn from each of the teams he worked with, from research, to design, and even a little bit of marketing. Alan enjoyed surrounding himself with interesting and creative people. While he might not have known much about design, he took it upon himself to educate himself on what designers do, and has used that knowledge to build up his own design work. This habit provided him a strong foundation to take on the Chief of Staff role within our chapter. Furthermore, his experience working in a rapidly changing industry brought an innovative attitude to our team. With extensive experience collaborating while actively contributing, Alan finds himself at the center of projects across the chapter, always looking for ways to innovate and improve.
When asked about how he navigates new experiences and challenges, Alan just says he goes for it, “There’s so many opportunities to go on LinkedIn Learning or YouTube. At this point in my life, I’m not really strained for time, so if I want to take a class on something I can.”
In addition to learning, Alan dedicated much of his time to mentoring others, a role he found deeply fulfilling. He loved watching his mentees grow, gain confidence, and elevate their careers. Throughout his career, he has valued an individual’s drive and desire to learn over prior experience. This passion for both learning and teaching highlights why Alan is such an essential and inspiring part of our leadership team at PMI Mass Bay.
What motivates Alan to volunteer?
For Alan, volunteering opened the door to learning entirely new skills. Through PMI, he gained the opportunity to explore the science behind social media and how to capture an audience’s attention. As a newcomer, he valued how trusting and supportive other volunteers were whenever he wanted to experiment or take initiative. The challenges and opportunities within the marketing team gave Alan space to explore, sharpen, and build skills he had previously only briefly encountered throughout his career. Beyond PMI, Alan has utilized new skills in his own social media, experimenting with posting weekly on his personal LinkedIn as a way to get out of his comfort zone.
On a less serious note…
One of his favorite moments is spotting people on the street wearing products he helped design. During his time at Asics, Alan worked on a collection inspired by a cup of coffee on a Sunday fall morning, “My kids tell me those are still the comfiest sweatpants they own.”
In his free time, Alan spends plenty of time outdoors– he enjoys biking, snowboarding, and hiking. He is a big New England sports fan and loves traveling, reading, and woodworking.