Software Product Director

About us

Avencia Consulting are partnered with a global Reinsurer who have a newly created position for a Product Director to join their Abu Dhabi office. This role will be office based with frequent travel around the Middle East.

The role

You will be responsible for leading the vision, strategy, and execution of the product development roadmap for one of our key data analytics software suites. This role requires a balance of strategic thinking, leadership, and hands-on execution to drive product innovation, market success, and customer satisfaction.

You will work to drive projects and initiatives that support of business processes now and in the future. You must ensure projects deliver on-time and to budget. As a liaison between business and technical functions you will be responsible for communicating across the organisation and to external parties to make sure we deliver software services to the highest standards within a regulated environment.

Key accountabilities

• Product Strategy & Vision: Develop and articulate a compelling product vision and strategy aligned with business goals and market opportunities. This will include potential close working on bids and pitching to external parties for investment and sales opportunities globally
• Roadmap Development: Define, maintain, and communicate the product roadmap, ensuring alignment with customer needs, technological advancements, and competitive landscape.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with teams from across the business on requirements capture, design, service management, support and end-users to drive product initiatives from conception to launch.
• Customer & Market Insights: Conduct market research, gather internal and customer user feedback, and analyse data to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for product improvement.
• Agile Product Development: Lead the product team in an agile development environment, prioritizing features and ensuring timely and high-quality product releases.
• Performance Measurement: Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure product success and iterate based on data-driven insights.
• Team Leadership & Development: Take ownership of the existing team (~10 people across London, Dublin, Bermuda), build and mentor a high-performing product team, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and customer-centric thinking.
• Drive Change: Plan and develop change from ideation through to implementation and commissioning. Build and size the existing team to execute this journey, putting in place the necessary structures and processes.
• Work closely with technology teams (internal and external), tech architects and business owners to refine requirements and translate business needs into data solutions and make sure projects are coordinated correctly
• Ensure there is always an approach of continuous improvement and implementation of best practice
• Effectively document and surface relevant information
• Remove blockers to ensure project success in a pro-active manner
• Manage risks, issues, deadlines, dependencies and be able to present up to date status reports at any time
• Instil a sense of ownership, accountability and technical excellence in the team, driving efficient processes at pace and constantly push best practice
• Continual focus on long term effectiveness, simplicity of solutions and appropriate controls
• Estimate projects and tasks, working closely with technical and business teams as needed
• Ensure the quality of any third-party deliveries against requirements, liaising with outsourced partners as necessary
• Continually track budget & effort management and reporting, tracking team costs, cost of work-packages, efficiency, work in progress etc
• Support a team culture of innovation, efficiency, accountability and initiative, with a focus on process simplification and outcome delivery

Skills & experience

• Bachelor's degree (or higher) in a relevant technology field (i.e. Engineering, Physics, Data Science)
• Minimum 10 years' experience in a technical product manager/product director role in a large enterprise/multinational organisation
• Experience managing and reporting on project and programme budgets
• Experience working in a regulated environment
• Strong customer service mentality with the ability to develop and maintain relationships with stakeholders at all levels
• Strong motivational and people skills, helping team members to excel in a culture of collaboration and openness
• Excellent organisation and time-management skills, able to work in a dynamic and fast-paced environment
• Always maintain a high bar of quality and have pride in doing work well to high standards
• Drive and support innovation in a pragmatic and effective way to meet the needs of the business
• Industry Knowledge: Strong understanding of software development processes, SaaS business models, and emerging data technology analytics trends. Strong understanding of data analytics systems
• Strategic Thinking: Proven ability to develop and execute a product strategy that drives business growth.
• Technical Acumen: Comfortable working with engineering teams and understanding software architecture, APIs, and modern development practices.
• Leadership & Communication: Excellent leadership, collaboration, and communication skills to influence and inspire teams.
• Customer-Centric Mindset: Ability to balance business objectives with customer needs, ensuring an exceptional user experience.
• Data-Driven Decision-Making: Proficiency in analytics and experience leveraging data to inform product decisions.
• Agile & Lean Methodologies: Fluent in Agile, Scrum, and Lean methodologies to drive efficient product development cycles.
• Strong interest in AI, leveraging practical applications of AI wrt data analysis, automation of manual processes and data handling