Product Director, Higher Education & School Boards

Unit4

1d•Remote

About The Position

Unit4 is a market leader for ERP and finance solutions across universities, colleges, and the Canadian K-12 school board market. Higher education faces structural funding pressure, growing research complexity, and the demands of an increasingly digital student experience. School boards navigate provincial funding compliance, trustee governance, and the operational weight of collective agreements across large, geographically distributed organizations. As Product Director for Higher Education and K-12, you own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap that makes Unit4 the platform of choice across these institutions. This is not an account management or advisory role. You will have dedicated engineering capacity to build vertical depth that distinguishes Unit4 in this market - capabilities that matter to a university CFO managing a research portfolio, a registrar navigating financial aid complexity, or a Superintendent of Business in a school board managing provincial budget allocations. You will work closely with horizontal product teams to ensure the platform delivers end-to-end, but the vertical product strategy is yours. The right person has built enterprise software for higher education institutions or K-12 school boards. You understand the funding models, the compliance obligations, and where current systems fall short. You have shipped features that research finance officers, HR directors, and school board finance teams actually use. AI is reshaping higher education from multiple directions simultaneously. Research institutions are navigating AI-assisted grant workflows, evolving indirect cost models, and new data governance obligations from research funders. Administratively, AI offers real efficiency gains across finance, procurement, and HR. Capturing those gains while maintaining the rigorous data governance, academic integrity, and accreditation standards these institutions operate within is the defining challenge. This role requires someone who understands both sides and can build a product roadmap that helps institutions move forward with confidence.

Requirements

Proven product management experience building enterprise software - ERP, finance systems, or enterprise SaaS - for higher education institutions or K-12 school boards.
You have shipped products used by HE finance teams, research administrators, or school board operations staff, not just studied the sector.
Deep working knowledge of higher education finance: research grant accounting, fund and restricted-fund accounting, full economic costing, endowments, and tuition revenue models.
For the K-12 dimension: working knowledge of provincial ministry funding formulas, trustee governance and board reporting, school-level budget delegation, and collective agreement administration.
Understanding of the student lifecycle interfaces - financial aid, tuition management, integration with student information systems - and what they demand from the ERP layer.
A clear point of view on how AI is reshaping the research enterprise and administrative operations of HE institutions, and what responsible, governance-compliant product decisions look like in this context.
Commercial orientation: you understand how product decisions drive ARR, win rate, and customer retention.
Strong communication skills at CFO, VP Finance, Superintendent of Business, and senior academic and school board leadership level.
Experience in product management for enterprise SaaS platforms.
Deep understanding of professional services business models, including project-based delivery, utilization, billing, scheduling and compliance.
Strong ability to influence without authority and work cross-functionally in a matrixed environment.
Proven ability to translate complex industry needs into scalable product solutions.
Excellent communication, analytical, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience with ERP or PSA platforms
Familiarity with mid-market services firms and their operational challenges.
Familiarity with in AI-driven or data-rich product environments.

Responsibilities

Own the Higher Education and K-12 product vision, strategy, and multi-horizon roadmap; align it with Unit4's platform strategy and commercial growth targets.
Lead a prioritized product backlog with dedicated engineering capacity - defining outcomes, success metrics, release plans, and quality criteria.
Translate deep sector knowledge into specific, investment-backed product requirements: problem statements, opportunity sizing, and build-vs-partner decisions.
Define industry-specific solution blueprints, reference configurations, and pre-built templates for HE and K-12 institutions.
Work closely with horizontal product teams to ensure HE and K-12 requirements are reflected in platform investment across finance, HR, procurement, and research management.
Partner with the Industry Growth Director on launch readiness, pricing, packaging, and field enablement for new capabilities.
Engage directly with strategic customers and the HE Industry Board to validate roadmap direction, co-innovate, and capture outcome evidence.
Ensure regulatory, accessibility, research-compliance, and provincial requirements across our supported geographies are systematically reflected in the roadmap.
Monitor the competitive landscape - know what Ellucian, Workday, Microsoft, Tribal Group, and others are shipping and what it means for Unit4's positioning.
Work with partners to extend the value proposition for HE and K-12 customers.
Own feature outcomes, not just delivery - define clear adoption, usage, and customer impact goals for every capability you champion, and track performance against them after launch.
Serve as the internal authority on the Higher Education and K-12 verticals, providing product, marketing, analyst relations, and pre-sales teams with the industry grounding they need to position, demonstrate, and sell effectively.