Lead Product Owner in London

hackajob is collaborating with Barclays to connect them with exceptional professionals for this role. Playing a leading role in the growing digital asset team, with a unique role that considers the full financial eco‑system.

Work across the bank (IB, Corporate, Private Bank, Retail, US Consumer) to identify strategic priorities. Work with emerging fintechs, clients, regulators to understand landscape. Take ownership of the digital asset product, working with business leads to understand problem statements and map customer journeys to solve these. Work closely with tech to establish necessary foundational and functional requirements to deliver on capabilities.

Purpose of the role

Drive the product vision and strategy across the organization ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs, inclusive of internal and external customers, clients, or partners. Lead Product Owners ensure delivery of key strategic initiatives to embrace a customer journey led approach and unlock high quality business capabilities that drive business and customer value. They own the development of strategic direction for a specific product or portfolio, including the implementation of up‑to‑date systems, methodologies and processes. Inspires, leads and supports the product development team in Servant leadership capacity to deliver high‑impact solutions with healthy collaboration. Responsible for defining the product roadmap and prioritising initiatives. Works closely with cross‑functional stakeholders, fosters collaboration, champions a customer‑centric approach, and leverages market insights and domain expertise to shape and adapt product strategy.

Accountabilities

• Define & Execute Product Strategy: Accountable for developing, defining & executing a comprehensive product strategy that aligns with the business and company’s overall vision, managing capabilities, balancing short‑terms with long‑terms strategic goals, ensuring that products meet customer and market demands and drive growth.
• Drive Product Innovation: Lead initiatives to innovate and evolve product offerings by staying ahead of market trends, customer needs, and emerging technologies, ensuring the product remains competitive and forward‑thinking.
• Oversee Product Development Lifecycle: Accountable for overseeing the entire product development lifecycle, from concept to launch, ensuring efficient processes, on‑time delivery, and alignment with E2E customer expectations and experience. Collaborates across other product teams to align and minimize dependencies to meet desired timing.
• Oversee Product Goals and Performance: Accountable for defining clear objectives and key outcomes to steer the product vision and ensure alignment with company’s business goals, financial targets, and strategic vision, driving long‑term business success. Monitor product performance through data‑driven analysis and insights, regularly assessing progress against objectives and adjusting the roadmap and backlog as needed to optimise outcomes and maximise value for both business and customer, providing context to the wider cross‑functional team.
• Customer‑Centric Focus: Drive a customer‑first approach across the product vision, ensuring customer insights, feedback, behaviours, and pain points are at the core of the product strategy and decision‑making process. They champion the customer’s voice throughout the development lifecycle ensuring enhancements deliver high value, improve satisfaction, and align with evolving customer needs and expectations.
• Stakeholder Communication and Management: Lead collaboration between cross‑functional teams and act as the key liaison between the product organisation and senior leadership, investors, and other stakeholders, ensuring transparent communication about product vision, strategy, and performance.
• Manage and Develop Product Teams: Accountable for mentoring, and developing high‑performing product teams, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Risk and Control: Managing risk, including identification of potential risks, development of strategies to resolve or mitigate and escalating as necessary those risks, and alignment between the product management and control functions.
• Domain Expertise: Demonstrates deep understanding of relevant domain, with the ability to translate complex concepts to customers and other stakeholders while effectively communicating business requirements to development teams.

Director Expectations

To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide. They manage the direction of a large team or sub‑function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.

Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub‑function. Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately. Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence. Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate. Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives. Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up‑to‑date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives. Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations. Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area. Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally. Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions. Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others. All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.