Head of Finance Technology / Product Manager

Job Description

The role is to act as a head of Finance Technology or Product Manager within the Global Technology department. It plays a crucial role in supporting the success of the business. We are responsible for developing and implementing state-of-the-art software and hardware maintenance to support our fund management, trading,distribution and operational areas with secure, stable and resilient technology platforms.Overview of the roleYour role will be to create and grow our products into something that our business will use daily. Youll work with internal business leaders and partners to determine what is working (or not), research and develop new features, own product initiatives, manage and prioritize roadmaps, and lead the product owners within your Agile development teams.You will have accountability for the full product management lifecycle of a new suite of products and the team responsible for delivering it. This is a highly collaborative role, where success requires getting into the weeds with the product and development teams, as well as being able to influence and engage executive and internal partners to deliver business value while creating internal products our business partners will love.Duties and responsibilitiesYou will:• Obsess over creating amazingly intuitive experiences that deliver business value• Confidently communicate your strategy across the organization to influence stakeholders to align behind the objectives• Lead, develop, and inspire an Agile Delivery team of analysts, subject matter experts, developers, architects, and data analysts• Lead teams to define and execute against our most important priorities in service to our vision and strategic goals• Establish or participate in Design Thinking, Agile, and Lean rituals which establish a rhythm for the team, promote ongoing communication, and iterative refinement of product initiatives• Define Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to measure success/failure; lead teams to align on and deliver OKRs for customer benefit, product quality and business outcomes• Regularly and systematically use data to uncover opportunities, monitor product performance, and drive decision making• Drive analysis for undefined or white space problems and make good decisions with ambiguous data• Prioritize, clear and remove blockers to orchestrate successful launch or optimization cycles• Execute with urgency to deliver solutions and on priorities• Influence cross-team agendas proactively to deliver outcomes while balancing short and long term objectives• Champion the use of the right technology to deliver on product initiatives and strategic intents• Serve as an inspiring leader, contributing practitioner, career guide, and mentor to your teams• Carry out additional duties as assignedSupervisory responsibilities• YesTechnical skills and qualifications• Demonstrable experience in and passion for building and implementing great products• Experience working with Product Management, Agile, Design Thinking, and Lean methodologies• Bachelors Degree or equivalent experience required. MBA or Masters degree desirable• Prior experience in Agile product management• Significant financial services product experience• Consistent track record of running systems change programmes in Finance• Experience running SAP suite products: ERP, BW, BPC and integrations with those system is highly desirable• Knowledge of FP&A Product Anaplan is a plus• Willingness and desire to lead product teams that work across multiple disparate finance applications.• Experience implementing at least one major ERP lifecycle project• Able to recommend process improvement options with confidence and expertise• Understanding the business processes and how these are supported by the systems• Shown success working with global, self-directed, virtual product teams• In-depth understanding of Agile process and principles• Outstanding communication, presentation, leadership, and relationship building skills• Excellent organisational and time management skills• Solid attention to detail• Demonstrated ability to work with diverse internal and external partnersLeadership & Stakeholder Management• Proven experience leading high performing teams• Actively support establishing and maturing the target operating model, including documenting processes and procedures• Assist in identifying, capturing and reporting KPIs and operational metrics• Structure and facilitate team and stakeholder meetings• Develop and mature relationship with the business, enhancing business confidence in the Finance technology team• Collaboration, specifically with other architects, to understand system dependencies and determine prioritizations• Establish & facilitate regular stakeholder prioritization and update meetings• Handle and call out risks & issues through the appropriate channels• Lead Root Cause Analysis and drive efforts to resolve root causes identified• Responsible for incident, change and release management within functional workstream• Support internal and external audit requestsPersonal and Inter-Personnel• Strong leader, comfortable communicating to C Level leadership and challenging existing paradigms• Exceptional communication, presentation, influencing, and reasoning skills, including the ability to clearly communicate technology concepts to non-technology personnel• Ability to productively work across functional teams, with a results driven approach• Proactive nature with proven problem solving capabilities• Willingness to provide 360 degree coaching and feedback• Take ownership for issues and work to resolve them in a practical manner which aligns with the strategic architecture• Effective time management / planning - manages personal workload effectively, sets realistic and achievable targets and consistently delivers to them• Client focused, committed to excellence, strong attention to detail and a great teammateCompetencies requiredIn addition to putting clients first, acting like an owner, and succeeding as a team, the competencies for this role include:• Exceptional communication skills -- someone who is an engaging storyteller and is at ease presenting to executives• Creative problem solver who lives at the intersection of the human, business and technology dimensions. Deep fluency and experience in at least two of these dimensions, with a solid understanding of the third• Blend of both strategic and tactical thinking -- someone who can identify and prioritize opportunities in highly ambiguous contexts, and then organize work in d