Position Summary:

Responsible for defining solutions that are viable, feasible and exceed customer expectations. Uses customer insights, feedback and market trends to craft the vision and product strategy. Tasked with prioritizing features and enhancements, creating detailed product roadmaps, and managing the product lifecycle from concept to launch and beyond. Engage with customers regularly to gather actionable feedback, ensuring that the product continues to evolve in ways that deliver maximum value. Collaborate with stakeholders across the organization to ensure seamless communication and alignment on product vision and objectives. Adept at balancing strategic thinking with hands-on execution, making data-driven decisions to drive product success and achieve business growth. The position will also manage and develop a team of Product Owners.

Essential Functions:

Analyze Market Trends and Customer Needs

• Gathers feedback  for product requirements,  researches  current and emerging industry trends trends and capabilities to help inform product strategy.

• Understands market segments and end user needs to ensure solutions delivers maximum benefits.

• Identifies and supports running experiments to learn and then influence the next steps.

Product Strategy & Vision

• Develops and refines the vision, roadmap, and features that align to the organizational strategy and business outcomes by understanding customers, competitors and potential disruptors, industry trends, solution/product use, and solution/product performance.

• Clearly communicates the vision, roadmap, features, priorities, and desired outcomes to ensure alignment. 

• Reviews and adjusts roadmap as new learnings emerge and strategies shift.

Defining and Prioritizing 

• Uses lean and agile principles and practices to decompose large solutions into features that provide incremental value. Defines a successive set of minimal viable products that test assumptions and translate learning into actions. 

• Negotiates with stakeholders about scope, priorities, and potential approaches.

• Collects, analyzes, and uses data to drive decisions related to features and priorities.  

• Makes and/or facilitates decisions to rollout strategies and  go-to-market timing, change management activities and marketing.

• Provides feedback to teams as they are building solutions/products to ensure building the desired outcomes.

Product Lifecycle Management

• Oversee the entire product lifecycle from concept to launch and beyond.

• Ensure that the product evolves to meet changing market demands and customer expectations.

Value Delivery and Benefits Realization 

• Focus on delivering tangible value to customers with each product release, ensuring that features and improvements directly address customer needs and enhance user experience.

• Measure and track the benefits realized from product initiatives to ensure they contribute to business objectives and provide a strong return on investment.

• Analyze data to identify potential areas for product innovation and improvement.

Collaboration

• Collaborates with peers, stakeholders, and cross functional teams to guide and deliver value to customers. 

• Builds an energetic, engaged, and effective team of product owners who will collaborate to deliver value to customers.

• Owns relationship with 3rd party applications/vendors. Critical advocate of GFS business needs, understand the third party roadmap and influences it.

• When necessary involved with contract management (monitor contract dates, adapt license needs, google alert for security related issues) and looping in legal and finance.

• Leads and contributes to communication, marketing, and training activities to support adoption and use of solution/products.

• Manage and develop a team of Product Owners.

• Interviews, hires, trains, and retains staff. Conducts performance monitoring of staff, initiating follow through with disciplinary action and termination in consultation with human resources when appropriate for the department. Mentors, motivates, and develops staff and acts as a role model and resource to them.

• Leads and directs the work of others.

• Performs other duties as assigned.