Product Manager-NBS-SGO Disbursements

Nelnet Servicing•Lincoln, NE

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Product Manager, SGO Disbursements leads the strategy, roadmap, and lifecycle management of the disbursement solution within the SGO Compass ecosystem. The role owns the product experience from approved scholarship awards through payment authorization, disbursement, settlement, reconciliation, and exception resolution. It supports multiple payment models and recipient types and is accountable for outcomes including payment accuracy, disbursement timeliness, transaction efficiency, financial controls, recipient experience, and competitive positioning. The position translates market, client, institutional, and stakeholder needs into scalable product solutions, collaborating with business development, operations, engineering, product marketing, Finance, Treasury, Legal, Compliance, payment providers, and other teams. It conducts market and customer research, develops and prioritizes requirements, oversees the product backlog, defines metrics, supports iterative platform modernization, and plans go-to-market readiness and adoption. The role also evaluates payment technologies, financial services partnerships, disbursement models, scholarship program requirements, qualified educational expense controls, and emerging fintech capabilities. It defines capabilities for payments to schools and approved service providers, eligible family reimbursements, payee and bank-account verification, fraud controls, fund limits, approvals, payment status and exceptions, settlement, reconciliation, refunds, and financial reporting. The position reports to the Managing Director, Product SGO and helps advance product strategy, roadmap alignment, and measurable student outcomes across the SGO Compass ecosystem.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, information technology, financial technology, computer science, or a related field.
Minimum 6–8 years of product management experience.
Experience with disbursement and payout products, including ACH, prepaid or virtual card issuance, and digital wallets.
Experience with marketplace or closed-loop spend products, such as HSA/FSA-style card programs.
Experience building and managing provider or merchant networks.
Experience with payment- or disbursement-specific fraud prevention.
Demonstrated success defining, developing, launching, and managing products in an Agile environment, using market research, data-driven decisions, and human-centered design principles.
Experience leading organizational change, communicating change, and supporting stakeholder alignment and adoption.
Excellent strategic thinking and product strategy skills.
Ability to successfully manage product roadmaps.
Strong data-driven decision-making skills.
Ability to influence others cross-functionally.
Skill in customer-centric discovery and developing insights.
Proven ability to define product strategy and deliver measurable outcomes.
Familiarity with treasury management principles, including funding, settlement, and liquidity.
Familiarity with card issuing programs, including issuing bank and program manager relationships.
Strong risk management background.
Working knowledge of money-movement compliance requirements, including AML/BSA and state money transmitter regulations.
Proven ability to develop and execute strategy for a two-sided marketplace, balancing provider and consumer needs.
Must already be authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

An advanced degree.
Product management certification.
Additional education or professional training in payment systems, financial services, treasury management, banking, or financial technology.

Responsibilities

Own and execute the end-to-end product strategy and roadmap for the Disbursement solution in the SGO Compass ecosystem.
Lead discovery and research with SGOs, schools, families, financial institutions, payment providers, merchants, and other stakeholders.
Translate research and stakeholder insights into prioritized, scalable product requirements that balance client needs, operating models, recipient experience, program requirements, financial controls, and efficiency.
Define, track, and optimize product metrics and KPIs to measure business outcomes, product effectiveness, and progress against strategic priorities.
Partner with engineering to deliver complex modernization and platform initiatives through iterative releases.
Drive strategic product initiatives, including AI-enabled capabilities within the product ecosystem.
Partner with Legal, Compliance, Finance, Treasury, and payment providers to ensure payment, security, regulatory, recordkeeping, and money-movement requirements are addressed.
Lead go-to-market readiness and support value delivery and adoption across SGOs, schools, vendors, families, and implementation partners.
Influence cross-product roadmap alignment and represent customer needs in executive discussions with data-driven recommendations.
Evaluate and implement disbursement delivery models, including in-house, hybrid, and partner-led approaches, considering regulatory obligations, financial risk, scalability, cost, and recipient experience.
Define capabilities for direct school payments, approved educational service provider payments, and eligible family reimbursements, including supporting documentation, approval workflows, and payment restrictions.
Establish requirements for payee verification, bank-account validation, payment destination controls, fraud prevention, duplicate-payment detection, and segregation of financial duties.
Own product capabilities for payment tracking, failed payments, returns, refunds, reversals, recovery, settlement confirmation, and reconciliation across financial systems and payment providers.
Define configurable controls for scholarship balances, award commitments, available funds, eligible expense categories, payment limits, and applicable program restrictions.
Evaluate market conditions, education and K-12 trends, customer needs, competitive intelligence, financial technology developments, and scholarship program requirements to inform product strategy and innovation.
Collaborate across the SGO team, FACTS Division, Nelnet Business Services, and other Nelnet functions to turn organizational strategy into actionable product initiatives and measurable outcomes.
Lead roadmap development and prioritization in alignment with FACTS’ mission, vision, North Star goal, and strategic plan.
Support a continuous product management culture by incorporating stakeholder perspectives, explaining prioritization and implementation decisions, and encouraging alignment and adoption through the product lifecycle.
Balance new features, partner needs, student outcomes, compliance risks, revenue generation, and available development resources to improve product effectiveness and efficiency.
Own the lifecycle of the Disbursement product and other assigned roadmap areas, including growth, maturity, and decline, while maintaining appropriate P&L performance in partnership with stakeholders.
Establish stakeholder feedback loops and use product performance and outcome data to identify improvement opportunities.
Collaborate with product marketing on go-to-market strategies, pilots, communications, product adoption, and organizational learning.
Gather and document requirements for reliable, scalable product features, including expense validation, approvals, fund checks, disbursement execution, settlement, reconciliation, refunds, reversals, and financial reporting.
Evaluate pilot results and product performance data, translating findings into recommendations and presentations for internal and external audiences.
Manage the product backlog and prioritize features based on business value, strategic alignment, stakeholder needs, feasibility, and expected student outcomes.
Partner with Marketing on internal and external communications about product innovations, development, industry trends, and student outcomes.
Build product culture and operational capabilities through repeatable processes, governance, documentation standards, and change management.
Own the approved-award-to-payment-completion experience, ensuring appropriate commitment, validation, authorization, disbursement, settlement, reconciliation, financial-record accuracy, transaction visibility, auditability, and exception management.
Define configurable controls for qualified educational expenses, documentation, spending limits, approvals, duplicate funding, and applicable scholarship program restrictions.
Model and uphold FACTS’ core values.