Assistant Director, Digital Product

Northwestern Mutual•Franklin, WI

About The Position

We are seeking an Assistant Director of Digital Product to lead and empower high-performing product teams within the Insurance Solutions Risk Servicing function. This role is focused on all aspects of risk product disbursements including loans, surrenders and withdrawals as well as legacy servicing tools including Service Request Center (SRC). In this role, you will lead and develop multiple Product Managers and Business Analysts who define product direction, solve complex business problems, and drive execution. Partnering closely with engineering, business partners and design, you will enable your teams to deliver and maintain digital solutions that meet business objectives and cultivate strong stakeholder relationships to ensure alignment with departmental and enterprise strategy. This position requires a strategic product leader with strong cross-functional partnering skills, demonstrated success delivering complex digital solutions, and the ability to influence across multiple levels of the organization. Another core aspect of this role is to help define servicing strategy and developing new servicing experiences as part of transformation of existing legacy experiences.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or an equivalent technical, business, or financial field
9+ years of working as a product manager on technology-powered product teams
Working knowledge in modern product discovery and delivery methodologies (e.g., Agile, Lean, Design Thinking)
Exceptional verbal and written communication skills – able to tailor messages to both technical and non-technical audiences
3+ years of formal people management experience managing other product managers and business analysts
Proven ability to operate and influence effectively within a complex, matrixed organization
Holds self and their direct reports accountable for measurable, high-quality, timely, and cost-effective results, delivery, and execution. Determines objectives, sets priorities, delegates work to direct reports, and accepts responsibility for mistakes.
Formulates strategies to be used to convey complex information about services, products, systems, or processes to targeted audiences; communicates and liaises between technical and non-technical audiences.
Develops others by providing actionable, constructive feedback through the lens of technical expertise and offers guidance to others on how to leverage, prioritize, and develop skills to achieve one's goals and objectives.
Facilitates collaboration, communication, coordination, and planning with individuals and teams from different functions within the organization, and who have different areas of expertise, to achieve common goals.
Develops direct reports’ skills based on organizational objectives, evaluates skill gaps, and manages succession planning to develop more capable direct reports, diverse, strong teams and better organizational performance in an equitable and inclusive manner.

Nice To Haves

Deep business acumen with strong understanding of NM’s insurance product offerings (Life, DI, LTC, Annuities)

Responsibilities

Define a 1–2-year product vision for a portfolio of products, including how they deliver measurable business outcomes
Lead, mentor, and develop Product Managers and Business Analysts; provide career mapping, coaching, and opportunities to grow domain expertise and skills
Manage the full product life cycle from strategic planning, build and execution, maintenance/support, through end-of-life retirement
Set product objectives and key results for a product and drive teams to achieve them
Provide high-level direction and support your teams across the product portfolio, mapping epics and features and showing integration points with cross-functional partners
Identify and validate problems and/or opportunities across multiple user groups and scenarios
Collaborate with engineering, design, actuarial, and other partners to ensure alignment and achieve desired outcomes
Set short- and long-term priorities for products and team development, balancing tactical work with strategic initiatives
Accountable for gathering higher level, more complex product requirements and maintain a broad understanding of products in the portfolio; review and validate team-gathered requirements as needed
Align stakeholders, document high-level business requirements, and manage vendor relationships, RFPs, or POCs as required
Help teams track progress against Key Results and balance priorities with corporate strategy and new product introductions
Partner with engineering and design to translate strategy into prioritized requirements, user experiences, and scalable solutions through your teams
Oversee delivery and lifecycle management to ensure products meet quality, regulatory, and performance expectations through your teams
Manage stakeholder engagement and governance with business owners, compliance, and enterprise leadership
Promote use of data and user research to inform decisions, iterate on solutions, and continuously improve outcomes
Build a high-performance, customer-centric culture that models NM behaviors and brings out the best in people
Navigate organizational changes in reporting and operating models while maintaining team stability, morale, and delivery quality
Demonstrate and instill a strong sense of ownership, urgency, and accountability across the team