Director Agile Product Management, Employee Benefits

The Hartford•Hartford, CT

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Agile Product Management (APM) is a leadership role within the Employee Benefits Employer Experience Value Stream, accountable for leading Agile Product Owners (APOs) and driving execution across the Service Transformation Agile Release Train (ART). This role represents the voice of the customer and the business, sets priorities, manages dependencies, removes blockers, and ensures work is delivery‑ready to enable meaningful outcomes. The APM partners closely with APOs, agile teams, Release Train Engineers (RTEs), technology leaders, process optimization, and business stakeholders to execute on the Service Transformation roadmap, delivering capabilities that modernize service delivery through E2E workflow, data, and AI-enabled automation and augmentation, reducing friction while improving speed, transparency, and consistency for both customers and Operations. To be successful in this role, the individual must demonstrate strong ownership, autonomy, and a bias for action. A passion for customer and service experience, data‑driven decision making, and servant leadership is essential. The individual must have a strong commitment to building fluency and execution capability in emerging AI‑enabled product delivery models, and to developing these capabilities across the broader team. The ideal candidate will have prior experience as an Agile Product Manager, Agile Product Owner, or Process Optimization Leadership, and have experience with Employee Benefits Insurance. This role is based in our Hartford, CT, Home Office. Candidates based elsewhere may also be considered. Candidates who live within driving distance (25 miles) of a Hartford office will have a hybrid work arrangement.

Requirements

3+ years of combined experience in Agile Product Management or Product Ownership
Experience in the insurance industry required; Employee Benefits experience strongly preferred (Life, Disability, Voluntary)
Experience with service operations, customer service platforms, workflow enablement, or operational transformation strongly preferred
Proficiency in agile methodologies (SAFe, Scrum/Kanban)
Effective decision‑maker who operates and delivers at pace
Experience using agile lifecycle management tools (Rally/Jira)
Strong collaboration and influencing skills in a highly matrixed environment
Proven ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholder expectations
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including presentation to senior leaders
Comfort using data and metrics to identify insights and inform decisions
Proven ability to integrate AI‑enabled capabilities and agentic workflows into regular product delivery practices

Responsibilities

Lead product execution for the Service Transformation ART, consisting of ~6–8 agile teams
Own and maintain a strategic, prioritized program backlog aligned to business vision, service outcomes, and customer friction across current‑state processes
Set and execute product strategy for the ART aligned to Employer Experience and Service Transformation objectives
Own prioritization decisions, balancing customer impact, operational outcomes, financial benefit, risk, and capacity
Make independent tradeoff decisions related to scope, sequencing, and prioritization within the ART
Lead, coach, and develop a team of APOs; build product management capability and hold teams accountable for outcomes and delivery at pace
Ensure APOs understand priorities, intent, and business value across the program backlog
Own the health, readiness, and flow of the program backlog across multiple teams. Ensure backlog is outcome focused, and considers service strategy, customer insights, and operational pain points
Break down epics into features, define acceptance criteria and KPIs, and independently drive feature road‑mapping
Guide the ART through PI planning and objective setting, linking execution to business intent
Integrate AI‑enabled capabilities and agentic workflows into regular product delivery practices to improve speed, quality, and PDLC outcomes
Promote rapid prototyping, iteration, and experimentation using AI agents to inform solution direction and reduce time to value
Partner with technology and data teams to support agent workflow building, orchestration, and embedded analytics
Set clear expectations for APOs to build familiarity and proficiency with AI‑enabled product delivery approaches
Represent the voice of the customer and the voice of the business across the ART
Partner closely with Business, IT, RTEs, Architects, Process Optimization, and Production Support to ensure solutions deliver intended service outcomes
Manage dependencies, mitigate risks, and remove blockers across teams and partner organizations
Influence alignment across value streams and enabling organizations to support end‑to‑end service transformation outcomes
Accountable for ensuring delivered capabilities achieve intended service outcomes, including customer experience, operational efficiency
Accept completed features that meet definition of done and quality expectations
Validate delivered capabilities against product vision and service outcomes
Support and influence change management and business readiness activities to drive adoption
Monitor and communicate execution progress, benefit realization, and post‑release optimization results
Analyze ART‑level metrics to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities
Stay current on AI advancements, internal strategies, service operations, and industry trends to act as a subject‑matter expert in service transformation