Director of Product Management, North America - Arene

Woven•Ann Arbor, MI

About The Position

Woven by Toyota is enabling Toyota’s once-in-a-century transformation into a mobility company. Inspired by a legacy of innovating for the benefit of others, our mission is to challenge the current state of mobility through human-centric innovation — expanding what “mobility” means and how it serves society. Our work centers on four pillars: AD/ADAS, our autonomous driving and advanced driver assist technologies; Arene, our software development platform for software-defined vehicles; Woven City, a test course for mobility; and Cloud & AI, the digital infrastructure powering our collaborative foundation. Business-critical functions empower these teams to execute, and together, we’re working toward one bold goal: a world with zero accidents and enhanced well-being for all. TEAM Arene’s goal is to open vehicle programming to everyone by simplifying vehicle software development and increasing deployment frequency without compromising safety and security. This will create a whole new market of vehicle application developers who, through software, integrate a vehicle into our daily lives in novel ways. Arene aims to significantly improve how vehicles are designed and developed, and we’re working closely with Toyota to realize this goal in its next-generation vehicles. The Arene Product Management team is the global team that defines the Arene Product Line roadmap over close market knowledge, customer focus and technology trends awareness. This team is responsible to deliver the right solution, at the right price and at the right time, so that it can benefit both the customers and the Arene sponsor. The Product Management Director in NA is working very closely with his peer, the Product Management Director in Japan. The team is composed of product managers, product planning experts, market & users analysis, benchmarking, commercialization and partnership experts. This team is closely working with the global engineering workforce in order to produce Arene as a cohesive product line, fostering its reputation as a trustworthy and reliable brand, by providing cost-effective solutions that uphold the highest standards of safety and quality. WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR? You are a seasoned business leader with a deep understanding of product strategy creation and planning in a B2B marketplace, managing Fortune 50 types of customers. We are looking for a seasoned leader that has a proven track record of delivering business results over a product line management process while producing and servicing highly complex products that integrate both extensive logical and physical elements into a cohesive integrated product such as a car, an aircraft or equivalent. Also, the expected candidate has extensive skills in change management and in regulations in the automotive industry. This role reports directly to Arene’s Line of Business’s North America Head.

Requirements

Demonstrated experience delivering business results in a B2B environment similar to the one Arene has with a product line that has similar technology, costs structure and market complexity
Demonstrated experience leading teams on successful technology products
15+ years of pertinent experience delivering and servicing complex products that integrate the human in extensive logical and physical elements
Experience in communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences
Demonstrated effectiveness in connecting business context and customer impact to business results
Proven experience is go-to-market strategies, business plans definition, strategic plan definition, partnership, complex commercial agreements, patents and M&A
Prior experience working directly with engineering teams
Experience working with automotive OEMs and/or tier-1 suppliers
Experience working in the automotive, aerospace or defence industries
Embrace the challenge of creating metrics, designing product roadmaps, and influencing a diverse set of stakeholders toward a common goal

Nice To Haves

Agile development mindset
Experience working with Japanese companies
Experience working in a global environment

Responsibilities

In close collaboration with the Japanese head of product management, define and maintain a unique global product strategy, roadmap and the associated communication & governance while supporting the Japanese market place, but also deeply considering the North American and European marketplace
Build and manage a diverse team of senior professionals in various specializations such as product management and planning, market analysis, user experience, business strategies, commercialization, etc to maximize their efficiency to deliver business results
Pro-actively deploy your strategies and leverage all possible resources both internally and externally to derive the proper set of features that will provide Arene with competitive advantages as a product while enabling Toyota into the world of Software-Defined Vehicles and keep its position of world leader in this new field considering its operations and product lines realities and constraints
Develop the internal and external network to enable Arene’s products penetration in Toyota group companies as a first step, to the J-OEMs as a second step and to the rest of the world then
Track feature development execution by engineering, identify risks, and take action to drive to results and meet the schedule engagements;
Leverage the global geographically dispersed teams and stakeholders in your operations
Manage the investment by prioritizing features as well as balancing with non-functional requirements in order to enable Arene product line to produce solid financial performance in a software-driven business model, prioritizing safety and quality before profit
Balance competing factors (risk mitigation and issue resolution, dependency management, fastest vs best solution, ROI, etc)
Develop and maintain a good partnership network within the Toyota group company and beyond to gather insights and needs creating trustful relationships without overindexing on product customization, keeping long term vision educating customers/stakeholders to bring them along
Provide inspirational leadership with active listening, empathy, inclusivity, and modeling company values to maximize the performance of teams and individuals
Support the business development as well as market influence activities over talks in major industry events, conventions, partners and potential customers representation, etc