Vice President of Products

GS1 Canada•Toronto, ON

36d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Vice President, Product is responsible for defining and executing the long-term product vision, strategy, and investment priorities for a portfolio of GS1 Canada's products and digital platforms. This role owns the strategic direction, commercial performance, and lifecycle of the product portfolio, ensuring investments create measurable subscriber value, business growth, and industry impact while advancing GS1 Canada's mission of enabling trusted data across the Canadian economy. As the senior product leader for their portfolio, the Vice President translates customer, subscriber, industry, and market insights into differentiated products and services that strengthen GS1 Canada's leadership position. Operating with a three years strategic horizon, the role balances long-term platform evolution with near-term business priorities, making strategic investment decisions that maximize customer outcomes and enterprise value. The Vice President builds and leads a high-performing Product Management organization, establishes product management best practices, and creates the operating mechanisms required to deliver products consistently and at scale. Working in close partnership with Technology, Design, Marketing, Community Engagement, Standards, Operations, Finance, and Executive Leadership, the role ensures product investments are aligned with organizational strategy and executed through empowered cross-functional teams. Key areas of focus include product strategy, portfolio management, customer insight, commercial performance, organizational capability, product governance, and cross-functional leadership. Success is measured by the organization's ability to deliver products that solve meaningful customer problems, achieve broad adoption, drive measurable business outcomes, and position GS1 Canada for long-term growth. This is a hybrid position requiring regular in-office attendance in accordance with GS1 Canada's hybrid work policy.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
10+ years of progressive Product Management experience, including experience leading Product teams.
Demonstrated success defining and executing long-term product strategies for complex digital products, platforms, SaaS, or technology-enabled businesses.
Proven experience managing product portfolios and making strategic investment decisions that resulted in measurable customer adoption and business growth.
Experience building and scaling high-performing Product Management teams and operating models.
Strong commercial acumen with experience developing product strategies that balance customer value, organizational priorities, and financial performance.
Experience leading cross-functional organizations and influencing executive stakeholders in complex environments.
Demonstrated ability to use customer insights, product analytics, experimentation, and market intelligence to drive strategic decisions.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with experience presenting complex product strategies to executive audiences.

Nice To Haves

MBA or equivalent graduate degree is considered an asset.
Experience in Product Information Management (PIM), Master Data Management (MDM), Digital Commerce, Data Exchange, Platform businesses, or SaaS.
Familiarity with AI-enabled product development and modern Product Operating Models.

Responsibilities

Define and own the long-term vision, strategy, and roadmap for an assigned portfolio of products and digital platforms.
Develop and continuously evolve a rolling three year product strategy aligned with organizational priorities, subscriber needs, and industry trends.
Lead portfolio investment decisions, including product expansion, modernization, rationalization, and retirement, ensuring resources are allocated to the highest-value opportunities.
Identify emerging technologies, market shifts, competitive threats, and industry opportunities that influence future product direction.
Champion a deep understanding of subscriber, customer, and industry needs through direct engagement, research, analytics, and market intelligence.
Translate customer insights into differentiated product strategies that address meaningful problems and create measurable value.
Build trusted relationships with strategic subscribers, industry partners, and external stakeholders to inform product direction and strengthen market relevance.
Ensure customer discovery, validation, and feedback are embedded throughout the product lifecycle.
Own the overall performance of the product portfolio, including adoption, customer satisfaction, usage, growth, retention, and strategic business outcomes.
Establish product success metrics and performance frameworks that measure both customer value and business impact.
Partner with Marketing, Commercial, Finance, and Executive Leadership to define product positioning, pricing, packaging, and commercialization strategies.
Regularly assess portfolio performance and adjust priorities based on customer outcomes, market conditions, and organizational objectives.
Build, lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing Product team.
Establish product management standards, governance, operating mechanisms, planning processes, and prioritization frameworks across the product organization.
Foster a culture of customer obsession, ownership, innovation, accountability, experimentation, and continuous learning.
Recruit, coach, and develop Product Managers while strengthening overall organizational product capability.
Lead cross-functional alignment across Technology, Design, Marketing, Community Engagement, Standards, Operations, Finance, and Executive Leadership.
Influence strategic priorities and organizational investment decisions through data-driven recommendations and executive communication.
Resolve competing priorities while balancing customer value, business outcomes, technical considerations, and organizational capacity.
Represent Product in executive governance forums, strategic initiatives, and industry engagements.
Champion modern product management practices that enable continuous discovery, evidence-based prioritization, experimentation, and outcome-driven roadmaps.
Ensure disciplined execution across the product lifecycle from opportunity identification through launch, adoption, optimization, and retirement.
Promote the effective use of emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, to improve product development, customer experiences, and organizational effectiveness.
Continuously improve product quality, launch readiness, governance, and organizational performance through scalable mechanisms and best practices.