Product Owner (Distribution)

Job description

Job Description: Product Owner Role for Distribution team of an insurance client - Responsibilities: Own the end-to-end product lifecycle for distribution capabilities supporting the P&C insurance client - spanning agent/broker portals, quoting and submission, producer onboarding and appointments, commissions/compensation, and channel self-service - from vision and roadmap through delivery and continuous improvement. - Partner with distribution business leaders, underwriting, IT, data, and operations stakeholders across multiple geographies to shape, communicate, and continually refine the product vision and roadmap in alignment with the client's strategic priorities. - Translate distribution business needs into a clear, prioritized backlog of epics, features, and user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria, balancing business value, effort, risk, and time-to-market. - Own and continuously groom the product backlog; make transparent trade-off and prioritization decisions and keep stakeholders aligned on scope and sequencing. - Work daily with cross-geography agile squads (business analysts, engineers, data, QA, and designers) to clarify requirements, remove roadblocks, and ensure capabilities are built efficiently and meet producer and business needs. - Coordinate delivery across time zones and stakeholder groups - onshore client teams and offshore delivery - and actively lead or participate in quarterly/PI planning, sprint planning, demos, and retrospectives. - Define, track, and report on distribution product KPIs and OKRs (e.g., producer onboarding cycle time, quote-to-bind conversion, channel adoption, and self-service rates), using insights to steer roadmap decisions. - Collaborate with architecture and integration teams to align distribution systems - policy administration, rating/quoting, CRM, agent/broker platforms, and third-party data - with business goals, resolving open issues and dependencies quickly and efficiently. - Ensure distribution products meet regulatory, compliance, producer-licensing/appointment, and data-privacy constraints relevant to P&C insurance, and prioritize the backlog accordingly. - Manage stakeholder expectations on the delivery of new capabilities, features, and timelines; communicate progress, risks, and dependencies clearly across a diverse, multi-geography audience. - Analyze feasibility, cost of delay, and business case for planned or potential changes; support long-term product health, viability, and total cost of ownership. - Champion agile ways of working and a producer/customer-centric mindset, fostering collaboration and alignment across the multi-stakeholder, cross-geography environment. - **Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Insurance, or a related field; Master's degree or MBA preferred. (Required)** - **5+ years of experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager delivering technology and/or data products, ideally within insurance or financial services. (Required)** - **Hands-on P&C insurance experience with a strong understanding of distribution - agents, brokers, MGAs, direct/digital channels, producer onboarding and appointments, and commissions/compensation. (Strongly preferred)** - **Proven experience owning a product backlog and roadmap, authoring clear user stories and acceptance criteria, and prioritizing competing demands effectively. (Required)** - **Strong understanding of Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and experience working in scaled, distributed agile delivery environments. (Required)** - **Demonstrated success operating in cross-geography, multi-stakeholder settings, coordinating onshore client and offshore delivery teams across time zones. (Required)** - **Excellent stakeholder-management, influencing, and negotiation skills, with the ability to align diverse business, IT, and data stakeholders and communicate to senior/executive audiences. (Required)** - **Familiarity with distribution and core insurance platforms and ecosystems - policy administration, rating/quoting, CRM, and agent/broker portals (e.g., Guidewire, Duck Creek, Salesforce). (Preferred)** - **Comfortable working with data; able to partner with data and engineering teams, with familiarity with SQL and cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure. (Preferred)** - **Experience with product and agile tooling such as JIRA, Confluence, Aha!, Trello, or Asana, and proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite. (Required)** - **Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with the ability to make quick, well-reasoned decisions under ambiguity.** - **Understanding of regulatory and compliance considerations in P&C distribution, including producer licensing/appointments and data privacy. (Preferred)** - **Strong presentation, leadership, coordination, and planning skills, with an experimental mindset to drive innovation amid uncertainty.** - **Willingness to work flexibly across time zones to support U.S. client business hours and a high-touch, multi-stakeholder environment. (Required)**