Senior Director, Product Management & Business Operations (Digital Product/Tech Delivery)

Be at the helm of huge transformation – forming one of the most powerful digital engines in the financial services industry!

In this Biz Ops role, drive the strategic department vision, operating model, budget and planning activities, and outcomes for the Digital Product organization. Serve as a trusted, strategic advisor to an executive, functional or department head and leaders within the department or function.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities:

Planning & Direction

• Lead the development of and advise departmental / function strategy development and execution, ensuring alignment with key business priorities and outcomes.
• Lead department/functional central initiatives that drive business value. Collaborate, plan and prioritize with and through people to bridge strategies across teams.
• Support a sophisticated area of the business, determines inter-dependencies across the organization, and facilitates work of notable risk and complexity within own area and across the business.

Business Operations

• Responsibility for strategy and planning to align business operations with the company's overarching strategy, mission and goals.
• Identify gaps between ideal and current state of operating model and recommend solutions to close the gaps.
• Facilitate execution of departmental / functional operating model to improve the health of the department / function and organization.
• Exhibit expert level and intuition for business in order to solve unique, sophisticated problems across the function with a broad impact on the business; requires conceptual and innovative thinking to develop solutions.

Project Management

• Partner with department / function leadership team to identify and track priority work, including identifying business outcomes and performance indicators, portfolio management of key department / function priorities, developing strategy for project execution, and creating transparency on priority work in the department / function and throughout the enterprise.
• Lead projects with notable risk and complexity; develop strategy for project execution.

Department / Function Planning Budgeting

• Lead function/department planning and financial/budgeting process.
• Oversee budget forecasting, administration and reporting.
• Manage multiple and sophisticated funding mechanisms and provides advisement to leadership on securing resources to achieve business outcomes.
• Align department and function planning and budget to functional and company priorities, working cross-functionally with peers in the function and organization.
• Develop action plans based on budget decisions.

Meeting Planning

• Plan and prepare agendas for functional/departmental staff or leadership meetings and planning sessions.
• Participate in regular department and function leadership meetings to evaluate barriers to success and develop courses of action to overcome issues at the functional/departmental level.
• Impact the direction and prioritization for programs, projects or services and ensures alignment of functional/departmental priorities to organizational strategy.
• Facilitate cross-functional initiatives and the flow of information between collaborators and other teams.
• Coordinate requests for information from partners and prepares reports and presentations in response.
• Anticipate business issues; recommend product, process or service improvements.

Trusted Advisor

• Represent and provide support to an executive, functional or department head to facilitate effective decision-making which has a significant impact on the organization; this includes planning, roadmap development, operational planning, leading key departmental / functional priorities, and meeting planning and preparation. Has a high impact on the implementation of critical initiatives that carry out overarching departmental / functional and organizational objectives.
• Establish and maintain organizational savviness, an executive presence and high level of intuition for business for area supporting and also for entire function to unearth issues, opportunities, problems, etc.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years' business leadership experience.
• Shown leadership skills working with teams with varied strengths.
• Superior social skills to lead groups of people.
• Experience in portfolio and/or project management, strategic and operational planning, and leading multiple sophisticated projects with organization-wide impact.
• Demonstrated organizational agility to work across organizational boundaries, influence, and collaborate with all levels on solutions that benefit the organization.
• Ability to work horizontally w/ shared priorities elevate functional priorities over department objectives.
• Ability to think within lateral accountabilities and interdependence.
• Proven skills in dealing with ambiguity and paradox, and leading change.
• Outstanding business insight and focus on achieving business impact through progressive practices and sound business judgment.
• Ability to translate goals and strategies into executable business plans.
• Strong integrity and proven track record of discretion with confidential information.
• Demonstrated learning agility and outside-in perspective to identify future trends and practices.
• Strong organizational skills; able to handle competing demands, and work under tight deadlines and short time frames.
• Strong problem solving and strategic/critical thinking skills. Track record applying data analytics to support recommendations/decision making. Comfortable with modeling in Excel; experience with SQL, Airtable and data visualization tools (ex. PowerBI) is advantageous
• Ability to identify underlying issues and influence others without formal authority.
• Facilitation and team building skills; ability to play an active, operational and communicative role. Interpersonal savvy and comfort interacting with and presenting to all levels of the organization, including senior leaders.
• High degree of self-motivation with leadership and initiative in sharing information, contributing towards group goals, and accepting responsibility for results.
• Pro-active and an ability to anticipate needs for a range of broad / complex business problems and staying ahead of them; comfortable working in an ambiguous environment.

#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.