Software Product Director

About us: Avencia Consulting are partnered with a well-known Specialty Reinsurer based in the City, who are looking to hire a Product Director to join on a permanent basis.

The role: You will be responsible for leading the vision, strategy, and execution of the product development roadmap for one of our key data analytics software suites. This role requires a balance of strategic thinking, leadership, and hands-on execution to drive product innovation, market success, and customer satisfaction. Please note that frequent travel will be required in this role.

Key accountabilities:

• Product Strategy & Vision: Develop and articulate a compelling product vision and strategy aligned with business goals and market opportunities. This will include potential close working on bids and pitching to external parties for investment and sales opportunities globally.
• Roadmap Development: Define, maintain, and communicate the product roadmap, ensuring alignment with customer needs, technological advancements, and competitive landscape.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with teams from across the business on requirements capture, design, service management, support and end-users to drive product initiatives from conception to launch.
• Customer & Market Insights: Conduct market research, gather internal and customer user feedback, and analyse data to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for product improvement.
• Agile Product Development: Lead the product team in an agile development environment, prioritising features and ensuring timely and high-quality product releases.
• Performance Measurement: Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure product success and iterate based on data-driven insights.
• Team Leadership & Development: Take ownership of the existing team (~10 people across London, Dublin, Bermuda), build and mentor a high-performing product team, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and customer-centric thinking.
• Drive Change: Plan and develop change from ideation through to implementation and commissioning. Build and size the existing team to execute this journey, putting in place the necessary structures and processes.
• Work closely with technology teams: Collaborate with internal and external tech architects and business owners to refine requirements and translate business needs into data solutions and ensure projects are coordinated correctly.
• Ensure continuous improvement: Maintain an approach of continuous improvement and implementation of best practices.
• Effectively document: Surface relevant information and remove blockers to ensure project success in a proactive manner.
• Manage risks: Issues, deadlines, dependencies and be able to present up-to-date status reports at any time.
• Instil ownership: Accountability and technical excellence in the team, driving efficient processes at pace and constantly push best practice.
• Monitor efficiency: Of resource use and team productivity.
• Develop industry knowledge: Gain a strong understanding of our industry and our products and services.
• Regularly report on progress: Define and report KPIs and key objective/result metrics.
• Keep stakeholders informed: Update on all activities that impact project outcomes and be a point of contact for work status. Ensure stakeholder satisfaction.
• Focus on long-term effectiveness: Simplicity of solutions and appropriate controls.
• Estimate projects and tasks: Work closely with technical and business teams as needed.
• Ensure quality: Of any third-party deliveries against requirements, liaising with outsourced partners as necessary.
• Act as voice-of-customer: Representative.
• Track budget & effort: Management and reporting, tracking team costs, cost of work-packages, efficiency, work in progress etc.
• Support a team culture: Of innovation, efficiency, accountability and initiative, with a focus on process simplification and outcome delivery.
• Strong leadership skills: An innovative mindset and experience as a proactive team player while leading strongly from the front.

Skills & experience:

• Bachelor's degree (or higher) in a relevant technology field (i.e. Engineering, Physics, Data Science).
• Minimum 10 years' experience in a technical product manager/product director role in a large enterprise/multinational organisation.
• Experience managing and reporting on project and programme budgets.
• Experience working in a regulated environment.
• Able to deliver objectives assigned to you with a strong sense of urgency.
• Always maintain a high bar of quality and have pride in doing work well to high standards.
• Drive and support innovation in a pragmatic and effective way to meet the needs of the business.
• Leading by example in terms of our company culture and values.
• Industry Knowledge: Strong understanding of software development processes, SaaS business models, and emerging data technology analytics trends.
• Strong understanding of data analytics systems.
• Strategic Thinking: Proven ability to develop and execute a product strategy that drives business growth.
• Technical Acumen: Comfortable working with engineering teams and understanding software architecture, APIs, and modern development practices.
• Leadership & Communication: Excellent leadership, collaboration, and communication skills to influence and inspire teams.
• Customer-Centric Mindset: Ability to balance business objectives with customer needs, ensuring an exceptional user experience.
• Data-Driven Decision-Making: Proficiency in analytics and experience leveraging data to inform product decisions.
• Agile & Lean Methodologies: Fluent in Agile, Scrum, and Lean methodologies to drive efficient product development cycles.
• Strong interest in AI, leveraging practical applications of AI with respect to data analysis, automation of manual processes and data handling.