Business Area Lead

Swift Transportation•Tysons, VA

2d•$147,163 - $273,303

About The Position

This role involves leading and coaching Product Owners, owning the API portfolio strategy and roadmap, and driving product governance and performance management. The Business Area Lead will align delivery across various functions, including Engineering, Architecture, Security, Risk, Legal/Compliance, and Operations, to ensure APIs meet non-functional requirements and are suitable for regulated environments. Additionally, the role focuses on driving customer and market alignment through client engagement and working with Business Development and Industry Engagement teams. The position also involves shaping investment cases and partnerships to accelerate API capability, standardization, or distribution. The leadership scope includes leading a team of Product Owners, setting product standards, and influencing senior stakeholders.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree (Business, Engineering, Computer Science or related)
At least 7–10 years of experience in product management, platform/API product, business product leadership or strategy/program leadership, including leading Product Owners (directly or in a matrix)
Experience building and scaling API products (internal/external), including roadmap ownership, adoption metrics and developer experience
Banking industry knowledge (products, operations, and the regulatory environment) and experience applying it to platform/API delivery decisions
Experience working with Engineering and Architecture teams on non-functional requirements (security, resilience, data protection, observability)
Interacting with and presenting to senior stakeholders, translating complex topics into decisions and action

Nice To Haves

Proven ability to lead complex, multi-workstream initiatives with high visibility and executive engagement, balancing strategic intent with pragmatic delivery
Exposure to financial services/market infrastructures and/or digital assets/tokenization concepts is strongly preferred (or demonstrable ability to learn quickly in regulated domains)
Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align Product, Technology, Risk, Legal/Compliance, Operations, and Go-to-Market teams; experience engaging clients and ecosystem partners to validate needs and drive adoption

Responsibilities

Lead and coach Product Owners: set clear product outcomes, decision rights, and ways of working; ensure high-quality backlogs, well-formed hypotheses, and consistent discovery/delivery practices across squads
Own the API portfolio strategy and roadmap: define the multi-year API ambition (capabilities, markets, and adoption plan) and maintain a prioritized roadmap aligned to Swift’s digital assets strategy, client needs, and regulatory evolution
Run product governance and performance management: establish OKRs/KPIs (adoption, reliability, time-to-integrate, revenue/benefits), drive quarterly business reviews, manage trade-offs, and escalate risks/decisions through the agreed governance forums
Align delivery across functions: partner with Engineering, Architecture, Security, Risk, Legal/Compliance, and Operations to ensure APIs meet non-functional requirements (resilience, observability, identity/access, data protection) and are a fit for regulated environments
Drive customer and market alignment: engage priority clients and ecosystem partners to validate problems, test propositions, and guide adoption; work with Business Development and Industry Engagement to ensure messaging and go-to-market plans reinforce the agreed strategy
Shape investment cases and partnerships: build business cases for roadmap items, quantify benefits, and support evaluation of partnerships/inorganic opportunities that accelerate API capability, standardization, or distribution