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Director of Product Management - Commerce - Skype (London, UK, Europe)

Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. The company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. Microsoft is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.

Responsibilities:

Define market segments, define white space opportunities and devise portfolio strategy for Business Unit
- The Director of Portfolio Product Management will lead the Product Management team in identifying customer groups, analyse their behaviours, prioritize the segments to address and respond with appropriate strategies to meet each different segment’s needs and preferences.
- In particular, the Director of Portfolio Product Management will align the Business Unit’s product set with current and perceived market opportunities through new product launches, product modifications and optimization, and product sun-setting.
- He/she will analyze and keep abreast of market, customer and competitive trends while working closely with the Strategy, Business Unit, Regions and Product Teams to lead and set the strategic vision for the BU, identify new ‘white space’ opportunities (adjacent and distinct) and define the product roadmap and priorities.
- While doing so, the DPPM will ensure that the defined Business Unit’ strategy is aligned with the overall Skype corporate strategy and meet the Business Unit’ financial targets.
- In particular, the DPPM will ensure that any potential product withdrawal is well researched, managed and that the impact on cost, revenue and customer service is minimised.
- This role will be a key input in the financial year planning cycle and will be responsible for providing business justification to acquire budget, staff resource and internal support.
- In addition, the DPPM will be responsible for evangelising the portfolio products both internally and externally, build a critical mass of support for the technology, the products and their usage, which the DPPM will promote through talks, articles, blogging, demonstrations and others.

Define Business Unit Product Plans
- The Director of Portfolio Product Management will oversee and agree business cases for new products, approve release policies and release plans and allocate resources across products within the BU product portfolio.
- The DPPM will also lead the Business Unit’s product management effort in gathering and prioritizing business and product requirements as well as engineering and refactoring needs, and in delivering quality MRDs, PRDs, functional and non-functional specifications.
- The DPPM will oversee and approve product release plans and ensure that they detail product releases and initiatives, key dependencies, resource requirements and timescales.
- This role will be responsible for ensuring the implementation of the complete product plans for the products within the Business Unit’s portfolio including: go to market strategies to drive product/feature adoption, launch plans, pricing, financial modeling and business cases, licensing, legal & regulatory, etc.
- Ultimately, the DPPM will ensure that the Business Unit’s Product Managers are clear on their remits, goals and targets, develop sound business cases to support their product strategy and provide the engineering organization with quality requirements to deliver upon.
- In case of resource constraints or inter-dependencies within the Business Unit, the DPPM will be responsible for resolving these conflicts internally.
- In parallel, the DPPM is also responsible for proactively working with his/her peers from other Business Units’ (inc. CTG) to align priorities/roadmaps and secure the necessary resources to deliver the Business Unit’s product plans.

Lead Product Development Effort, Ensure Products Meet Quality and Customer Satisfaction Requirement
- The Director of Portfolio Product Management is responsible for successfully leading the product management team through the planning, development, deployment and management of the Business Unit’s products throughout their entire lifecycle.
- To do so, the Director of Portfolio Product Management will lead the Business Unit’s Product Managers in effectively managing cross functional teams (Engineering, QE/QA, Architecture, etc.) to develop products, track status, resolve issues, and coordinate communication during the entire product development process and ensure timely and effective product releases.
- Finally, the Director of Portfolio Product Management will ensure that the Product Managers constantly and actively engage with the customer service teams in order to effectively manage the support costs for the products as well as identify and prioritize product issues / defects which should be included in subsequent release scopes.

Work with Engineering to define, deliver and deploy quality, well defined time-bound product releases
Along with the Director of Portfolio Product Engineering Management and the Engineering team, the DPPM is responsible for:
- Ensuring the maintenance of appropriate, predictable cadence of releases in accordance with the release policy for each product within the portfolio
- Agreeing a prioritized, mandatory and “stretch” scope for each time-bound release with Product Engineering;
- Agreeing the release policy to determine product development rules, integration and flow of development, testing, deployment, and support post-development;
- Agreeing a release plan for each release including clear decision points for scope reduction, risk management and change control processes;
- Agreeing the prioritization of defects to be addressed prior to A and B releases;
- Agreeing with Site Operations appropriate plans for release to production;
- Agreeing the management of both the Beta and Gold release programs.

Product P&L Contribution
- The DPPM will therefore contribute to delivering the financial year product plan with double-digit revenue and customer growth by focusing on identifying and defining the targeted market segments, developing product differentiation strategies to exploit them, and delivering products and features that achieve volume, profit, market share, and other financial goals within these market segments.
- The DPPM will also manage all product-related costs, and expenses incurred throughout the year. In particular, the DPPM will oversee the product management team’s business cases to ensure maximum return on opportunities.
- This role will analyze and report extensively on new and existing products’ performance in relation to the investments made (resource and capital) and will require an analytic approach to understanding the risks associated with managing and properly accounting for business activities. In particular, the DPPM will also be responsible for maintaining a rolling forward user growth and monetization forecast for the BU.
- The key for this position will be to ensure that the Business Unit consistently executes on its plans and delivers the targeted Return-on-Investment for the segments defined.

Own the Product Life Cycle, Design and Maintain Product Development Process and Ensure Best Practices Within Business Unit
- The Director of Portfolio Product Management will be instrumental in ensuring that the Product Managers within the Business Unit adopt Skype’s preferred product development process
- In particular, the Director of Portfolio Product Management will actively lead and support Product Managers in creating a consistent approach and cadence to building, launching and managing products throughout their lifecycle and ensure continuous improvement.
- In particular the Director of Portfolio Product Management will provide guidance in terms of best in class management practices, goal and target achievement, product management discipline and tools.
- The Director of Portfolio Product Management will ensure that the Product Managers have closely planned, defined, and led the implementation of the necessary infrastructure, processes and business operations for their products with their relevant teams and that they continuously monitor performance, resolve issues, and ensure improvements throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Provide Leadership, Direction and Support to Team of Sr Product Managers, Product Managers and Product Analysts
- In the end, the Director of Portfolio Product Management leads the product team and has line management responsibility for that team. In particular, this position is responsible for supervising, motivating, supporting, providing guidance and developing his/her Sr Product Managers, Product Managers and Product Analysts.

Qualifications & Skills:

Experience & Expertise

- A solid technical background with significant experience building software or driving critical strategic product portfolio architectural decisions.
- Prior experience in building and managing multiple complex technical products in the internet and/or communications market sector with specific experience in managing a group of senior Product Managers to achieve revenue targets of more than $100M in revenue.
- Extensive product management experience in a software, internet or telecommunications company (must have) with a proven track record of delivering results in a high growth internet or high tech business (i.e. >20% revenue growth annually). Demonstrable past results in managing products from concept to end-of-life.
- Extensive experience and a track record of driving a large scale commerce site. Keen understanding of lifecycle messaging, customer acquisition and marketing infrastructure.
- Demonstrable general management capabilities including having managed a matrix team of at least 20+ individuals and more than $250M revenue for several years (requirement depends on product).
- The successful candidate will provide examples of delivering complex product roadmaps on-time and within budget over the last several years.
- Experience working with products in a global setting and with a broad international user community.
- Experience championing new ways of working: assertive, bold and inspiring - both in stretching the team to deliver great products and features but also in being able to ‘sell’ new approaches, and to drive high standards of achievement and delivery.
- Significant experience as a Product Manager for a software company - either B2B or B2C
- Demonstrated experience with Agile development processes with weekly or monthly product release cycles.


Behaviours

Leadership and Drive
- The candidate will provide strategic vision, tactical direction and guidance to Sr Product Managers and Product Managers in creating product capability and quality alignment across the Business Unit to meet strategic goals.
- The candidate will need to demonstrate strong leadership in developing plans and driving matrix or virtual teams, identifying and resolving/escalating issues, bottlenecks and barriers, and initiate change that will make for substantial improvement.
- The candidate should be able to provide examples of having used significant internal and external influencing capability as well as motivating and mobilizing multiple teams to deliver highly complex and time sensitive results.
- The candidate should have the stamina and tenacity to achieve strong bottom line results, an entrepreneurial drive and sense of personal ownership is required.
- The candidate should have demonstrated skills and experience in building, leading and managing high performing teams.
- Cultural sensitivity and a proven ability to work with teams and partners across multiple geographies are essential.

Problem Solving Skills/Analytics:
- Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills and the ability to derive insight from research and findings and to develop a fully argued product proposition.
- Ability to demonstrate having taken to market generated product with significant return on investment (e.g. 100M users/ £250M revenue).

Interpersonal Skills
- The candidate must have strong communication skills and be comfortable interacting with Sr Management and Executive team
- Must be able to build strong relationships with key Executive stakeholders
- Must have strong ability to understand and articulate both technical and business requirements and to resolve conflicts positively
Motivation and Passion
- The candidate will need to demonstrate passion for technology, the online environment and Skype products and motivation to influence the communications world in a way that clearly sets Skype apart from the pack.
- The candidate should also have knowledge of best practice product management methodologies
- The candidate will be a passionate advocate of great customer experience.
- The ideal candidate will be a natural entrepreneur with strong instincts and visionary insight


Qualifications

- Undergraduate degree in computer science, telecommunications, or business (must have).
- MBA (or equivalent experience) in marketing or strategic specialization (preferred).
- Candidates should have considerable experience in product management preferably in internet, telecommunications, mobile, VoIP or convergent technology sectors.
Formal Project Management and Product Management training and experience with Agile development.

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