The Product Owner is a Penn Mutual change agent that is customer focused and the guardian of the corporate priorities. The Product Owner is a passionate advocate and doer who will see a vision through to completion. He or she engages with stakeholders, captures and evaluates their input, prioritizes and works closely with an Agile development team to drive efforts through execution to completion.
The product owner in this position will be able to build and develop relationships with numerous stakeholders across the organization; negotiate with tact, respect, and visibility to team efforts; and focus the team on work most aligned with our strategic direction.
This position is for someone with a passion for data, and how that data supports business objectives. This Product Owner works with teams to aggregate, standardize, and make data accessible to various platforms, applications, and business areas. This includes real-time data services, batch data delivery, external data feeds to business partners, and analytics/reporting. This position requires the ability to understand the larger picture (e.g. strategic objectives, system architecture, and data flows) as well as to dig into the details of the data itself (e.g. data definitions and stewardship). The ideal candidate has experience with working with data platforms, data aggregation and processing, analytics, master data management, data mapping, and all things data.
- Decide, drive, and deliver on strategic business priorities
- Collaborate: With business stakeholders on formulating business solutions. With technical team members on how to meet business needs. With other Product Owners to manage inter-team dependencies.
- Facilitate meaningful conversations across all levels and areas of the company, from field support staff to actuaries to front-line service associates to vice presidents and executives
- Build strong relationships across all roles and levels of the company
- Articulate, elicit and inspire others to execute on a product vision
- Determine and articulate Minimum Viable Product. That is, identify those portions of an overall vision that are minimally necessary to achieve Penn Mutual’s objectives.
- Influence and negotiate in an un-assuming and respectful manner
- Encourage and demonstrate comfort with change, ambiguity, debate, conflict, experimentation, and informed risk taking
- Use diplomacy when we need to say “no”
- Provide empirically based estimates through collaboration with team
- Prepare for and facilitate sprint planning sessions
- Create, maintain and prioritize an Agile team’s work backlog
- Construct and communicate an Agile team’s product release plan to stakeholders.
- Form a clear understanding of business objectives and collaborate across teams and business areas to establish a solution.
- Complies with all company and site policies and procedures
- Remains current in profession and industry trends
- Successfully completes regulatory and job training requirements
- Performs other duties as assigned
Required Skills
- Demonstrated ability to drive the execution of a vision
- Proven negotiation, influence and collaboration skills
- Proven ability in the area of creative facilitation and encouragement of innovation
- Encourages and demonstrates comfort with change, ambiguity, debate, conflict, playfulness, experimentation, and informed risk taking
- Proven public speaking skills
- Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate with both technical and business associates
- Proven ability to make or facilitate effective decisions as they relate to an Agile teams product delivery
- Ability to make a positive contribution as demonstrated by learning new skills and making suggestions for process/procedure improvement
- Ability to work with others in a collaborative team environment
Required Experience
- 5+ years relevant business experience and/or previous Product Owner, Product Manager, or similar experience, with a data focus is Required
- 5+ years relevant experience in product ownership or management, business analyst, or other role in data-centric activities is Required
- Experience in insurance and/or financial service industries is Preferred
- Bachelor's Degree - Strongly preferred
Penn Mutual helps people become stronger. Our expertly crafted life insurance is vital to long-term financial health and strengthens people’s ability to enjoy every day. Working with our trusted network of financial professionals, we take the long view, building customized solutions for individuals, their families, and their businesses. We support our financial professionals with retirement and investment services through our wholly owned subsidiary, Hornor, Townsend & Kent, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.
Salary Range: $107,500 - $145,000