Associate Director, Product Owner - ODS

The Associate Director-Product Owner - ODS (Operational Data Store) is responsible for maximising the value of their HR Product portfolio by translating business needs into a prioritised backlog and leading delivery across the HR product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities:

• Partner with business stakeholders to understand functional needs, refine requirements, and define product outcomes that support business priorities.
• Own and manage the Product backlog, ensuring requirements are well-defined and supported by minimum data inputs.
• Make prioritisation decisions for the Product backlog based on value, cost, risk, business continuity, and resource capacity.
• Lead the Product team’s delivery activities, guiding Engineers, Architects, and Testers to ensure solutions are fit-for-purpose, secure, compliant, supportable, and aligned to architectural standards.
• Drive operational readiness by applying a delivery readiness checklist covering support model requirements, training needs, continuity planning, configuration/runbook documentation, release notes, and user onboarding.
• Define and maintain the Product performance dashboard, tracking adoption, cycle time/throughput, stability/defects, UX signals, and support effort.
• Ensure product changes follow required SOX standards, security controls, risk assessments, data handling policies, and regulated change processes.
• Support Solution Architects to assess design options and manage cross-Product dependencies, contract/interface impacts, and sequencing needs.
• Act as an escalation point for the HR Product team and business users on functional product issues.
• Contribute to the improvement of delivery practices within the Product, promoting agile, iterative, value-driven, and data-led ways of working.
• Lead your team in using approved AI tools to improve productivity and ways of working.

Required Skills & Qualification:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, Information Technology, or Engineering).
• 15 to 19 years of experience working in product delivery, digital solutions, business systems, or process-led technology roles.
• Knowledge of functional domains within Global Functions (e.g. HR) and familiarity with the technology platforms that enable them (e.g. Workday).
• Understanding of product performance measures and KPIs.
• Proven experience defining and prioritising functional requirements and managing a product backlog.
• Experience working directly with business stakeholders to translate needs into feasible, value-led technology changes.
• Demonstrated ability to make prioritisation decisions based on business value, process impact, risk, cost, and technology constraints.
• Experience leading delivery teams or analysts through the product lifecycle.
• Familiarity with enterprise governance requirements.
• Exposure to continuous improvement approaches.
• Experience working within agile delivery environments.