Lead Product Manager, London

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company - powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. We work with the world’s most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise. Our people are the key to our success. We’re committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.

Why we're hiring: At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP Enterprise Technology’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create, and thrive. WPP Enterprise Technology is undergoing a significant transformation to build the platform that will power the next evolution of WPP. We are clarifying and simplifying our operating models, modernising colleague experiences, and creating an open, integrated technology innovation platform globally. We are seeking an experienced, strategic, and collaborative Senior Product Manager to join our Global Products, People, and Finance team, working in the UK which is the key hub for our forecasting initiative and interacting closely with APAC, LATAM, EMEA and NTAM.

In this elevated leadership role, you will own the global product strategy, global and regional roadmap, appropriate localisation of software considering global direction and execution of our Adaptive Planning instances across the Globe. Reporting directly to the Product Owner, you will manage, coach, and support at least 3 regional Product Managers and partner with business product owners in markets. You will act as the principal bridge between global financial vision, global business requirements, and technical deployment, ensuring that WPP’s media agencies possess robust, agile, and forward-looking forecasting and financial planning capabilities.

What you’ll be doing:

• People Leadership & Regional Management
  • Direct Management: Lead, mentor, and build high-performance capabilities within Product Managers based across the globe, aligning their roadmaps to the global product vision.
  • Enable Team Success: Ensure the product managers in the team can work effectively and independently so that the Lead Product Manager and the business stakeholders have confidence in the regional and local delivery.
  • Global Collaboration: Work in lockstep with the Product Owner to translate overarching corporate financial initiatives into global, regional and local execution strategies.
  • Matrix Collaboration: Motivate and engage globally-dispersed cross-functional teams, local project managers, product owners in other areas e.g. DataBridge, and third-party vendors to deliver consistent, unified systems.
• Product Strategy & Roadmap Ownership
  • Strategic Roadmap: Establish and champion the global product roadmap for Workday Adaptive Planning, effectively balancing high-priority global financial mandates with local market-specific requirements.
  • Value Realization: Drive the business case for change, highlighting clear return on investment (ROI) and capability progression to executive stakeholders, according to success measures for the product agreed with these stakeholders.
  • Lifecycle Management: Oversight of the end-to-end lifecycle of features, from initial discovery and regional proof-of-concept to global-scale deployment.
• Technical Expertise & Solution Delivery
  • Advanced Architecture Alignment: Work closely with Solution Architects and Enterprise IT to ensure Adaptive integrations with other major ERPs (e.g., Workday Core, Dynamics 365, Mediaocean) are secure, scalable, compliant, and fit for purpose.
  • Requirements Oversight: Act as the senior escalation point for translating highly complex financial forecasting requirements into clean, structured technical specifications.
  • Quality & Automation: Partner with QA teams to drive automated testing methodologies, minimizing manual regression cycles and optimizing regional User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Stakeholder Engagement & Change Management
  • Senior Stakeholder Management: Build trusted, influential relationships with executive-level stakeholders across Finance, People, Investment, and Agency operations.
  • Advocacy & Adoption: Direct regional change management programs in partnership with implementation teams, ensuring high user adoption and robust training frameworks.
  • Data Storytelling: Turn complex financial forecasting data patterns and tool capabilities into compelling business-value narratives to the executive stakeholders e.g. regional CFO's.

What you’ll need:

• Desired Skills and Experiences:
  • Scale & Scope: Proven track record of successful product delivery and system scaling in a global, matrixed enterprise (prior agency or media holding company experience is highly desirable).
  • Tooling Mastery: In-depth expertise in Workday Adaptive Planning (Adaptive Insights) alongside a solid understanding of broader ERP ecosystems (e.g., Workday Financials, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP, Mediaocean).
  • Agile Leadership: Strong command of Agile practices (Scrum, Kanban). Experience acting as a Senior Product Owner or Lead within a scaled Agile framework is a plus.
  • Financial Acumen: Deep understanding of corporate financial accounting, multi-currency revenue forecasting, invoicing processes, and media advertising business models.
  • Analytical Capability: Solid familiarity with modern data analytics, reporting tools, and data warehousing architectures.
• Personal Attributes:
  • Strategic Leader: A self-starter with excellent organizational skills, focused heavily on business value, outcomes, and driving team ownership.
  • Brilliant Communicator: Outstanding presentation and interpersonal skills, with a proven ability to explain complex financial/technical concepts simply to diverse business groups.
  • Adaptable & Resilient: Thrives in a rapidly shifting corporate environment, with the capacity to pivot strategies and realign roadmaps without sacrificing project momentum.
  • Inclusive & Collaborative: Dedicated to fostering cross-functional alignment and building consensus across culturally diverse teams in EMEA and APAC.

Experience & Qualifications:

• 5+ years in a Product Management role, with at least 3 years focused on developing, deploying, or integrating financial forecasting/ERP technology solutions (e.g., Adaptive, Workday, Dynamics).
• 1-2 years of experience in a direct team leadership, people management, or regional lead capacity.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Computer Science, or a related technical/analytical field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Certifications: Recognized Agile (CSPO, PMI-ACP, SAFe), Workday or Project Management certifications are highly beneficial.

Who you are:

• You’re open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
• You’re optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures for our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
• You’re extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we’ll give you:

• Passionate, inspired people - We aim to create a culture in which people can do extraordinary work.
• Scale and opportunity - We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.
• Challenging and stimulating work - Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers.

We believe the best work happens when we’re together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That’s why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process. WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.