About the position
The Senior Director of Product Management is primarily responsible for setting and driving the direction for a line of products in partnership with the Business leaders. This individual will be the senior leader to partner with the business leaders who oversee the K-12 Learning Products and Platforms including the Managed Schools and Learning Solutions lines of business. This leader is very senior and must foster partnerships with business leaders, customers, Marketing, and application engineering to deliver innovative products which balance the need to deliver value to the company with what customers want and what’s technically and operationally possible. Typically, it is their responsibility to develop strategies and business plans to strengthen relationships, address issues and concerns, and perform corrective measures when necessary. Product Management role is the link between the business and the customer at a strategic level. They need to understand the business requirements of the customer and is provide services that meet these needs. They will need to understand the voice of the customer through internal business interactions as well as external, customer direct interactions including calls, correspondence, and face to face customer meetings. This leader will also provide industry advice or consultation. At the most fundamental level, this leader must define and understand the customers, market, profitability and set a long-term roadmap for all products in their portfolio. Finally, as a manager, it is essential to lead and encourage staff in the joint effort to reach target business metrics (sales, new enrollments, revenue, margin, etc.) and improve the client base.
Responsibilities
- Manage a portfolio of products and the associated product roadmaps in various stages.
- Establish a customer focus for product management and capture ongoing voice of the customer.
- Lead and manage customer forums.
- Partner with Marketing, business, engineering and operations teams to drive the Go-to-Market process product releases.
- Collaborate with the other product management leadership to implement a standard product management framework and product lifecycle process.
- Define the 'what' for Stride products under the Learning Platforms line of business for K-12 schools.
- Partner with Product Marketing to define 'how' products are taken to market, sold and commercialized.
- Partner with Technology to define 'how' products are built to satisfy the 'what'.
- Ensure alignment to Business and Architecture roadmaps.
- Build business partnerships, driving value to satisfy purpose.
- Partner with the different business leaders both inside and outside the organization to collaborate and ensure meaningful results from our strategic initiatives.
- Optimize organizational factors, such as brand, technology, innovation, and human to amplify fit-for-purpose impact.
- Proactively sense and anticipate changes affecting strategy in the environmental landscape including organizational improvements, technological advancements, and evolving organization and business needs.
- Own the strategic relationship between the line of business partners to stimulate, surface, and shape demand.
- Oversee demand and priority with focus on delivery of Stride’s Value Drivers and Transformational programs.
- Develop deep domain knowledge of your business partner's line of business and build cross-functional relationships for the convergence of value.
- Establish value management and product success measures as a strategic organizational capability.
- Establish a communication methodology for effective and efficient organizational communication.
- Partner with individuals, teams, throughout Stride to drive value and meaningful results.
- Continually improve the value framework to drive organizational awareness and education.
- Partner with leaders to identify opportunities to evaluate, sequence, and shape initiatives for strategic value.
- Focus on value over solutions, emphasize value when developing ideas, evaluating risk, and evolving needs.
- Innovate using knowledge and awareness of industry trends to identify new opportunities.
- Implement innovation techniques such as Hack-a-Thons and innovation labs.
- Elaborate the strategic plans for business partners to communicate their strategic capabilities monitoring initiative progress to ensure expectations are aligned with results and ultimately value.
- Ensure that allies in strategic purpose are knowledgeable about objectives.
- Engage as a project/program major partner including evaluating development efforts and progress against strategic plans and value creation objectives.
- Advocate as a champion of change for your business partners strategic plans.
- Validate the business partners purpose supports the desired results through business case development, financial awareness, managing expectations, and identifying opportunities to grow value.
- Align each initiative to the organizational strategy to validate expected results.
- Strategize with partners to develop future roadmaps and explore new opportunities.
- Enhance existing and prospective relationships through product evaluation, cross-sell and exploration of other company resources.
Requirements
- Eight (8) years of experience in Product Management.
- Fifteen (15) years of experience in an operational, management, or delivery roles.
- Ten (10) years of upper management experience and leadership skills.
- Pragmatic Product Management Certified or equivalent.
Nice-to-haves
- BS/BA in computer science or relevant field.
- MS/MA is a big plus; MBA Preferred.
Benefits
- Health benefits
- Retirement contributions
- Paid time off
- Eligible employees may receive a bonus
