Senior Director of Product Management - Apply

Summary

The Senior Director of Product Management for Apply has accountability for all field, client, and Home Office digital experiences and capabilities from the point of risk application initiation through submission as well as the Future of Underwriting Orchestration scope (oMHQ, rules / models to power Underwriting transformation).

The Senior Director manages a leadership team comprised of Assistant Directors of Product Management, Lead Product Managers, and a Lead Business Analyst. They also have skip-level accountability for a product team consisting of product managers and business analysts. Works with other Directors in engineering, design, marketing, service and sales on everything from strategy and vision through to building, shipping and maintaining our digital products.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

• Vision: Sets the long-term (2-3 year) vision of a product portfolio (multiple products) including how they will be funded and produce business outcomes. Responsible for cultivating an environment of understanding the products and championing the strategy.
• Goals: Sets the product objectives and key results for the product portfolio. Aligns other functions like engineering, design, finance, marketing, service and sales around a common set of measurable goals.
• Requirements: Specifies the market needs in relation to the product for both existing and future products based on research.
• Uses data and marketplace research to prioritize and create complex business cases, with enterprise dependencies, and leads the development and implementation of complex product strategies for both internal and external customers.
• Roadmap: Provides a high-level direction that illustrates the epics and features that will be delivered across a portfolio of products or platform and how it integrates with other cross functional team efforts.
• Leadership: Creates the future by fostering an engaging environment and encourage accountability and development.
• Breaks down barriers so individuals and teams can be accountable and responsible to do their best.
• Aligns employee's passion to business value outcomes, grow talent and proactively solve for talent gaps.
• Turns challenging teams, interpersonal conflicts, and cross-departmental political initiatives into opportunities.
• Pinpoints root causes of disagreement to resolve conflict.
• Drives high performing teams and can lead with expertise, energy and empathy.
• Data Driven: Builds a culture of making data driven decisions that influence business, engineering and other stakeholders to model this behavior.
• Combines data across multiple products or departments to create broader insights.
• Architect a Team: Identifies the people and skills needed for a team and can go out and build or change a team based on those needs.
• Identifies & recruits internal and/or external industry resources to address those needs.
• Prioritization: Sets long term goals for both the product portfolio and team members.
• Accountable for helping teams track progress against key results and help balance priorities with corporate strategic initiatives or the introduction of new Risk or Investment products.
• Requirements: Accountable for their team's product requirements including the ability to evaluate what good requirements look like.
• Teaches and leads others through how to write requirements and effectively use them to build a product.
• Defines the Product: Identifies and validates problems and/or opportunities for multiple user groups/scenarios across the company.
• Aligns stakeholders and documents high-level business requirements or manages vendor relationships and any applicable request for proposal (RFP) or proof of concept (POC) processes.
• Communication: Collaborates cross functionally with business partners and executives in engineering, marketing, design and sales to allow for the smooth and efficient flow of product activities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or an equivalent technical, business or financial field.
• Preferably also holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA).
• 15+ years of working as a product manager on technology-powered product teams.
• Working knowledge of modern techniques in product discovery and delivery.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including experience in high-level business discussions and deep technical discussions.
• Experience using Business Intelligence dashboards and tools (Tableau, Power BI, Looker etc.).
• Certification or course-completion in agile methods (General Assembly, Pragmatic Marketing, svpg etc.).
• 5+ years of formal people management experience managing other product managers.
• Ability to work in a matrix organization.

#LI-Hybrid

Northwestern Mutual pays on a geographic-specific salary structure and placement in the salary range for this position will be determined by a number of factors including the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; the scope, complexity as well as the cost of labor in the market; and other conditions of employment. At Northwestern Mutual, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. Please note that the salary range listed in the posting is the standard pay structure. Positions in certain locations (such as California) may provide an increase on the standard pay structure based on the location. Please click here for additional information relating to location-based pay structures.

We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

If you work or would be working in California, Colorado, New York City, Washington or outside of a Corporate location, please click here for information pertaining to compensation and benefits.